My First Reveal

So far I’ve talked about paint and wood trim, and what I should do about all the wood in my 90’s house. I gave y’all a peek at my stairs and my fireplace. I thought today I’d let you see what it all adds up to.

First though, I thought I should clarify what I said last week about paint colors and wood trim. I was talking to a friend who read my blog post and I might have implied that only blues and greens look good with wood windows and doors. I realize now I should choose my words more carefully. Oops. Lesson learned.

There are many warm colors that could go with your wood trim, I just happen to be decorating with blues at the moment. If you happen to have wood trim you aren’t doomed to decorating your whole house with cool colors forever. That could be really bad if you hated blue. The trick with warm colors is to make sure there is enough contrast between the wall and the trim. In other words, if you have orangey wood, dark orange walls might not be your best choice, and since it’s subjective, maybe you wholeheartedly disagree with me, even though I’m right. Same principle applies if you have yellowy wood trim. And neither one of those would go with a beige with pink undertones, the wall would look dirty, and then you’d never be able to let your mother-in-law visit. Here’s another great post on picking colors to go with your wood trim by Maria Killam, my go to expert on paint colors.

Now, on to the fun stuff. If you remember, I painted the fireplace and parts of the staircase white. I also painted the baseboards and door frames. I had the all the beige walls painted before I moved in to help brighten things up and reflect more light. I also took down the dated ceiling fan in the living room and put up a new light fixture since the only light came from the shiny brass can lights by the fireplace, which I also updated with flat white ones.

Here’s what it looked like before. (These pictures have the previous owners furniture in them, and were taken by a professional photographer who brought in a bunch of lights, making it appear much brighter than it really was. The walls almost appear white instead of beige in these pictures.)

Living Room Before

Another before picture from a different viewpoint

Here is what it looks like today with a little bit of paint and a new light fixture (and my furniture, of course). I’m really liking the mix of white and wood. I just can’t decide whether to paint my window trim. I painted my door trim and I love it. You can see one the french doors with white trim in the background of the second picture.

Living Room After

Another View

I love this room. The colors are soft and serene and the room is bright and airy. We use this as our formal living room and music room so it is always clean for guests, or just a quiet place to relax and read a book - unless someone is practicing or my grandson has his little friends over, of course.

Now let’s talk about how this room tells a story. Nothing in this room is arbitrary. I started with the painting that I love, which I’ve had for a long time, and dictated my color palette. The chairs were a bargain when Pier 1 closed their brick and mortar stores. The colors went perfectly with my painting. The sofa was a splurge. Since this is my formal living room I felt justified in spending a little extra on one with some style that would last a long time and was a fantastic color. I collected the pillows one at a time as I came upon them until I had the perfect mix for the room. I decided to go pretty subtle for the rugs, going with a blue gray to go with my blue gray walls and sofa. This is my foundation.

The piano is here because five of my six kids and I play. The cabinet holds music. The things on the cabinet and tables all came from places we visited or are family heirlooms. There’s a family portrait on the wall, and the other wall is a painting of the building where we were married. On the fireplace is an anniversary clock that belonged to my parents. The vase came from a trip I took to Poland years ago when we lived overseas, my grandson is in the picture frame, and the mirror I bought for $5 at a yard sale when we were young and poor. It used to be an ugly brass color, so I brightened it up with some paint to go with the fresh new gold finishes. I picked up some lamps on clearance, and waited for the coffee table to go on sale and voila, my living room is complete. Like I said on my home page, each piece is carefully chosen and curated, telling a story, not something that came from a furniture showroom - and see what you can learn about me just by visiting my living room.