Yay, another full day off to work on remodeling! We finished up the last 20 square feet of tiling, and I'll do the final grout tomorrow. I put the baseboards in the laundry room part, and here's how it looks, before and after. The before doesn't show the floor, but it was the same gray berber carpet you see in other photos. How nice to finally have tile! In addition to the tile, the walls are now a soft cheery yellow instead of grayish-off-white. The cupboards have been banished to the garage. I decided the powder room paint wouldn't do, so I went paint shopping and bought a sample (Lowe's now sells 7-oz trial cans). I liked it much better, so I went back and bought a gallon, but when I put it on, it turned out it was a different color from the trial one (more butterscotch than pumpkin). Here's the confused wall with original bright yellow on the right, final color on the bottom and trial color on the top left. I actually liked the butterscotch more than the trial pumpkin, so we stuck with it. I cut the baseboards and DH worked on installing the toilet and vanity, cutting the feet down on the back and trimming the baseboard around the edge of the vanity trim. (Thanks to those who helped out with ideas how to make that fit.) Here's how it now looks! We're still waiting for the faucet to arrive (online purchase), so I'll post the final photos when we get it in. We just need to finish up the last of the grout, install the casings, do a bunch of caulking and we're done!

I would definitely get rid if the mantle. It is too high above the fireplace surround. I agree that a large piece of art or your tv above the fireplace would be great. I really like that green we can see in the background of one pic. I would bring that into the living room and dining room. More substantial draperies would help and a pattern might be nice as long as it is something you love and won't tire of in the near future. One other idea would be to add a good-sized area rug in the living area even though you would be putting it over carpet. That could bring in enough color and pattern to pull everything together (still get heavier draperies though). Add a throw over the back of the chair or couch, a tall vase with flowers or tall fern fronds on the hearth, bowl with fruit or veggies on the table and go from there. Show us what you try! It is going to look great!

We did go with Ikea, the expedit. I LOVE them! I keep bugging DH to go back and get a couple more for our basement. I think they are great storage. I did think about using some of my DR furniture for storage and keeping it, but I just didn't think it would work for me. There are doors they make for the Expedits and some people paint them. There are amazing pics all over pinterest. I saved some to my playroom board and have it linked below, but there are so many good ideas. Here is a link that might be useful: Playroom pics

None of the colors show up accurately in the BM paint program, so I used the darker colors on the card to show the general color. I would go lighter. SO thinks I should do "greyish tan" in there and let the art speak. I dunno, I told him that "greyish tan" is the color of dirt. And he then says, "could be tree bark" and then I said, "Yeah, that's how a forest looks in the winter--all tree bark, dead leaves and dirt--drab!" He then joked I could paint the ceiling green. Maybe I should put up tree wallpaper! That would make me feel "cared for" since I am a tree hugging botanist by trade! You hit the nail on the head Morz8, trying to find something that speaks to me. I find a lot of comfort in mixing my things with mom's in new ways in the house. I like the whole northwoods vibe, green, maroon, blueberry, tan, brown . . . but that dang blue carpet is throwing me off. Has to stay though, just not in the cards right now for changing it. Maybe I could get a tanish rug to go over it somehow. Not the easiest to put another rug over a blue shag carpet. I just can't pull it, the floor underneath is very cheap plywood. I know this because dad flooded the front room when he ran a load of laundry with a broken washer and all the front rooms had to have the floors redone. I saw the sub floor, it was "sub par" if you ask me, but this is a late 80's built home so to be expected.