Kitchen & Family Room

One thing I never thought I could get M to go for is white trim.
It took some convincing and a little Pinspiration, but he finally gave me the go-ahead.
I went to town, not leaving a trace of natural wood behind... except for the stair rails. I'm not sure what we're going to do with those yet.

We started with a blank, boring, natural slate.

If this picture doesn't scream "apartment", I don't know what does. After living in apartments for several years, the LAST thing we wanted was to feel like we were just temporarily in another rental.
Our first goal was to get color on the walls.
I wanted gray.
M wanted brown.
At the last second, we compromised on Dapper Brown, which is mostly brown, but slightly olive green.
I was devastated after the first coat. It looked like a blotchy mess. It was also VERY dark.
it made the natural wood look very orange, which is what I think actually sealed the deal for me getting white trim!

We let it dry and started on the other walls.
We went with Lighter Tan, which adds just a touch of warmth to the room.

After a full weekend of painting walls, it took nearly two weeks to paint every inch of trim on the first floor (foyer, living room, family room, dining room, bathroom, kitchen, and two hallways).
One coat of primer and two coats of paint later, I'm in love!
I hate to admit it, but M was right. Brown was the way to go for the accent wall.
So here you have it, our kitchen and family room before and after shots...

The curtains hanging in the family room are from Ikea- the last place on Earth I thought I'd find something of quality, that would fit our enormous windows, and come in a color I liked.
Not only does Ikea have tons of fabric to make your own curtains, they have unfinished curtains.
I bought these puppies at 98" in length, hung them at the height I wanted, and hemmed their unfinished edges so they just scraped the floor.
The unfinished curtains they sell actually come with Stitch Witchery. If you have ever hemmed anything, and don't know what that is, you are seriously making your life harder.

We have lots of work to do in the decorating department, but these two rooms are coming together.
Eventually we'd like to update the cabinets and countertops, refinish the wood floors and expand them throughout the carpeted rooms, replace the tile on the fireplace, figure out something to do with the stair rails, find a little eat-in-kitchen table, and purchase a nice entertainment center/DVD organizer.
We're also still looking for the right window treatments for all the naked windows.


We definitely have our work cut out for us!