Very nice use of color. I want to see your wild window treatment!! I think the niche is really cool!

In that first picture, what is the room to the left? Does it have a kind of hanging molding or something? It looks really neat, very unique, but I can't get a feel for it at that angle. Do you have a picture looking into that room?

I have stumbled a lot on what to call that "thing". Now, I just call it a dropped shelf. It outlines the dining room. At Christmas, I've put wrapped boxes up there for decoration. Now, during the year, the two stuffed cats sit up there and watch what's going on. My builder built 2-4 homes a year and in on this block and the next, I'm the only one who has kept that dropped shelf. I love contemporary, so it works for me. I don't expect that lots of people like what I like. That little thing sitting next to the mahogany buffet? It's a wine block, in reality it is an engine block from a Buick or Olds from the mid 60's. Here is a picture of the dining room.

Arlene, I love that engine block to hold wine, LOL, what a great use for it.

Now, of course, they'll be a run on those 8 cylinder engine blocks with the pistons big enough to shove a wine bottle in the cylinder...

Annie

I really love your colors Arlene. Love the sofa and chair[s]. I like that shelf too. With all my cats I'd probably try to figure out a way for them to get up there. LOL. You did a nice job. Thanks for sharing.

So tell us, what are the names and sources of the colors you used? Is that a peach type color in your kitchen? I've attempted peach a few times, and it always ends up looking orange, but I like the color of your kitchen. Your home looks beautiful.

Sally

Sally, sorry to tell you, the kitchen is a light orange called Beach Trail from Behr. It's much lighter than it looks in person.

The walls of the great room and and accent in the kitchen is Sherwin Williams Rhinestone, a beautiful pale gray.

The dropped shelf is SW Raindrop.

The lighter color on the niche is SW Inner Child and the darker color is SW Coral Reef.

These pictures make my home look a lot bigger than it is! It's 2000 sq ft, the perfect size for us, with a big partly covered patio in back.

Thanks, Arlene. In the last picure, I can see the orange color looking a little more intense, but thought it might be a trick of the lighting.

Inner Child - where do they come up with these names? lol

Sally

Sally, I think Lars actually had a job once, developing names for paint colors. How many names can you find for white anyway? (grin)

A lot, I guess, I've seen Arctic White and Colonial White, Off White, Clear White, Snowy Afternoon, Polar Morning. My favorite though, is just 'white"...
Annie

The name Inner Child nearly brought the painting of our niche to a halt. My hubs couldn't come to grip with it and didn't want it on the walls. I prevailed, and the much more intense Coral Reef made the lighter color look much better--no pink tint. Oh my, having a "vision" really does help!

Lol, that's funny. I can see him looking for the can of paint, having to ask, "Have you seen my inner child?" I can see from your photos, your vision is spot on.

I'm constantly amazed at how many versions of white there are. My current favorite is Valspar's December Starlight.

Sally

I do like your colors, and I think they are very appropriate for Florida. Annie is right that I used to have to come up with new names for beige - we have almost 200 variations on that color, and my boss is known as "The Beige Lady". I used a lot of Italian, French, and (to a lesser extent) Spanish words to help come up with new names. I'm not so involved with that process anymore, but I do have to make up names for each new furniture design that I am working on, in order to be able to keep track of it. Many of the prototype names that I make up are kept for the final product, but one console that I names recently caused a bit of scandal. I named it the Satyr Console because the leg that I designed reminded me of a Satyr's leg - and my boss agreed and wanted to keep the name. However, some people in the company thought that the name sounded satanic or reminded them of bacchanals. They also objected to other parts of the satyr's anatomy, and so I was forced to come up with another name. Because of the unusual curves that I put into the leg, it also reminded me of the baroque Italian architect Borromini, and so we chose that instead. To my disappointment, many people do not know who Borromini was and even have trouble pronouncing it.

I used to walk through our warehouse in the 1990s and find furniture with certain colors on it and say, "That must be going to Florida!" Last week I found an odd finish on some dining chairs (10 of them) that I had designed and said, "Those must be going to New Jersey," and as it turned out, they were! Color and pattern choices can be very revealing. We also did some chairs that had heavily carved and gilded frames with purple crushed velvet upholstery, and those ended up in Luther Vandross' house. I think we still have some of the furniture that we were making for him when he died. Our style is usually not that gaudy, but we will do it for a price! I like the clean lines that you have - the spaces you showed appear very calm and relaxing.

Lars