How do I unite our open floor plan?
Question:My husband and I just moved into our first apartment. The floor plan is very open downstairs, the living room and dining area are visible from the front door. Our color scheme for the living room is red black and cream for the reason that...well our walls are cream, our couch and love seat are red and the television, tables, and such are black. I love the idea but our dining area looks into the kitchen, which is blue. Should we cordinate the dining room with our red black motif? or should we go with the blue kitchen. (the kitchen has blue wall paper which we can't remove)
Answers:
I would make the dining area coordinate with the living room for sure and in order to make it transition better into the kitchen you could just do the dining room in black and cream, forget the red so it will go with both rooms O.K. and maybe just for a little colour you could buy a painting that has all of the colours in it, black, cream, red and a splash of blue...might look like you even decorated you kitchen blue on purpose, which is what you want people to think.
Can you paint over the wall paper? Since the cream, red and black sound kinda Mediterranean to me I'd do a venetian plaster technique and add some red tiles above the back splash (wall below cabinets and above sink/stove/counters). Our you could add chair rails and paint just the lower half the cream color.
If the wall paper can't be touched I'd say make the dinning area blend with the kitchen.
I would talk to your landlord/lady. Sometimes they are open to changes/updates in their properties, esp. if the renters are paying for it and has their preapproval on color scheme. Sounds like it would be better to cover the wallpaper (yes, you can paint over it... just google "painting over wallpaper"). This works only if the wallpaper is in good condition with no peeling.
I would have the diningroom go with the living room. you hang curtains up over the door way that kind of divides the dr/kitchen.
check out www.hgtv.com for ideas!
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