Fixing the Previous Owner's Mistakes

Dear Christine,

I have a design dilemma in my great room of my new house. I am the second owner so I am left with someone else's choices. The great room that has carpet right down the middle is the first problem. The second problem I am having is the kitchen cabinets along with the built-ins are a natural color maple with no stain or paint and it doesn't match the feeling in the home. And lastly the part of the great room with carpet is very long and space planning is difficult for me. The measurements of the carpet area are 11' 5.5"x 24' 4". I would love to have any advice you can give me. Please excuse the messy photos. We were in the process of moving in.

Thanks Renee

Dear Renee,

You have a beautiful home with a lot of potential. I would like you to start with three things that will make a big difference for you:

1. Flooring


2. Unifiers


3. Paint
   

1. You are right that the first owners made some mistakes. The largest mistake, and one that I would remedy, is the flooring. I would never have a flooring change larger than four feet in length. Yours is much larger than that. It might not fit in the budget immediately- but I would include in my budgeting and plans- finishing the stone floors throughout that family room, and then adding area rugs. Not only is the idea of carpet wrong- but the color is totally off for your stone. You can bridge the transition from old floor to new with a 4 or 6 inch row of mosaics- or something like that. The sooner you do it- the better your chances of finding a good match.

2. The other problem you are having is that you need unifiers. Although I am suggesting that you continue the flooring- it doesn't look that great with your cabinets. I would push unifiers. Look at your permanent colors- the cabinet color and the flooring color. Combine this warm and cool neutral pallet in fabrics and patterns that will bring the colors together - a marriage of sorts. The more different unifiers you have- the better your home will feel. What I am suggesting is pattern, pattern, pattern. And- every pattern should be carefully selected as a unifier of your floors and cabinets.

3. Thirdly- paint. The paint color the previous owner used is positively the wrong color for your maple. So wrong. I would do a shade of blue of green. After you select new rugs and fabrics for window treatments (remove the white wood blinds altogether- they don't go with anything- for those of you out there that think white wood blinds go with anything- you are wrong.)- use the colors in these fabrics to select a paint color. Stay neutral on your paint.
- even though I am telling you blues and greens- I mean very neutral blues and greens. Check out this post on blue paint to see what I am referring to...

While you are painting- paint your toe kick in your kitchen. The floor is so warm, and the cabinets cool- the fact that they don't coordinate very well with each other will be minimized a bit by having a different color toe kick (like black).

You are on the right track with your furniture arranging- two separate areas- using a sofa or sectional as a divider. Once your flooring is all hard- you might find that a table and chairs is the perfect solution for the area behind your sofa. Consider a pub table- not too large- where you could still see the TV. Check out this one by Padma's Plantation. It is like the one in my home- where I have a very small dining room- the stools push right under and don't take up any space.

So- there you go- you will love your home so much more once you have added some unifiers and replaced your carpet and paint.

Fabric from Beacon Hill, art from Uttermost and rug from Homedecorator.com.