Sunny rooms

These rooms are cheery in their atmosphere, but neutral in their color scheme.  All the brightness comes from the sun itself!  Despite the sun streaming in, however, these rooms don't seem overly warm in tone.  Personally, I can't take a room painted in warm colors that gets a lot of sun.  I am at heart a foggy-sea coast-British-umbrella sort of person.  I like lots of natural light, but I don't like a lot of hot, bright sun.  So I think these rooms are perfect!

via DecorPad

via DecorPad

Liz Williams Interiors

via DecorPad

via Grits and Glamour

Amanda Nisbet via House Beautiful

Okay, so the Amanda Nisbet room is a little more on the "warm" end of the spectrum, but it's also a big, open room, so the color makes it just cozy enough.  The key element in all these rooms: lots of white, which I also love!

I think I could move right in and be comfortable in any of these lovely rooms!  Also, I think I need an inglenook fireplace.

Breakfast room design

So I am starting to work on getting our breakfast room a little more decorated.  We bought a new table last year, which is great because it expands to allow for lots of seating.  I also got the window seat situation fairly under control.  What we're lacking is seating, drapes, and a new light fixture.  Here is what I'm thinking now:

I have a few dilemmas.  I have a set of four vintage bentwood armchairs that really need to be refinished.  I am debating about colors.  They will probably need to be repainted instead of refinished, so I was thinking white with a glaze of some kind.  But then I also thought a bright color or more of neutral taupe would also be pretty.

In the pictures below you can see the design of the chairs I'm working on.  They are in the process of being patched, so forgive the ugly blotches of wood filler on the seats.  Someone made the questionable decision to try to upholster the seats, so I now have to fill dozens of tack holes.  With the room design above I used a white chair, and I think that might be the safest choice.  It would look good with our white woodwork, but I'm still not 100% sure.  Thoughts?

For end chairs I really like the Koobos wicker; the round back would go well with the shape of the vintage side chairs we have, and all the reviews seem to say they're also extremely comfortable chairs.  I think the breakfast room chairs should be comfortable, some place you'd stay to talk over weekend brunch or sit to do paperwork during the week.  Thoughts about the wicker chairs?  This room has windows on two sides, so I think the porch/garden vibe of the wicker would not look out of place.

My other dilemma is the lighting situation.  I've never loved our light fixture; it was just chosen very quickly at the end of the building process, and I'd like something more unique.  I think I would like something vintage, so maybe a tole or crystal chandelier?  I'd also like to tie in the color black since we have quite a bit of black in the living room adjacent.  I'm thinking black lamp shades on the chandelier and a trim on the white curtains.

Sources:

Table: Pottery Barn

Side chairs: vintage (see x-back ones similar to design above here)

End chairs: World Market

Curtains: Overstock

Black/white Greek key trim: MJ Trimming

Chandelier: Kathy Ireland at Lamps Plus

Black chandelier lamp shades: Lamps Plus

The breakfast room opens up to both the living room and the kitchen.  I've posted a couple photos of those rooms below so you can see why the colors and styles need to coordinate with these spaces.

My living room
(This kind of makes me laugh because I took this picture about a month ago and already the room looks different -- oh well!)

My kitchen

The breakfast room has the same light blue-gray walls as the kitchen and the same wood floors, so anything I pick has to work with those.

Sooo.....thoughts?  Suggestions?  Thanks in advance!

Inspired by...snowy fields

As we drove across Kansas, Missouri, and Iowa on our way home from our family Christmas celebration, the clouds broke and the sun shone bright across the harvested fields.  The snow covered ground revealed where deer recently had made their paths perilously close to the holiday travelers.  Our son said, "Look, Mommy, reindeer tracks!"  If only...

I snapped this picture from the interstate.  I thought the combination of blue, white, and gold was really pretty, so I decided to turn it into a little "inspired by..." post.

This week I am turning the inspiration picture into a dining room.  Here's the room design:

First, I would paint all the walls and moldings a soft, very light taupe color.  Then I would paint the ceiling a pretty robin's egg blue to correspond with the sunny Midwest sky.  The dining table and bench have a whitewashed finish.  You could do two benches flanking the table with an armchair at each end, or only use one bench and place a couple chairs along the other side of the table.  Ballard Designs also has a nailhead cover that would be pretty on the Parsons chair form (without arms).  The slipcover I chose is a sturdy, elegant linen.  The chandelier is the most literal reference to the farm inspiration picture: it has a chrome frame with wheat etched onto the glass shade. (Yes, I know that the field shown in the picture is actually corn, not wheat.)

To set the table, I would use the Marimekko tablecloth, which looks like swirling grasses, topped off with simple white dinnerware and a couple of luxe finishing pieces: the cute Kate Spade navy accent plates with gold polka dots, and the timeless Stieff sterlingware (I really like this pattern!).  Just because this room design is inspired by the Midwest doesn't mean that it has to be really country or rustic!  If the Marimekko cloth is too modern for your taste, you could easily substitute a solid color tablecloth in gold, light blue, white, or beige.

Sources:

Dining table - "Provence" trestle table from World Market

Dining bench - "Provence" from World Market

Two arm chairs - Parsons armchair with Suzanne Kasler linen slipcover from Ballard Designs

Chandelier - chrome wheat chandelier from Linens 'n Things

Accent plates - Kate Spade "Allison Avenue" for Lenox

Dinner plates - Rim dinner plates at Crate & Barrel

Silverware - "Golden Winslow" by Kirk Stieff

Tablecloth - Marimekko "Lepo" from Crate & Barrel


Like seeing room designs?  Have an idea for an "inspired by..." post or another room design you'd like to see?  Leave me a comment and let me know!