Hmm, pour concrete over top of our ugly tile countertops?

I took a sledge hammer and a chain saw to take out a wall while hubby-dubby was on a business trip. I knew it wasn't a load bearing wall, though, and never regretted opening up the space. It was a little scary at the time, but once I started, there was no looking back!

In our last house, the kitchen counters were 1970's orange laminate, still in solid shape. Rather than ditching them (no funds) or trying to downplay them (not sure how one would do that, really) I painted the walls a dark tomato red. This made the walnut cabinets the 'middle' of the color range in the room, the orange counters became the 'light'. All my friends said "RED AND ORANGE?!" but I always liked how it looked and never regretted it.

I hand dyed a white carpet in our first mobile home. White with little kids no way. I used a garbage can and RIT fabric dye and a scrub brush. Carpet lasted another 5 years before we had to replace it.

Painted fp brick wall black.

Faux painted our bedroom set while DH was away--never having done anything like this at all!

In our previous house added a bathroom and "master" closet to basement rather than using tiny closet in our actual bedroom. Our house was small, no room to add closet on 2nd floor. My husband would get up at 4:00 am to get ready for work, we had toddlers and only a hall bathroom. This setup allowed him to go to basement to get ready without waking up the house. Plus, it was easy for me to get ready while children were playing or watching tv nearby in our basement family room which we lived in most of the time. My clothes were there, laundry there, it worked for us at the time. I didn't regret it, but I did get tired of always being in that basement and it was weird to come home from date night and go to the basement to get dressed for bed! We've moved to a bigger house with a family room on main floor and a proper master suite and it is so much easier living in this house.

The off-axis wood paneled "box" that highlighted the mid-century staircase that was cut through my 1840s apartment--instead of trying to downplay or change them.

Painted the exterior of our house black. It changed the whole look of our house and gave it massive curb appeal. But was quite a scary commitment.

Painted the 2-story foyer's ceiling high gloss (almost) black.
(That was in the last house)

By traditional standards I've not been daring with my decorating choices, but in our new house I've been much freer with my use of color compared to my old ways, i.e., our kitchen cabinets and walls are light blue, our keeping room is a bright grass green ( something I never would have considered a year ago), and I'm potentially going to use a near-black color in the bedroom.

I have done everything but roof a house so I do not see anything here radical...just daring.
Although not radical, the stupidest thing I ever did was paint a refrigerator in my great room. It was raining and I had to paint that day. I had rented the compressor and cash-strapped could not pay for another day,so I bought cheap shower curtains and placed over all the furniture. I painted it. It turned out well. I ended up in the hospital from the paint fumes with a good case of pneumonia, probably the reason I have lung disease now. That was in my early 20s. Back then hospital bills were much more expensive on the patient than compressors.

When I was 15, I started tearing out this cheap built-in bar in our basement that no one used. The year before, my dad had converted one half of the basement as a bedroom suite for me. By converted, I mean he added a wall and a heat duct. I had already bribed the neighbor into giving me some leftover paint so I could paint the cinder block bathroom walls and start using it. At 14, and with two younger brothers, I needed my own bathroom. I guess my dad figured I might as well sleep down there too. Anyway, I wanted to use the rest of the basement for a hang out room and the bar had to go. On the third or fourth trip to the garage to get tools, my dad finally asked me what I was doing.

This is unconventional and unexpected for a 15 year old. Now it's no big deal if I did something like that.

This post was edited by geokid on Fri, Apr 5, 13 at 9:37

I painted my entrance purple and then stenciled it with a small pattern :( I did regret it.

I keep up two four foot decorated Christmas trees year round in my house.......oh yes I do!

I purchased yellow curtains for my family room (which is painted SW Tidewater). Not only did I purchase them, but I had to lengthen them as well as the room has 10' ceilings.

I regret not going for white....

I don't think I've ever done anything really radical. Maybe I should!

The closest to radical I've come is the interim solution in our previous upstairs hallway. I pulled off three layers of wallpaper to discover that the original paper, which was flocked in a large rococo medallion pattern, had been pasted directly to the wallboard. It left a fuzzy paper surface with a variegated shadow of the pattern in tone-on-tone shades of paper bag brown. So I gave it three coats of water-based satin varnish.

I thought it looked fantastic - like a faded Louisiana plantation house gone to ruin. My DH lived with it for a year, and then mildly suggested that he might start looking for an apartment.

So we brought in a very talented decorative painter who made the whole business look like burnished terra-cotta colored leather, which also looked fabulous, and worked the distressed surface into the design.

Painting the panelled walls, the kitchen and bathroom cabinets in gloss white when we first moved into the house -- and I have never, ever regretted that decision! The whole house felt so much lighter and brighter!

We also painted the dark brown wood siding on the exterior of the house to cream and believe me there were SO many dark brown houses at the time .... and the result stopped traffic! :) LOL! :) And many of the homes throughout our little subdivision were painted as a result! :) At least I like to think so! LOL! Nowadays -- the siding is painted a darker gray green -- with a high-gloss black front door .... and I love that decision too! :)

Oh, I have another one!

I painted the inside side of our side door (leading into our mudroom) in a high-gloss turquoise. I got several strange looks from family, friends, my husband and my kids, but I don't regret it. I love it to this day, and I think it's growing on everyone else.

The exercise room and guest-bedroom-for-now is neon lime green (Benjamin Moore's Tequila Lime), with the trim one shade lighter - no muting it with dark gray or white, no sirree. The room is southern-facing and gets a lot of sun, so it's quite an optical treat. It's not for everyone, but it always makes me smile.

Hmmm. I painted the ceiling of the porch blue, decided I didn't like it and then painted it another shade of blue. Blue porch ceilings are not common around here.

I am not at all daring when it comes to decorating. I did change the outside of the house from white with gray shutters to cream with dark green shutters. I am ready for another change now.

My XH and I decided to paint the ceiling of our den in textured paint. I don't know what came over us. It looks like hell, kind of like popcorn celing but far more difficult to remove. One time I sanded it the best I could which removed the little stalactites. A small improvement. A contractor suggested covering it with thin wallboard, which i will do some day.

I am not daring either I guess. I did paint our DR a lovely deep orange color called Autumn Glow. Well DH painted it. We have since converted it from a DR to a play room and DH finally admitted that he hated the DR orange, but he loves it now that it is a playroom :)

DR (which I never really finished setting up)

Now a playroom:

Maybe that counts too. CHanging the DR to a playroom. Seemed like such a big decision to get rid of the set I had for years and have a playroom be the first thing you see when you walk in the door. Meanwhile we never used the DR, it collected junk, and my sons use the room every day now and LOVE it. DH says it was one of the best decisions we ever made.

Now stephf has me thinking what color I should paint my door on the inside! I hate it, and hate that it is the only white we have in the house.

We did a little entryway makeover recently with new curtains, coat racks from ikea, etc. I will have to post on it. Maybe a nice green, or the blue of the walls.

I have done alot of remodling which isn,t exacly redecorating but on this house we gutted the batroom and kitchen and redid them. Divided up the washroom with a wall and made it a bathroom and pantry and added on a muddroom and washroom. Took the cedar shingles off and resided it with hardie board.Added lots of sheetrock everywhere over the paneling. When we first moved here I painted the lower kichen cabs dark plum and the walls I ragpained green. I loved the plum cabs but I don,t know what I was thinking with the ragpainting. When we put the new kitchen in I let dh pick a really dark trim to go on the mid tone cabs. We both love it but I still kind of wish I had gone with the nonstained trim with the midtone cabs so I could have a nonstained wood floor .

I painted my guest bathroom ceiling chartreuse and then stenciled it. This picture is prior to us putting up crown molding which really sets it off now. My husband thought I was nuts when I told him what I wanted to do, but we both like it and it has definitely bought me some credibility with him for some of my other nutty ideas.

One girl's nutty idea is another girl's brilliance.

The more I think about those rag painted walls the more I cringe. I love the stenciled ceiling I might borrow that idea for my bathroom

oooh, I love this thread. Fantastic inspiration!

Our stairs looked terrible and were going to be a fortune to refinish (and despite all the money were not even going to look that great thanks to decades of nailing carpet down and puttied nail holes) so I painted them dark grey and wallpapered the risers with some fabulous Anthropologie wallpaper. DH was dubious but smart enough to keep his doubts to himself (plus if I am doing all of the work - what can he say really?)

The rest of my house is neutral with almost no pattern, so this is my little piece of drama. I still love it!

When I built my house, I made all the walls in our kitchen real exposed brick with huge windows all around, and not a window treatment in sight. None. Nothing. No blinds, shutters, not even a dang valance. And I love it. The kitchen is like a sun room and it looks out on a golf course. No hindered view, nothing in the way. It's just clean lines and no clutter. I don't understand putting in huge picture windows and then covering it up with fabric.

I am soooo not radical when it comes to decorating...but I DEFINITELY know what I like and my taste. We bought a lot in a custom home neighborhood where most of the homes have either that European castle look going on, or are Craftsman gone big, real big and sprawling (perhaps more shingle style.) All of homes are lovely, and the owners put so much thought into each. So much stone, so many shingles. Lots of pretty earth tones. So not me. We designed a Georgian-style brick home, with a very symmetrical facade. Our 3 car garage is even in the rear, with rear-loading... it is pushed so far back it almost doesn't read as part of the facade. And since I am in love with the older neighborhoods of Southern cities, like in Atlanta, Charlotte, Birmingham...I KNEW that not only did I want a brick home...I wanted a PAINTED brick home! :) It is so me. As our builder said to me when I expressed worry that it would not fit in or the neighbors wouldn't like it...that is the beauty of a custom 'hood and why they look so good as they age. :) Oh, and I painted my porch ceiling blue, too. I am so daring! :)

I gave up all but 8" of counter space on one side of the kitchen sink, to make room for an opening into a new addition. No regrets.

I used painted luan plywood as flooring in the addition, scored every 8" to simulate planks.

Probably the most radical - used an old metal feed bin from the barn to build a range hood.

Our bathroom linoleum was stained, so I painted it black and white in a checker board pattern. DH didn't think it would last. That was 9 years ago!

Before I remodeled the library I tried to make it look more "beautiful" by stenciling silver fleur di lis on one wall that was painted a dark yellow gold. One fleur di lis at a time. Stunning! Kind of hated to see that piece of drywall come down.

I am not radical at all and my home is very traditional, so I guess it would be painting my kitchen dark red. Boring, I know.

Not sure how radical it is, but I bent, no broke, a whole bunch of decorating "rules" when decorating our newly built house.

There are too many to list, but we wanted something easy care, non-traditional and a little bit rustic/western. We like it, even though I've gotten lots of suggestions on how to "fix" things.

One thing we did is leave our wood - look blinds without curtains. I couldn't be happier. In our dusty area, it saves on trapped dirt and helps with our allergies, too.

I guess radical is kinda like beauty. It's in the eyes of the beholder.

I put a mirror on the ceiling of the powder room. It is small room and that "silo" effect of the mirror makes it feel spacious. Many first time guests have had minor freakouts after they get over the purple walls as their movement reflects and jolts them with a sense somebody is in the room. Everyone, however, likes it. It is a feature that everyone notices.

Kitch, I love your floor! My answer to the question is the tiled reddish & white checkerboard floor in my kitchen. I don't think anyone does that anymore, but IMO, the kitchen is the best room in the house to color outside the lines!

Love Bee's black ceiling and the painted bathroom floor.

I've made some departures, for me, in going with a new chandelier for my dining room that has a lot more crystal than anything I ever thought I would like, and I love it. Then I put a large, contemporary crystal chandelier (a disc, basically) in the master bedroom. Love it.

Painted the dining room blue when everyone else was going red. My appetite is ruled by what is on the plate, and if that doesn't stimulate an appetite, why eat it? Not one person has refused to eat because it wasn't painted red. But it is a calm environment, so maybe there is less digestive upset after? ;-)

Probably my most different thing was selecting three cabinet finishes and door styles for my kitchen when two was not often done. I have two hardware finishes and styles, two faucet finishes, two counter tops -- and it doesn't look wild at all.

We also reduced the doorways on one wall from three to two and used the space to put a hutch with fridge drawers and a counter for our espresso machine in the breakfast room. Normally, I would not close an exterior door, but we had one into the garage right next to one to the driveway and another to the driveway at the other end of the counter run. We think we corrected a builder blunder.

My porch was painted blue, but it has faded and now that it is time to repaint, I'm going to go darker.

I like back and white décor, people this day like many color, I donâÂÂt have ideas how I can make my home beautiful any more but I get many ideas from here, IâÂÂm finish décor my small home on the back the my big home so I looking for more ideas and here I find platy⦠I love the floor black and white .. beautiful

Our house was built in 1926. When we put on an addition, Dh built window and door trim to match the existing. We painting it all white while the original is natural. One window in a staircase we wanted to do something different. We found glass tile that was the same color as the existing woodwork.

Here is what the existing woodwork looks like.

I'm glad we did it. Its the touch of the unexpected.

I love color. From the half bath BM blue lapis you can see thru the Hawthorne yellow kitchen into the soon to be eggplant dining room and catch a glimpse into the soft pumpkin and creamy orange sitting room and kennebunkport green office. Still on the 1st floor I have navy blue, purple (enchanted and lavender mist), whipple blue and a darker green/blue bathroom (the name escapes me) rooms. The only color I don't like is the yellow/beige TV room. Upstairs there is even more color!