Color!

A bit of a divergence from my usual theme, but today I want to get back to one of my old loves - interior design!  We've been in our house for about 2.5 years at this point, and after the major renovation of last summer (completely redoing the HVAC system), which still has on-going impacts (insulating and drywall stuff), I'm eager to finally get the house the way I want it to be.  While everything is still very much a work in progress, I've finally nailed down my color palette for the first floor, I think.  A few elements I still want to change up eventually (like in a few years), but this is how it will be for the near future, at least.

Living Room
The entrance to our house is right in our living room, and I'm currently fairly unhappy with how it feels at the moment, as there is just a lot going on, particularly color-wise (despite the fact it still feels super neutral).  This room still has a lot on the to-do list to even get to a semi-finished state, but after getting a quote for reuholstering our lounge chair yesterday that was approximately 4-5 times what John paid for it, I think I've taken off reupholstering/replacing any of the seating (of which I wanted to do with all of it).  That narrows my color scheme quite a bit, so now the major pieces of the plan are:

• finish up the corner green plant wall (where there is currently brown craft paper hanging)
• John is going to build a new coffee table
• I want to replace the TV stand with something much smaller
• new curtains (either roman shades or curtains in white)
• decide what to do about the rug (currently has a large hole hidden under the couch as well as doesn't fit the color scheme)
• figure out better lighting
• paint the walls  

I've never been a fan of the yellowy-cream that most of our house was painted, and it will be nice to get rid of the last bit of it downstairs.  I haven't gotten the paint yet, but it will basically be just a much lighter version of the dining room color.

Current state of the living room

Dining Room

The dining room is right off the living room, set off by a large entry way with columns.  This room feels more finished (mostly because it's freshly painted), but there are several large elements holding out on me still.

• Find better sideboard/buffet.  I want one with closed storage on the bottom, as this one is more of an entry table and I've never been crazy about in in general and the wood is much darker than the rest of our wood furniture.
• New rug - I have my eye on a creamy cable textured Flor rug.  Cream is not ideal under the dining room table, but I think it would look nice, and I really like the idea of using Flor tiles, so if Eddie eats a piece or it gets a stain, we could swap it out.
• Find a piano.  We had a piano in here for a while that was John's dad's old piano, but it didn't work, so we eventually got rid of it.  I really want to play again though, so I've been scouring Craigslist now that the room is painted.
• Put the overhead light on a dimmer.  We tried to do this before, but there was an awful buzzing sound, so John needs to upgrade the electrical a bit.
• Decide about putting back up the gallery wall.  We used to have several large photos/prints above the buffet, but I'm currently enjoying the simpler view.  They may go back up on the wall across from the window, which is completely blank at the moment.  Eventually the piano and the door to our half-bath will be on that wall, but the half-bath at the very least is quite a ways away.

Current state of the dining room

Kitchen

The kitchen is fairly segregated from the rest of the house, but you can see the doorway in the dining room photo above.  I started painting the kitchen last summer, but it was quite tricky and still needs some finish work.  John's much more of the detail-oriented one, so that's on his list, but his list is miles long at the moment!  The previous owners redid the kitchen maybe 10 years ago, so it's definitely not due for replacement any time soon, but they made some choices that I'm not a fan of (primarily the countertops and floor being beige, which I HATE).  The muddy deep green they painted it was also a silly choice, in my opinion, because it is a tiny room, and that just made it super dark and ugh.  I don't mind dark colors in a small space, but it was just a bad color.  Anyway, I inadvertently painted it the color of a post-it, and it's on its way to being a bright and fun kitchen.  Remaining elements include:

• Finish up all the painting stuff (paint the ceiling, edging, etc)
• Turning the pantry into a half -bath, and then moving the fridge over where the pantry door was
• Putting an old wooden cupboard where the fridge was (to replace the pantry storage space)
• Replace the linoleum floor.  We had some leaking under the sink, and the edges of the linoleum are curling up as a result.  I want to replace it with something dark, either slate-colored or black/white tiles.  Whatever we do it will just be something in the linoleum/vinyl range though, as I don't want to invest too much into it.  My dream (at which John cringes every time I mention it) is to cut a hole in the back of the house and extend both the kitchen and the bedroom above, and add another bath on the second floor).  This is obviously not a simple renovation though, so it's on the long-term plan (at least in my head, John may argue that it's not in the plan at all). :)

Current state of the kitchen