I Bought A House, Now Provide Me With A Free Interior Decorator Please

[Maggyie]

So we bought a house (we passed on the short sale and spend a little more on a house in a different suburb) it is fairly small (1300 sq feet) and was built in 1932. It has cute built-in cabinets and moulding, new carpet, roof and so forth but it's all painted beige.

I want to do all kinds of things to it but we can't do much right now because we put all our fun money into the down payment and we need to keep several thou in the maintenance fund for emergencies. My dream for the dining room below is to do it all in a dark or medium hard wood (it's about 170 sq feet) then add in head-high wainscoting.

[url="http://www.flickr.com/photos/87037699@N08/7964570264/"][img]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8306/7964570264_f895914a61.jpg[/img][/url]


Like this high:

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/87037699@N08/7964603550/][img]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8172/7964603550_def7a76c60.jpg[/img][/url]

But I would paint the negative space either a light blue or maybe wythe blue ([url="http://pinterest.com/pin/10062799138448922/"]this color[/url]).

What do you think?

[4588686]

Very well, but I demand total artistic freedom.

Edited September 9, 2012 by Hasan

[Maggyie]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1347223258' post='2480724']
Very well, but I demand total artistic freedom.
[/quote]

No My Little Pony wall decals please

[cmaD2006]

Well if you have a fireplace, Mary has to go over the Mantelpiece

[cmotherofpirl]

What furniture do you plan on putting in this room? What direction to the windows face?

[eagle_eye222001]

Stuff happens. Don't think about getting stuff. In my limited experience, it seems stuff naturally drifts into houses.....and then people spend tons of energy over having too much stuff.

As for interior decorating....you need a computer with internet.....and a chair for each person to sit down. That is all.

I am a guy, so this is probably not very helpful.


Oh......one crucifix and one Mary picture so visitors know you're Catholic. Even this can wait as you can utilize gifts to their maximum effectiveness so people will trip over themselves to give you useful stuff instead of "they have everything so therefore gift card."

Imagine.....people come over..and gasp with horror when they see an empty room. Then wait 1 Christmas/Birthday....and voila...useful stuff appears!


Oh...you want one wall left alone. This is the drawing wall for little ones (slightly based on a true story).


Again, I pre-apologize for not being helpful and slightly ignoring the question.

[Nihil Obstat]

Whatever you have now, it needs more secret rooms. Your husband will agree.
Secret rooms have been popular on Reddit over the last couple days. Most seem to be hidden behind bookcases. I might go so far as to recommend that the best use for a secret room is either as an entertainment centre, i.e. tv, movies, if you have a game system, or as a library/reading room.

[Nihil Obstat]

One example:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/U3kM5.jpg[/img]

[CatherineM]

Go down to the local habitat for humanity restore, and you will be surprised how cheap stuff is.

[Norseman82]

When I first saw the title of this thread, my first thought was that this was another demand for another entitlement.

"Occupy" my living room!!!!

Edited September 9, 2012 by Norseman82

[cmotherofpirl]

You can mention to everyone that you just bought a house and do they know any retail shops, and stuff will magically appear to fill the space.

[Maggyie]

[quote name='cmariadiaz' timestamp='1347225866' post='2480748']
Well if you have a fireplace, Mary has to go over the Mantelpiece
[/quote]

Ah ha!!!

This is what our living room currently looks like:

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/87037699@N08/7966408350/][img]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8315/7966408350_c0b4cf80af.jpg[/img][/url]

I stole the painting from Lillllabettt.The fireplace is merely decorative though. AKA, fake. Notice how every entryway is curved which is cool but it means I probably can't put moulding on it very easily.

All the front rooms east, with a southern exposure in the living room and northern exposure in the dining room (towards the lake).

Here's another picture of the dining room. The house has steam heat and window treatments that make it look like a dentist office. I'm talking vertical blinds here. I understand the steam heat is super efficient and cozy in the winter but I have to decorate around the big honkin heaters. Oy.

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/87037699@N08/7966429764/][img]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8457/7966429764_53043cb63b.jpg[/img][/url]

And here's some others: our teensy bathroom (but it's the original 30s tile!) our kitchen and breakfast nook.

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/87037699@N08/7966436452/][img]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8173/7966436452_86a2c636a4.jpg[/img][/url]

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/87037699@N08/7966411412/][img]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8461/7966411412_7752ff4a98.jpg[/img][/url]

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/87037699@N08/7966435032/][img]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8321/7966435032_ee2068a846.jpg[/img][/url]

So as you can see the current theme is Beige With Card Tables.

I don't have any plans for furniture right now except that I want to use the Louis chairs that appear in the dining room pictures. I stole them from my parents' house (with their permission... kind of) and there is a dining room table that goes with them. Which should be coming shortly. But it's hard because it's a small house and we need everything to be SMALL. I don't want to overfurnish it and not be able to move around. All the sofas we look at are SO BIG.

Also we can't figure out where to put the TV. We don't plan to get cable as we really don't watch much TV but sometimes we do rent movies or watch football. Obviously don't want to put it over the mantle and make it the centerpiece of the room.

[Maggyie]

Also in terms of secret rooms... I really want to make closets in the two other bedrooms communicate. One of the houses we looked at had that as a feature and I thought it was super cool! Not that as adults we would need it to sneak between bedrooms. But I think any future youngsters would appreciate it.

[Nihil Obstat]

Do you have anything in the budget to turn the fake fireplace into a gas fireplace? I don't know what your climate is like there, but I am seriously appreciative of our gas fireplace during the winter, i.e. mid October through March.

[MIKolbe]

I'll send Shea. You'll be set in two weeks. Just give her your credit card, and do what she says, while asking a few questions as possible. If you do ask a question, and she just stares at you blankly, just pretend you never asked the question and go back to whatever task she has assigned to you.