FormerDoormat

So, the PurpleSquirrel's succulent post was right up my alley. I've never been a neutral kind of girl. I'm not comfortable living in a beige world. You won't find me wearing beige, brown, or gray and you definitely won't find a beige room in my house.

I've always been a fan of color, and I use it liberally in both my job as an artist and my home and garden. So, when I saw all the color lovers who responded to the "Succulent and Juicy" post, it made my heart sing.

I didn't want to hijack PurpleSquirrel's thread, so I thought I'd start a new thread and share some photos of my colorful home.

These are photos of my living room:





Here is a photo of my kitchen:

FormerDoormat

Here is a photo of my dining room:



Here is a photo of my family room:



Here is a photo of my porch:

Pelican

Beautiful use of color!

Thank you for sharing!

Live

gorgeous! what are in the shadow boxes in the dining room?

What about bold colors in a very small place?
suggestions?

FormerDoormat

Here is a photo of my dog, Steve, playing in my garden:



And here is my dog, Luna:



Apparently, if you sit still long enough when I'm in a creative mood, you're likely to get painted. Okay, I didn't really paint my dog. I rainbow-ized her in PhotoShop.

Can't even begin to tell you how long it took me to download the photos, create a PhotoBucket account, upload the photos, then figure out how to create an image link. Geeze, Louise!

FormerDoormat

Live: I got the shadow boxes from Pottery Barn. I tried filling them with seashells (one of my personal faves), but they were too heavy and when I dropped them in the open top, they tended to break.

So, it may seem odd to see this in a non-drinker's house, but I used wine corks instead. I got the idea from a Pottery Barn catalog. My only problem was that I don't drink wine at all. So I asked my friends to collect them for me. That proved to be a painfully slow undertaking, as it seems that most of my friends are only occasional drinkers.

Then one Christmas morning, I found a huge plastic Utz Pretzel container on my front porch filled with wine corks with a note saying, "Merry Christmas." It seems my best friend's boyfriend was at a yard sale, knew that I was collecting them, and he bought it for me. And my friend drove the 50-mile trip to deposit them on my porch on Christmas morning.

coyote21

Beautiful, my taste and favorite color changes from time to time, I'm currently on a lime green kick, love the kitchen and living room.

I also love the porch, our kitchen in our first house here was bright red with creme wainscot 4 feet up the 13.5 foot wall. We weren't sure at first, but it came out beautifully.

And man, Bright red wall paint was hard to find. We had to go to a place that specialized in industrial safety paints!

Nice work, I remember your porch from a few years back, you've changed up haven't you?

Thanks and God bless us all,
Coyote

Jadmack25

What a lot of gorgeous ideas and colours you have used in your home, and how lovely of your friend to take so much trouble that Christmas. I also wondered,..."what colour is her doormat?" You do have a beautiful home.

Your snap of Luna did give me a heck of a fright, for a bit there, I honestly thought my eyes had gone feral on me. I was scared I would be seeing life thru a rainbow haze.
Thank God, it was you playing with Photoshop.

God bless

BBD

Absolutely Beautiful~~~~~

FormerDoormat

Red walls are difficult to paint. It takes a lot of coats of paint to get a smooth, unblotchy surface. Plus choosing the right shade of red is difficult, too. My brother painted his kitchen red (loved it) and I remember him saying that he tried several colors before he found the right shade. Red tends to look pink before it dries, which is a bit unnerving. I remember my brother found that most of the shades he choose had too much blue in them and that it was tricky to find a tomato red (which is much warmer than a bluish-red).

FormerDoormat

Live, I think you really would love Susan Sargent's book "The Comfort of Color." It is visually stunning and it features rooms of all sizes. One of my favorite tricks is to paint the walls lively colors, use colorful accessories, but keep my main furniture pieces and appliances, floors, counter tops, etc., neutral, as those items are much more expensive to change.

Paint is relatively cheap, and all it takes is one day of work to completely change a room.

And don't forget your ceilings. One of my favorite tricks is to paint all my ceilings sky blue. It's much nicer than plain white. Of course, one day, when I put my house on the market, I will have to--sigh--paint it neutral to appeal to the masses. That will be a sad day in FormerDoormat land.

coyote21

So, where do you actually live? This is obviously just a house you keep just to decorate and look all clean and neat all the time. I mean nobody really LIVES there do they?

And yes, it took me around 5 hours to get my business cards posted a while back, of course I had to take many "frustration" breaks along the way.

Back in my drinking daze, I would of simply thrown the cpu over the balcony after about 20 minutes. Sobriety can be rather wearing at times.

Thanks and God bless us all,
Coyote

Live

thanks, I will look into that.

FormerDoormat

Lime is my favorite color, too, Coyote. In fact, this month's issue of House Beautiful is dedicated to color and they have a killer lime green and chocolate brown living room, dining room, master bedroom, and bathroom spread with a hand-painted floor in the living room that is to die for! I yanked those pages out of the magazine and placed them in my inspiration file. That's a file I keep that's filled with ideas for the home and garden that I refer to from time to time when I want to revamp a room.

Occasionally, I go through that file and eliminate the things that no longer inspire me. It's interesting to see how my taste changes with age. I seem to be gravitating away from anything cutesy and on to more sophisticated rooms. My newest motto is "keep it simple." That means I'm gravitating towards rooms that are quite spare. I'm banishing clutter and everything that I don't need in my house.

A simple house means less time spent cleaning and more time spent enjoying the fruits of my labor and dreaming up my next project.

FormerDoormat

So, I actually do live there and, yes, it's really that neat. I'm a neat freak; I admit it. I grew up in a home with nine people and three dogs, and it was always messy. I couldn't stand the mess and the clutter. I seemed to be the only one who cared about having a neat home, and I was certainly the only one who cleaned it. But try as I might, I couldn't keep up with 8 messy people and three dogs.

So when I finally had a place of my own, it became my neat (and seriously obsessive) haven. Luckily, my daughter is only moderately messy

coyote21

Our first house in the hill country did look like a gum ball machine. It was 100 years old and every room a different color, but all the trim was the same. I loved that house.

We put it on the market and the sign went up Monday morn, and we had a contract for our asking price that evening..

Don't you dare cover up your color, the right buyer will come to you when the time comes.

Thanks and God bless us all,
Coyote

Mataleao

Gorgeous!!!
Also, Steve is awesome. =)

sesh

Beautiful home FD!
I love it.
Acctually I was going to do the same thing yesterday: take some pics of my home and post it, but than I realized I'd have to tidy up a bit first, as it was mess toys all over the place...
Anyways I LOVE YOUR COLORS!!!

Live

oh, yes, more photos please..I would love to see anyone's!

dollydo

Stunning! I love color!