Planning and scheming

Color scheming that is! After living in military houses and apartments for so long (that is, my whole life), I am more than ready to add a little color to our lives. But our house is also small so I didn't want to go crazy with lots of different colors. That would make it feel broken up and even smaller. So I came up with a color scheme for the whole house, even the areas that we won't be getting to for a while. I don't mean that every room is going to be the same color, I just wanted to map out what the overall plan is, so that they will all go together and seem to flow. Or that is my hope at least. A few of my blog inspiration homes are the Nester's and younghouselove.com.

1) Lucy's room. Well, we call it Lucy's room but who knows when she will actually end up in there. This was easy. I like blue for bedrooms because 1) blue is my favorite color and 2) blue is calming which is good for sleeping. Lucy's room is going to be a very light blue, including the ceiling. But I will add in some pink stuff so it doesn't seem boyish.

2) Master bedroom. Still blue, just slightly darker. It's actually the same hue as Lucy's, just more saturated. The light blue from Lucy's room will be the ceiling here too. Supposedly that will make the room seem larger but it also means we only have to buy one gallon for both ceilings.

3) Living room and hall. This was a bit trickier. We both wanted a color, not just a neutral, but nothing crazy. I liked the idea of a pale yellow but Craig didn't. Then I realized that I really like cooler styles rather than warmer ones but I didn't want a blue because we did want something other than blue in our house somewhere. We were stuck. That is until looking while through a Martha Stewart kitchen catalog, I noticed the walls. They were a really cool pale tealish color and even better, both Craig and I liked them! So we went and got two samples, one of the original color milk pail, another of a very similar but just a tad lighter color tidewater. Looking at the swatches, I was positive I was going to like milk pail better while Craig thought tidewater would win in the end. But after painting a couple feet of each and letting them dry, we both changed our minds! But he was willing to let me have my way (smart man) so tidewater it is!

4) Living room and hall ceilings. The great thing about Martha Stewart colors and paint swatches is they have built in trim/ceiling ideas. I feel a little bad stealing all Martha's ideas without actually buying her products but picking out whites is really much harder than picking out colors so I needed the help. They recommended a creamy almost yellow white so we picked a similar but not quite as yellow color to what they recommended in Olympic premium paint (crumb cookie).

5) This yellow isn't in our house - yet (well, it's kinda in the bathroom but that is more gold and I don't exactly want it to stay that long :-). This is about the color I think I want my dining room/kitchen area. It's bright and I may change my mind but there won't actually be much showing and my cabinets will probably be a color similar to #4.

6) These colors will come in to play with our hardwood floors, rugs, couch, curtains and other larger accessories. The colors themselves are kinda boring but if I'm going to spend money on something I want to keep in neutral plus I want something warmer so our house doesn't come off to beachy.

So that's the plan!