Home of the Yellow, White, and Blue

Hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday weekend. I still have a slight "holiday hangover" from the 3 day weekend. Yesterday morning was a little rough with waking up early and going back to work. It probably didn't help that I had so much fun in St. Louis and then back in Chicago. When I got home, the front room was done! John painted it Benjamin Moore's Champion Cobalt (matched to Ace Hardware paint) with his friend Nick. I walked into the house and absolutely loved it!! The white trim totally popped against the blue. The floor and doors now seem warmer and more golden. We're missing all sorts of furniture, but I still love it. Thanks, guys!

Pictures on the wall for fun

 

The room doesn't look this shiny in real life, it's just a little tricky to photograph. The paint finish is eggshell, which is one step up from a flat finish. Ace Hardware describes eggshell as, "a versatile finish that appears flat when viewed directly and slightly lustrous when viewed on an angle."

Painting this room was a total kick start to finishing the rest of the house. The next unsuspecting room was the kitchen. We'd been waffling about the color and finally decided to go for it. At first we were thinking gray, but something wasn't sitting right. After looking at paint colors and kitchen pictures online, we thought about a sandy beige. And then I saw a picture of a kitchen painted Benjamin Moore's Golden Honey. The color combination also looked similar to this porch from Betsy Maddox's home tour on Design*Sponge.

via Design*Sponge

Our counters are gray like the floor, the cabinets are similar to the folding chair, and we have white trim around the windows, floor, and doors. Here are some "before" pictures:

So we gave it a whirl and bought the paint. It's not that expensive ($26/gallon less $10 rebate = $16/gallon!), so we knew we could always repaint. Plus, the lady helping us at Ace Hardware had just painted her kitchen a similar yellow. She said her kitchen used to be brownish-beige, but was too dark and gloomy in the winter. It's been so sunny lately that I didn't even consider how the kitchen would look during cloudier days in the winter. Here's our new happy yellow kitchen!

Yes, the pictures were taken while making dinner.

We're also really happy with the way the kitchen turned out. Now it's a matter of finding and hanging artwork. I think the canvases could look nice or we might hang those in the front room.

And the hunt for an accent chair for the front room is still on. John is now wondering whether that the blue and white chair from Target is a little too feminine. Plus, the chair is back to its full price of $300. Maybe we'll look for something in leather. At this rate, we'll probably wait until the couches are delivered to make a decision.

How do you balance different decorating tastes? Any tips for finding a "masculine" chair?

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