Hi all!
We are SICK again. Coughing like doggies over here (literally sounds like a bark) and watching a friend's 2 year old all week. It has not been the best week but we are making the best of it.
The thing that gets me in the best mood these days is planning how I am going to decorate my new house! We would like to paint a lot of the downstairs before our furniture arrives to make things easier so we're trying to somewhat come up with a 'scheme' now. I could use some opinions!!
Choice #1- Real Hardwood or Laminate flooring? (Please vote!) We really do not like carpet at all in the downstairs, especially with children who spill things and dogs who run through the house with dirty feet. After living with ceramic tile floors in every single room of the house, we love that we can actually keep it *clean* and just periodically steam clean the rugs.
I have heard from some to get real wood because it's worth more to the value of your home and you can always refinish it if it gets yucky. It looks nicer. I have heard from others to do laminate because the dogs won't scratch it, nor will my children wearing dress up shoes,etc. We aren't sure what to do- if we did get laminate we'd go with a higher end that looks as close to wood as possible, without breaking the bank. Any recommendations??
Choice #2- Kitchen
Our dishes, linens,etc. sort of go with italian country/french country or old world/pottery barn styles. Golds, dark reds, olive green, mediterranean colors.
Our new home currently just has the very basic builders' standards.. basic cabinets, beige counters, and linoleum floors. (yuck). I am obviously not going to rip it all out, other than the floor, so I need to be able to do the fixings with paint and possibly new hardware,etc.
Here is the current pic of the kitchen/little breakfast area. Remember that the floors will be replaced with wood/laminate throughout (pic taken from family room.) OR we may put a slate/natural looking tile in the kitchen/eating area for moisture.. but I'd rather have it all be the same.
We are going to also paint all of the trim white in every room, and replace that light fixture first thing with a wrought iron small chandelier or something.
So option 1:
-Paint cabinets white, appliances would blend in nicely. Replace counters eventually, walls would be either beige in the entire family room/eating/kitchen area or a red color in the kitchen and beige in the other room.
Option 2: leave cabinets natural, eventually put nicer counters, paint walls a golden color or red/white wainscotting on the bottom half. I love both of these kitchens, however the white appliances would stand out more. We could also stain just the lower half a darker stain or a dark green or something more fun .. or just the wall of the island,etc.
Option 3: Recently I've been seeing a lot of black cabinets and I love them with the wood floors and lighter walls. Especially when they have a little wear and tear on them (aka sand a little bit so the natural wood comes through and it looks kind of rough). My issue is that we have *white* appliances which would probably pop out too much huh? I can't see replacing all of the appliances just b/c I'd rather have black or stainless. Mom- I could totally see your kitchen this way, btw. with the khaki/golden walls and your black appliances. What do you guys think of the black?
Or half white/half black.
These pics are from random decorating sites which I unfortunately did not mark, so I appologize for not leaving credit where credit is due. Please comment and give me your opinion- especially if you have any knowledge of floors, painting cabinets, etc.!
10 comments:
Oh lots of fun ideas! Personally, I'm not a fan of white cabinets in kitchens. Just doesn't seem warm and cozy. But, that's me. I love the red or gold/yellow walls and this looks very nice with stained cabinets. I'm with you on painting the baseboards white. You do have to touch this up every so often so keep that in mind. Did I ever tell you we pretty much redid our whole 1st floor in VA Bch? What an experience. Anyway, paint and redo floors if you can swing it first. Other things can come after. We did stuff as we had the money and that was with both of us working full time. Home Depot has great stuff. As for the flooring. Hmmmmm. Laminate sorta floats about the sub floor I believe. My parents have the real wood. My dog slips all over it and she's little so very few scratches from her paws. Either way it looks much nicer and is easier than carpet. If Derrick is handy he might be able to do most by himself with a few handy friends/family members. Tim and I saved a ton by doing almost all of our work. As for counter tops, I've heard good and bad about corian. Marble looks so nice but is $$$ and formica is livable. Baby steps though. Once you get in there and start shopping around ideas might change.
I think you should try painting the walls first before you take the big step of painting the cabinets. They look like they are in good condition right now. Try painting the walls and then go from there. Wall color can do a million for a room. Put down a big area rug in the dining area and a pretty valance on the window and it will be beautiful!
Looking at the pics again, the first one looks blah, though I like the ceiling, the next one is over the top. The red walls with white wainscotting pic has my vote. I like the one after that b/c of the counters but I think the black cabinets are very modern and though nice, might not go with the Country French/Tuscan look. Cannot wait to see how it turns out! You have a good eye for decorating so whatever you decide will great!
Thanks for the tips :)
Before this baby is born (end of June) my only goals are to have the walls painted and MAYBE the floors ripped out, depending on the shape of the carpet. The rest can come later. However, I'd like to atleast plan if I'm going to paint the cabinets or not,etc. because it'll change what color I paint the walls and I don't want to do it twice! I need to make a board like they do on those design shows with the paint colors/fabrics,etc.
I like the red walls with white wainscotting too. (only in the kitchen) then maybe do a neutral in the family room which is open to that area and in the hallway leading to the foyer. There is a formal dining room off the other side of the kitchen (you obviously can't see the other half of the kitchen in the pic but it's the only one I have lol) :)
I really like the black, but only I think if I didn't have white appliances.. and only if I really distressed it so it looked more 'country' than modern. kwim? But maybe I could just add some black farm house chairs and a little round table,etc.
- In General if you can afford wood over laminate, DO it.
(I did have a client use a wide plank distressed barn wood looking laminate last year. Beautiful in her kitchen, real wood and carpet in the rest of house.)
- If you can avoid painting cabinets.... it is best.
(It is difficult to get a painted cabinet to be kid friendly. The finish put on during manufacturing is better than what you could do yourself. Black would be slightly better than white for hiding chipping ect...)
- that black and white kitchen is Gorgeous, but it only woks because it is a modern style in monochromatic tones. It would not look as well if it was filled with an eclectic mix of treasures.
- Red is an excellent color for pulling things together. It works like a neutral. If you put a slightly lighter deep warm honey caramel color in a nearby space it would make the cabinets look beautiful and balance them against the white appliances and trim.
- If you paint the walls red paint the ceiling somewhere between warm white and warm tan. A white ceiling with red walls makes the room look shorter, a warmer ceiling with red walls makes room taller, more open.
- I like wainscoting, it gives modern house more old world charm :)
- All rules are made to be broken, you have a beautiful sense of style. Whatever you do is sure to be FABULOUS! You must be so frikin excited to own your very own house. I hope you are feeling well.
Love Jen
Hi Lindsay,
I just wanted to give my vote to go with the real wood floors. Our new house has wood laminate in the kitchen, but then real wood in the bedrooms. The laminate is such a smooth surface that it shows every crumb and does have several noticeable nicks in it. Maybe there's a higher quality laminate out there then what we have? But our wood floors are wonderful and don't seem to show the marks as much.
I'm not crazy about the idea of white cabinets. I think you'd need to have stainless or black appliances to pull it off. I don't think the white appliances would match right with white cabinets.
I agree with the other comments about painting the walls a nice rich color and then go from there.
I bet your so excited to just get in there!
Hi Linds. Your cabinets and woodwork are in very nice condition. The woodwork is all oak. Personally, I think it would be a shame to paint it all white, but that's just me. Even after sanding our cabinets before we painted them, there are still places all over the kitchen where the paint has worn off. I like the wainscoting idea, especially since your ceilings are so high (10 ft.) You will want to get rid of the carpet. As has been said, wood is better then laminate if you guys can afford it.
Hi Lindsay!!
Jay and I just read all this....LOL....How exciting!!
We vote high end laminate! We have older real wood floor that we had refinished by this outfit....they did excellent. But it does start to wear.....
DO NOT PAINT THE CABINETS!! Leave them....LOL.....No, no.....LOL....
Have fun painting.....Hugs!! :-)
Having just seen the video presentation of the other similar house, I am really liking the deep rich colors of stained cabinets, dark countertops (although you don't want to go too dark, because then every speck of dust shows on them), and deeper wall colors. I think red as an accent color in the kitchen would be nice - or even as a fabric and accessory accent in the kitchen and then paint the whole dining room red would also be dramatic. You'll have to see the cabinets and pick a color from that I think. They are actually a pale wood (I think maple) that is actually lighter than the photo is showing. I can picture a dark bronze or black wrought iron small chandelier in each dining space, and maybe two pendant lights in a similar style above the kitchen peninsula (and a matching chandelier, perhaps in the stairwell). I'd totally go for a Tuscan/Sicilian style to warm up the space. You could do a black or dark-stained country-French style dining chairs in the breakfast area, and put a dark bronze finish hardware on the cabinets. Whatever you choose is going to be beautiful. You have such an eye for this stuff. I even liked your suggestion about using black in my kitchen. The existing color isn't working so much. We could then go pale maple on the flooring.
I agree with Jen by the way,about including ceiling color. You can use a paler version of the honey tone on the ceiling - your ceilings are pretty high, so that would add warmth and color.
As far as laminate vs. wood goes, I'm torn. I think a good quality laminate is going to hold up to high traffic better than a real wood. With wood, unless you get a super diamond-hard coating (which then is really hard to refinish), you'll constantly worry about the finish getting scratched by not only dogs, but also every time anybody moves any furniture around on it. If you get engineered wood, it generally cannot be refinished more than once and costs about the same as laminate. I'd only do wood if you can get solid, because it will last literally for the life of the house. However, if you have to refinish it a lot, it's a pain. One of my colleagues recently had her house done and it took her literally weeks afterward to get all the dust out of every nook and cranny - some of it gets inside your cabinets and down into the ductwork - so it's a big headache. Laminate could be a do-it-yourself project fairly easily, so you could save some $$$ that way, too. Some laminate has beautiful texture and you can't tell it's not real.
You have a lot of good advice already, but I just thought I'd put in my 2 cents! We have all oak kitchen cabinets/mantel/baseboards (that are not in such great condition) and have thought about painting them white, but are living with what we have right now. It's supposed to be difficult to make paint over nice wood look nice I guess (but I'm sure you could do it)! We have a friend that painted all baseboards & such white but left the oak kitchen cabinets & just changed the hardware and it looks awesome! I'd like to do that eventually, but everything does take time/money! :)
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