Help me make this big family room look good!
lesliepress
6 years ago
I just can't make this room look the way I want. I must keep the couch but want to get new tables and a rug. I'm also not convinced about the wall color, do I go darker, lighter, ...help! First priority is coffee table, big square, round, keep noguchi style table, what?
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PROCentura London and Windsor
6 years agoNot necessarily these exact colour blends but there are quite a few options that blend warm tones and cool tones together!
nosoccermom
6 years agoIf it makes you sad, then definitely repaint. Love the darker teal. Another great color could be a darker greenish blue, like BM Lucerne or Gentleman's Gray.
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Make My Small Room Look Big
Comments (2)What are the best colors to make it appear bigger while keeping it kid cozy? Basically, whatever color she likes. The short answer is choose a paint color with a LRV above 50 and one that is perceived as 'warm' and not 'cool'. If she wants pink, for example, choose one that is warmer and rosier like ballet slippers as opposed to one that is cooler and and icier like bubble gum. The long answer to explain why I think that's a good color strategy to achieve what you are wanting from color is: Color is powerful and it influences every single one of us every single minute of every day. We trust color to do many important things like code our environment, organize our tasks, even provide a sense of home and shelter. As powerful as color is, however, it can't make a room bigger or smaller. Nor is it able to literally advance toward you or recede. (Actually, the whole idea of some colors advancing and some receding does not come from the discipline that is architectural color. It comes from fine arts and creating illusions of depth and distance. There's a wealth of misinformation available when it comes to architectural color. This is just one example.) The perception of what color can 'do' in a three-dimensional space, like bigger/smaller or advance/recede, totally lies with the human experiencing that colored environ. If the perception that the 'room is small' is well-established, what you can do to counter that is focus on limiting contrasts and maybe even consider a color palette comprised of just a few colors. Another 'guideline' that seems to apply to many a human is rooms of limited square footage and low to normal ceiling height that are painted with colors of a lighter value can generally produce a feeling of openness. Colors darker in value tend to reign in a room's volume and the positive perceptions they can help create would be an atmosphere of cozy, restrained, safe, secure, sheltered, snug. LRV can help you in this instance. Paint colors with a LRV of 1-50 will be light colors. Paint colors with a LRV of 50-100 will be dark colors. Fifty is the average LRV guideline for interior, residential spaces....See MoreCould you please help me make the front of my house good looking
Comments (12)I thought my house was funky, but yours is even quirkier. I would not fight the funk- I would go with it. Instead of trying to make it look traditional, which won't work with that roofline, how about going modern/Frank Gehryesque? (Not that I know what that is.) Here are some outside of the box ideas: 1. Change the front siding to match the sides and attic (?) area. 2. Change the garage door- maybe to a modern barn door look with two doors. 3. Replace the attic windows with a series of identical clerestory windows from side to side, about eight of them. Big wide trim around them. 4. On the second floor, continue the window pattern that's over the garage all the way over (probably mean adding three or four more). Wide trim around all. 5. Metal or galvanized tin roof. 6. New door: single light french. 7. Depends on what rooms are on the first floor, but I'd put another two single light french doors, sliders, to the right of the front door. 8. Pergola from end to end of the house to define the first floor, with a solid (galvanized tin?)roof over the entry door or maybe all the way across. With a patio outside in front of the single-light slider. 9. Paint: charcoal gray with black trim, or dark purply-brown with plum trim. Or warm tan with white trim. Or...? Landscaping: tall spiky things. Good luck. I have had a heck of a time working around the bizarre add-ons on my house. Each part of the house still has different siding. So I am in the same boat- except that I have only one story to contend with, which makes it a little less daunting. In any case, it will not be cheap....See MoreDoes this kitchen make my family room butt look SMALL?
Comments (75)Hi Breezy - you're making some decisions and that's progress! About the 36" aisle that you label as a "pinch point", I don't think 36" is tight in and of itself (we actually have less than that in a couple places where there's an architectural wall protrusion at each end of our island that narrows the aisle to 32" for a few inches). Sometimes it's a little jammed (in our case, with a bunch of adults at the island seating end, which is where we put snacks usually). But in your case, with the oven being there next to the pantry as you show in your last plan, well that could really jam up that corner of the kitchen. Have you thought about the possibility of turning the pantry against your left wall? Then I would consider putting the fridge down at the bottom of the kitchen. Keep the ovens where they are. Like everything, some pros/cons: PANTRY: CON: you'd have the same issue with it needing to come into the main kitchen aisle several inches, to get the room you want in there. PRO: But you'd be using that space out of your 48" aisle, and not the 44" (although one of your recent posts said you're going down to 42"?) And it still gives you some door options (30" opening on my barely legible plan here) OVENS: PRO: gets you some landing room to the right of them, instead of the fridge being there, which I think is super important. FRIDGE: at the bottom of your kitchen, may be a new loop for you...but (if you remember) the photo you saw of our fridge, that's how we have it (only at the top end of our kitchen). CON: it's away from your main cook/prep zone. PRO: kids can get in/out of it without being in your way, AND biggest PRO (for me) is that it gives your ovens that landing room. Even with just 2 people in our home, the fridge gets opened far more than the oven, and it works well for it to be on its own. I know you mentioned your only fridge spec was a bottom freezer, and if you got one that opened from the right you wouldn't hit the pantry wall (Or, if you can squeeze a foot of space in between the pantry and fridge, a French Door would be best for this placement so people could EASILY get by when doors are open). Overall, it gets your food all together at that end, so when you come into the house with groceries - some for the pantry, some for the fridge - you use your island as the drop zone, and load things in to both from there. Ok, I am NOT a floorplan person (nor do I have a scanner), but here it is to the best of my abilities:...See MoreGood idea to swap my family room with my living rooms?
Comments (10)May I ask just what is a "servery" and what does one do in a "conservatory"? You must not be in the US. It looks to me that the current family room has easier access to the kitchen than does the current dining room. That would be a plus for doing what you want to do. As of the floor plan, it looks entirely doable and it makes sense to reverse the use of the two rooms. It looks to be awkward to carry food service all the way around and down the hall to the current dining area. If you have servants, that might make sense. Since most of don't have any such, it makes sense to have the dining area adjacent to the kitchen. Most people don't even use the more formal dining areas of their homes, except at holidays. The modern sensibility is that most little used areas of that nature just amount to wasted space. So, if you spend more time gathered with friends than gathered around a more formal dining area, make that change....See Morechristina405
6 years ago
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PROSTUDIO MB
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agoI disagree with most. I believe the tan / golds with the grey look beautiful together. As a matter of fact they compliment each other. So don't work against it , work with it and enhance it! This is a nice room that is in harmony with the very colors your are struggling with.
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