I now realize the colors I presented were either too pink or too brown. Brian nixed that pretty quickly but I think it’s because I didn’t show him the right tones. Something to contrast with the sofa, draw you in from the living room and feel so cozy. So my first instinct was to do a warm pink/purple/mauve color. The Zena wood floors here won’t be this light – they are already sealed and covered but my goodness they are GORGEOUS and a lot richer than the dust-covered floor here. We do not have a rug yet but I’m hoping to use the rug from our former living room since it’s not big enough for our new living room: photo by sara ligorria-tramp | from: a quick update: the changes i’ve made to my la living room Other things you should know – We already have our cuddly sectional which we are obsessed with. I think dark rooms work better when they are more self-contained, or have a ton of natural light…but honestly, I’m NOT an expert in dark rooms so I feel hesitant to suggest anything. We want the feeling of it to be dark but do we really want to go from a light room, through a really dark room to get into another brightly lit room? Would that feel weird? I think so. This room is not a corner or self-contained media room – it is a pass-through room which makes it trickier, IMO.Ultimately we think that the farmhouse vibe is better painted than stained, but it’s hard to see it as wood, I agree, then paint it (I wish we had used primed paneling but we couldn’t because it’s a custom run). If we could go back in time would we have chosen white oak for the walls? Maybe, but it would be much more expensive in material and in installation (it’s harder to work with, literally). Dark stained wood would be more of a “cabin” vibe than a farmhouse one. To stain it we’d have to go very dark to reduce the high contrast green tones in the grain, and 3. Poplar is paint grain and doesn’t stain well, 2. We will NOT keep the paneling natural wood no matter how pretty it looks here – the reasons are: 1.There will be a stove fireplace in the corner on a low hearth/storage bench underneath the TV.But as I’m writing this I’m wondering… should we put skylights in here with room darkening shades so daytime can be more pleasant with nighttime feeling cozy? We vaulted the ceilings and I don’t think we have any HVAC up there…stay tuned… We didn’t put skylights in here because the function of the room is movie watching and cuddling – we envision our winters being cozied up in here.We wanted this room to feel dark and cozy and put it in the interior of the house on purpose – with barely an external wall.The only sources of natural light are few and indirect – the french doors to the covered back porch and the hallway with windows and skylights (and TBH I wish we had put a door there so when we are watching TV we wouldn’t have that light source – window treatments might be happening).This room is the most challenging – The media/TV/family room and here is what you need to know about it before we get into the color: I’m trying HARD to go outside my “50 shades of blue” comfort zone and create a palette that is cohesive, vibe-y, and works with the overall art direction of the house (Scandinavian shaker farmhouse) while also creating the mood that we want in each room. Plus the whole large paint sticker sample thing is extremely helpful. Luckily the permanence of paint is less threatening than say, tile or flooring, and over the years I have gotten much better at it so I’m trusting myself more. But my instincts tend to be safe at this stage which both protects and annoys me. I have my strengths, but they lie more in instinct than bold fast decisions. I really should blog more about all the design decisions that I’ve totally nailed and had zero hesitation on, but what’s the fun in that? Having to pretend to be great the first time at everything would just be exhausting so I’m glad we have this safe space to really go through the process. Thank goodness I’m not trying to bag new design clients right now.
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