Colors

I found this gorgeous rug at Bed, Bath & Beyond and fell in love with the color palette. They also have dupione drapery panels in a color they call "platinum" that looks stunning with this rug. The living room, dining area, and kitchen of my house are all one big slightly-shallow-L-shaped room, so it makes sense to have a unified color scheme throughout this area. This open floor plan is yet another reason why I wanted this house. A room like this was way ahead of its time in 1978. I don't think there was even a name for it, such that it is. Who came up with "great room", anyway? What a clumsy phrase for such flowing space. Another word in the same category is "grunt". But my "great room" is not exactly flowing right now the way it should. Stagnant would be a better description. Here is a picture of the living room end of the room. The best I can say about it is that it is a blank canvas. And, okay, the two walls on either side of this view are floor to ceiling windows. There are some truly heinous aspects of the room (skillfully not shown in this picture), but i will save those for another session. Today is about color choices. The direction I was headed was the path of black, platinum, grey, and beige, and I was also stoked about the square/rectangular geometry of the rug, too. Lots of design fodder here.

But then we were at some friends' new house, and saw the color that was on their walls and I knew I had to have it. It was a warm gold that did not drift too near orange or yellow. I think Golden Camel would be a decent name for it. And Friend 1 said it was similar to a Behr paint color called "Gobi Desert". I am pretty sure they have camels in the Gobi Desert, so this all makes evolutionary sense. Camels could blend in very nicely there. I was thinking kitchen walls for this one. This was actually the subject of much debate and required numerous trips to Home Depot to get paint chips and more paint chips. We actually settled on Pebble Path rather than Gobi Desert, mostly because Pebble Path looked more like the color I remembered from being at their house the day before. Then we picked out a nice gray called Granite Boulder. I was looking for a beige as my third color for the living area, when Dr. I-Won't-Do-Any-Renovation-Work found the Ralph Lauren texture and metallic paints. After much debate, we bought a gold metallic paint for the dining area.

But when we got them to the house, we had another round of debate, and decided that Granite Boulder would be best as the background for the new kitchen cabinets we are going to put in, and Pebble Path would be better in the living area. Wen we started putting Pebble Path on the LR walls, it was one of those sweet and juicy moments of epiphany. I can't even express how perfect it looks, and the pictures just don't do the color justice. Also I am a convert on the gold metallic in the DR area. My only gripe is that it isn't a big contrast with the LR (but maybe that is okay). And to top it all off, Granite Boulder is perfect for the kitchen walls. Perfect. So that paint is now up, and i will deal with the baseboards and window frames next week. The rest of this week will be devoted to tile, getting the washer and dryer in, and starting to move small stuff. Our apartment is only a few blocks away, so we will move a lot of little stuff over the next week.