The Big Empty

I must say I have been holding off on showing you the interior of my home for the longest because its embarrassing as a designer! Its big and empty. It has no life, no personality, no color, and no rhythm which are all the things that I am not. It was built as a builder spec home, so everything is blah, boring, and builder grade (what I call the "Tripple B Threat"). But I do have all these big plans that I have been dreaming up since I have been here. I will share them with you as I journey down the long road of decorating our house and making it our home. First off let me just show you some photos of the main living area that just got painted.

Top left: View of dining room from entry foyer
Middle left: Dining room view
Top right: View of dining room and entry foyer
2nd row left: View of family room into casual dining room
2nd row middle: View of hallway into master suite
2nd row right: View of casual dining room from family room
3rd row left: View of sitting room from entry
3rd row middle: View of hallway down into kids bedrooms
3rd row right: View of divider wall into entry from family room
Bottom row left: View of breakfast bar into kitchen from casual dining
Bottom row right: View of kitchen from kitchen entry

I love the taupe paint color (read more about it here), but hate everything else. I plan to eventually:

In the kitchen...

• paint the cabinets and replace the hardware
• add a couple of glass doors to either side of the sink cabinets
• add a back splash
• add under cabinet lighting
• add window treatments
• double the size of the island and add a butcher block counter top (its so small and not functional at all for such a big kitchen)
• add a pot rack above the island (always wanted one)

In the main living areas...

• replace the carpet and tile in the foyer with wood (in the meantime I am planning on taking up the carpet and painting the concrete floor. Any feedback on this idea will be helpful)
• add window treatments
• replace all light fixtures
• move TV cable to divider wall
• add trim to the top of the divider wall to make it look finished
• add lighting to plant shelf

Here is what I am using as a guide right now: I created a flow chart showing our traffic patterns of navigation. I also added arrows showing certain focal points that I would like to highlight when I am decorating.

The flow chart helped me with my furniture plan to use as a guide when I am looking to purchase large furniture items. I played with the family room for the longest about how to place the furniture.
The only thing that I have that is staying is my dining room table and chairs. I actually bought it in my mind before I even knew I was buying a house. I love the idea a 72" round ding table. There is no head of the table, so everyone is important. We entertain alot and we always get comments on our dining table. It's definitely a conversation piece.

Been Too Long

It's been too long to wait for our walls to be painted. We painted only the main living areas and kitchen so far. I feel like I am in a new house. Here is what the walls looked like before. The original color was a off-white that had some peach hues in it. This is a view of the hallway entrance leading to the bedrooms.

It took me two weeks to find the perfect color. I new I wanted a taupe color all along. I had a collection of taupe paint chips that caught my I from Benjamin Moore to Wal-mart. I had a few samples made and painted big two foot squares on several walls in different areas.  I was feeling a color called Sidewalk Square, but it ended up having more grey in it than I wanted. I needed something more on the warmer side of grey with more brown.

So after a couple days of seeing the Sidewalk Square on my walls I went in to work and fell in love with the perfect Taupe on a feature wall in our office. Our department had been recently relocated into another area of the corporate office. There is a feature wall in my supervisors office that was painted in a warm taupe. My supervisor actually found the paint color. She was smart to use a Martha Stewart technique of dipping a paint stirrer into the paint and keeping it. The only thing she did not do was write the paint color down on the stick. But she knew she found it at Porter Paints. So I was on a mission to find this paint color.

We had no luck finding the actual paint color after searching through emails . But wah-lah! We had a small glimmer of hope after the maintenance department found a Porter Paint invoice for one gallon of Soft Taupe #6746-1. I went to the nearest store to take a look and it ended up being a bust. It was no where near what was on that feature wall. So I had them mix a quart of paint from the dipped paint stirrer. It ended up being very close. But honestly a little too expensive for what I wanted to pay per gallon.

With the dipped paint stirrer in hand I went to my local Lowe's and had them mix it using their spectrum. It ended up being dead on. I had a quart of the custom paint mixed and brought it home to paint my two foot square. Perfectamundo! Love it! Here is what it looks like. That's my oldest daughter Bri in her purple attire of course!