I've Already Done Monochromatic

In our first house (which was also our previous house), we decided to go with a monochromatic color scheme for the wall colors. While I liked it for that house, near the end of our living there, I was beginning to feel restless about the color. However, because we were hoping to move soon, when we painted some of the rooms prior to putting the house on the market, we tried to keep the colors as neutral as possible, with the exception of the entrance way, which I painted a daring green (not sure on the name of the color exactly, but it was nice). Plus, I painted my bathroom partially pink in order to accommodate my new lazy daisy theme. However, at the time that I painted the bathroom, I was not keeping a potential new homeowner in mind. I just wanted to have a bathroom like that, and it was well over a year before we were planning to move that I made that brave change. I'm sure by now the new owner has painted over the pink and pulled off all my crazy daisy stick-ups.

Now that we are slowly making changes to our new home--well, it's not so new . . . It was built in 1923 . . . I have developed a desire to paint the rooms in color, as opposed to the entire house having a monochromatic scheme. When we moved in, almost every room in the house had white walls--except for our basement, which was a hideous mustard yellow with navy blue accents. I know look the previous owners were trying to achieve with this color selection, but it did not work for us. I loathed it.

We have been living in our "new" place for about 19 months now, and slowly but surely, the color transformation has begun. I will admit that by now I thought we would have entirely changed the interior of the house, but time and money (or lack thereof) have slowed the process down a bit.

But this is what we've accomplished so far. (And I'm sorry I have no pictures to show you . . . my camera is kind of not working right now, and I'm not sure when it will be operational again.)

Kitchen: was white; now is a shade of yellow called Banana Split. The cupboards were a dusty blue shade, and now 1/3 of them are all white, but I have yet to finish the conversion from blue to white. It's been like this for over a year. Painting the cupboards was a much larger undertaking than I had anticipated, and therefore I avoid completing that project as much as possible. It's horrible, I know. BUT, when the entire kitchen is complete, it will look great. (Yes, I can envision it . . . )

Main entrance way (porch): is beige; I want to change the color of this, but I'm not sure to what. Due to the fact that this is always the dirtiest area of my house (this is where the dogs stay when we leave the house; this is where the boys come in with their muddy clothes and footwear . . . etc. etc.), I'd like to use a darker color to help hide some of the problem, but it's not a huge room, so I'm kind of at a loss as to what color to paint it.

Main floor bathroom: first I must clarify something. This is not an authentic bathroom. There is no door into the area, it's just sort of there; in-between the porch and the kitchen. This was a farm house, which typically have an area off the entrance way for the "farmer" to wash-up before entering the house. That's what this area was meant for. We have plans to convert it into a complete bathroom, with a door and walls for privacy. But that's a huge project that requires a large amount of dollars, so it's kind of on the back burner right now. Anyways, this area is also beige. There is beautiful ceramic tile both on the floor and in the shower area, which is in earth tones. The cupboards are a taupe color and I've put up a cream/chocolate brown shower curtain and use chocolate brown towels. The colors in this area I actually like and I don't think I'll be changing them.

Since the porch sort of leads into the shower/wash-up area, I'm contemplating painting the porch walls chocolate brown. However, I'm still not sure.

Okay, on to the dining room/living room area. This area is big. It leads from the kitchen and is sort of like an olden-days great room. Some friends of ours actually referred to it as "the great room" when they first took a tour of our place, but I hadn't really ever thought of it that way before. Currently, the walls are white. My furniture has a floral pattern, which I really like. So, I'm planning to "take" two shades of pink from the furniture upholstery and use those colors on the walls. The lighter pink will be the primary color, with one wall a darker pink as a feature wall. The feature wall is where I'm having issues with, though. I was originally going to make the feature wall the area where my piano "fits into". But I was analyzing the room yesterday and am thinking that it may be too small of an area to make a feature wall and it will just look stupid. I'm not sure. And before you question my using the color pink . . . don't even go there. Pink happens to be my favorite color, and no house of mine would ever be complete without a pink room.

Office: The office has been newly created!!! Wayne and my dad converted a 10 ft. x 16 ft. sun room (off the kitchen--this was our second entrance way into the house) into a new entrance way and office. The new entrance way has a closet and is near completion. The office is already set up and I love the fact that I can now have better control over monitoring what the boys are doing on the computer. The office door is a door with windows (it looks like a french door, but it's for inside the house), so I can look in and see the computer screen directly. Okay, back to the color. I was originally going to paint this room a dark chocolate brown, but once I tried a little sampling on the wall, I wasn't sold on the color. So, after discussing my husband's preferences (yes . . . the one room in the house where he gets an opinion-ha! ha!), we decided on a teal green/blue color. It's called Blue Tide, and we're really pleased with it. It's a very deep, rich color that works well with all the sunlight this room receives.

Laundry room: currently white, with one wall of sponge painting (again, which I loathe). I'm contemplating making this my lazy daisy room . . . which means pink with my lazy daisy decals. However, I'm still undecided about this.

Second entrance way: Because this entrance way leads into my living room/dining room area, I think I'll be using one of the colors from the living room, but I'm not sure which one yet. It's a pretty small area, so it will probably be the lighter of the two pink shades.

Basement: was mustard yellow with navy accents. Now is a lighter shade of blue called Blue Denim with a feature wall painted midnight blue and all accents in the room are the same darker blue. It looks really sharp, and once the maple laminate floor is in, it's going to look even better (once again . . . a delay on this due to finances).

Stairwell and upstairs hallway: cream color. I don't think I'll be changing this anytime soon, because painting the stairwell will be a nightmare. I'll live with it like it is. At least it's not white.

Bathroom: currently is white. The countertop is purple. The tub, sink and toilet are white. Due to the purple countertop, my hopes of transferring my lazy daisy bathroom from the other house to this one, cannot happen. It would look horrible to have pink walls with the purple countertop. So, I think I'll be painting the walls a lighter shade of purple to complement the countertops, but not to overpower the room with purple.

Our bedroom: currently is white. Our bedding is various shades of sea green, blue, silver and gold. I'll be painting the walls a shade of green from the bedding. It's quite a light and airy color, which will really complement the bedding.

Mitchell's bedroom: currently is blue with white. He has Star Wars bedding, so I'll be taking colors from that bedding to chose the wall colors. Yes, I said colors. I think we'll be having more than one color for his room.

Ty's bedroom: currently is taupe. The color actually complements his bedding (tiger jungle) quite nicely, but he really would like to brighten it up and make it more fun. I think that it would be better too. I'm planning to take one or two colors from his bedding as well to use as paint colors.

So, there you have it. My plans for color in my home. I'm not sure if changing color from room to room is a good idea, but honestly, I cannot live in neutrals anymore. The rooms that we have made changes in, I love. And since we have no immediate plans to move from here, I think we should make the place our own, instead of thinking about what a potential buyer might want or like.

Thank-you for making it through this long post. I wish I had pictures to go along with it . . . then it might make more sense.

Question for you: Do you live in color, or do you prefer monochromatic? Just wondering.