This nesting is a journey. And that's what I love about it. You may have a vision or feeling for a room, you prepare and plan as best you can, then you begin to walk it out. But, funny thing, along the way you often find that the process itself comes into play and has bearing on what will ultimately be the end result. You might call this the curves in the road. Curves are not a bad thing! I truly believe that a willingness to follow the curves along the decorating way is essential to arriving in the end with a room you love, and one that loves you back.
The room of my efforts, lately, is the kitchen/dining room. It's a long, narrowish space with a large island in the middle and a dining area at one end. Opposite the dining area is a five-foot opening into the living room (where I stood to take all the following photos). The room gets flooded with natural light through its south and east-facing windows - love that!
The cabinets are a raised-panel oak with a honey-colored stain - not my first choice, but since this is a rental, they are a curve in my road that I had to work with. And the counters? Well, I've already talked about those! Major curve!
The walls were a blue/green other-than-wonderful color, painted in an other-than-wonderful way. Besides that, they were banged up and dingy. The ceiling, molding and trim were also less-than-lovely, and brightened up amazingly with white paint.
The color I chose for the walls is Sherwin Williams Sedate Gray- it's the top color swatch on the right, there, below. (Yes, I had these swaths of different colors painted on the walls for quite some time - so much better than itty-bitty paint chips!)
And now, because I know you're dying to see all this that I'm talking about, here is our kitchen/dining room before paint:
After:
Before paint:
Before paint:
After:
So, Sedate Gray - it's lovely, and sedate. And it is gray. Wonderful gray. It's also green. Especially in some lights.
Hmm. Do I want green? Even a little?
Could this be a curve in the road?