Lacey's Kitchen

Hello Christine,

                I ran across your website and I couldn’t be happier!  I am hoping you can help me please please please!!!  My husband and I bought a 1938 home.  We have updated every room and we are working on the kitchen now.  We have redone the cabinets in black. We painted our countertops grey and we have backsplash underneath the cabinets black, white, and grey with white grout. Our appliances are white. The only problem is the walls. There is a chair rail and it is just a disaster as you can tell by the picture. I have tried several different colors and cannot make up my mind so please disregard the décor and the mess. We are trying to get it all together.  Any help is greatly appreciated!!!!

 Lacey

 

Hi Lacey,

This is too easy.  I can do this blog post in 3 minutes.  REMOVE THE CHAIR RAIL!  Wow- that was so easy.  Can you see how much smaller the chair rail is than the door trim?  It's too darn small.  If you wanted to put in a larger one- we could talk.  ;-)  The next thing I want you to be careful of is making your 1938 home too modern.  Embrace the age of your home.  Don't try to make it look 70 years newer.   I can only see a glimpse of it in the pictures, but the backsplash is making me wonder if you need to pull it back a bit to 1938.  Be true to your architecture.  You have black white and gray, don't try to overdo it too much with red.  I have some strong feelings about red walls- you can read about them here. 

Add some more traditional elements.- Start with a runner or rug- like this striped rug from Wayfair.

Add Roman shades in your windows.  Here is a great fabric from Beautiful Fabric:

I would cover your walls in a wallpaper, like the one below from York:

Sometimes I walk into a home and I can see - oh, there's the original moulding, there's something added later, etc.  Your trim work should all go together, like a good addition to the exterior of your home.  Ideally, you would not be able to tell the new from the original.   New trim can be added, of course, but effort should be made to make it look original to the home.  (Not if you have ugly 1985 tract home trim- I'm talking to a girl whose home was built in 1938...)  For the rest of you - with newer homes- If you are replacing your baseboards, because they are small, etc., that probably means that you should also be replacing the rest of your door trim, window trim etc.  Frequently, if you do not, not only would you have issues with scale, but also style and width issues where your new baseboard meets your old door trim, etc.

 BTW, you painted your counters?  I'm not even going to go there.

Thanks for writing in,

Christine

P.S. When I said to embrace the age of your home, that doesn't go for everyone either. (Hello 1980's) I also want to note that there is a difference between parts of your home that are appendages of the architecture, like your kitchen cabinetry, trim work, etc, and your loose furniture.  Those are two totally different items.  I have a friend, who I hope doesn't read this post, who had a charming brick cape cod built in the early 1900's- and inside was a light maple contemporary Home Depot kitchen, with black and white tiles.  When you have a fabulous traditional home, embrace it!   If you want a modern home, go buy one.