The Living/Dining Room Design

The overall theme of the house is going to be Rustic Beach Cottage. I think it helps to have a theme in mind and since we live on the beach a lot of the decor just comes with the territory (translated: it's free!) Plus, the beach theme tends to brighten and lighten which this rustic old cottage needs like nothing else.

I was thinking about going with light turquoise walls like the picture below but decided on the Benjamin Moore Simply White walls in the picture below it (the one with the table and chairs.) If you scan above and look at the walls in our house you can see that there isn't much of them due to the fireplace and windows. For this reason I don't think the white will be overbearing and it will lend to the beachy feel of the panels (which we're keeping) and brighten things up. This room is North facing and doesn't get any direct light. It needs as much brightness as possible. (But I am thinking of painting Lake's room a light turquoise, and we're using turquoise/aqua/sea green accents throughout the house =)

We're going to install pre-finished hardwood floors (walnut stained Hickory) throughout the house (except bathrooms.) The third picture illustrates the floors. Not too dark, not too light. Should make for a dramatic transformation (From yucky carpet and sub-floor!! Seriously, we can only go up with this house.)

The last picture is an example of what we're aiming for. I wish our bricks were stone like these but we are thinking of white-washing the fireplace similar to this style. We don't want to paint the bricks but we're worried they will suck all the light out if left in their present form. We'll let them be to begin with, but I'm pretty sure I want to go with a taupe-like wash and a rustic wood mantel. We'll see ...

We are removing a wall in the living room as well (the one to the left of the fireplace.) It was originally an L-shaped room and they walled up part of it to create a smaller room. We decided to remove it, install the floors, and build a built in book/record/tv shelf later (John has LOTS of albums so a custom shelf is essential.) Then we would have room for a walk-in closet behind it, which we'll need because our room doesn't have a closet!!

Other repairs in the living/dining room include removing the popcorn ceiling, replacing the heater, re-vamping the ceiling fans, a new front door (painted red), window frame repair, and new trim and crown molding.

Future plans include new windows and opening up the ceilings to some sort of exposed beam design and possibly installing some small skylights to let the sun shine in!!