Our Ideas...

This weekend, we went to Home Depot and picked up paint chips :) I can't tell you how long I've been waiting to pick out paint chips with him! LOL! But seriously, it was more exciting than it probably should be. We're going to be in this apartment for at least 4 years, probably more like 5 or 6, so we're going to make it our own. We're both into dark, bold paint. It's a good thing, because someone who isn't wild about dark paint wouldn't be too keen on my idea of a modern, chic space. Having done a lot of wedding planning recently, I've discovered a creative side of myself that I wasn't entirely aware of before now - and boy, have I created a monster! It's a little out of control. So I'm VERY excited for this giant creative outlet - bare canvasses everywhere!

So it's awesome that we agree on a paint scheme - we can check off that first hurdle. We could have completely disagreed, and we're both quite passionate about how our apartment is going to look, so the ensuing battle would've been ugly. We both like blues and reds and browns, neither of us are into greens or yellows or pinks or oranges, and certainly not white. It didn't take us long to decide what we wanted to do. He was actually quite shocked that I kept picking up things he loved! I was picking out things that I liked obviously, but I was also going out of my way to find things in that category that I thought he'd tolerate. He cares more about these things than the average guy ;) He would never just hand over the reins and let me decorate to my heart's content - it's always going to be a joint effort with him. That's fine with me - I love that he cares about it too and we can do it together, and that he wants to help! And since we tend to agree (so long as I don't get TOO creative!), it works out well for us. Maybe when he's older and has bigger fish to fry he won't care as much, but for now, he's into it. So anyway, here's what we're thinking...


I tried to re-create the colors we picked out as best I could on the computer screen, but it isn't perfect. And everyone's screen looks different, so who knows if there's even any point in trying to do this. And yes, I did this in PowerPoint at work :) The living room and kitchen color is actually a little more purple-y than this. I was shocked that the purple tinge was OK with him - he actually picked it out! I didn't bother mentioning it because I figured he'd hate that - he's very anti-purple. I'm obviously on purple-red kick (hence, my entire wedding scheme). So we'll do two adjacent accent walls in this color, and the rest in the cream. Our couches are medium blue with subtle dark red threads throughout, so I think the walls will pick up the red in the couches. They aren't what I would have picked out myself, but I like them just fine, and they're free! They were my mom's, and she got new furniture last year, and since Em and Josh needed furniture and Ben and I didn't have a place to store my mom's old stuff, they've been using it for us in the meantime :) Anyway, moving on, our bed linens are taupes, creams and chocolates, so I thought dark accent walls would go nicely in there too, with taupe on the other walls. The blue we'll actually use will probably be less "royal" than this and more "navy", but you get the idea. A deep, dark blue. The bathroom linens are chocolate, cream and ocean blue, so we're thinking dark chocolate brown in the bathroom, on all the walls. And in the interest of keeping it from looking too much like a circus when you walk in, we're going to make most of the space you see from the front door match - the kitchen will match the accent walls in the living room, and we'll probably continue the cream color from the living room through the dining area. I think, all in all, it'll flow together pretty nicely. The dark red will be eye-catching and pretty out in the common space, and then with the bathroom and bedroom, each has hints of the other in it in terms of color (brown sheets in the bedroom, brown walls in the bathroom... blue walls in the bedroom, blue accents in the bathroom... you get it). I don't know whether we'll paint up in the loft or not, but in any case it won't be a big priority right now.

Now we just have to decide whether or not we're willing to tackle the walls that run all the way up to the cathedral ceiling. We could just try to stick to only painting the short walls, but I think that would look a little ridiculous, and we'd be leaving a LOT of white space (especially since those are the most dominating walls in the space because they run so high). Ben is all for painting one of the big walls in the living room with an accent color. Being the tall one and the man he'll probably do most of the ladder work anyway, so I guess if he wants to do it, who am I to argue? It would look pretty bad ass, I won't lie. But we do have to paint everything back at the end of our stay (to white), so this will require priming and several coats to paint initially, followed by more priming and several coats before we move out. Ugh. We'll see. As for the rest of the decor, I think I'd like to go for gold accents, and we're only buying dark dark brown/black furniture. And most importantly, I'm going for clean and simple, so we're going to REALLY try to limit the amount of "stuff" out on display in the common spaces. I know this will be tough though - everyone thinks they're going to do it and no one really does. We'll see. So that's a summary of the ideas I've been playing with lately. Things could change, but since we seem to agree on all of this, we probably won't be deviating a whole lot!