My Old House - Part Five

My Old House - Part Five By Theresa Grant Real Estate Columnist What a difference a door makes! So, last week we left off with the living room having been painted with six coats of soft yellow paint, and a new door being installed in the kitchen. I cannot tell you what a difference the door has made. I never realized just how much light is blocked by the steel or wood make up of a door until now. The model I chose is a single full glass door going out to the backyard. It has a roller shade built in between the glass panes. The amount of light streaming through this door is quite impressive. I have a lot of plants in the kitchen so needless to say they are loving this. It’s one of those things where I think to myself, I wish I had done this earlier but of course we don’t know until we know. With the door installed in the kitchen, that room is now complete. The coastal theme though, is proving to be a little harder to pull off than I had originally thought. The entry hall is the beautiful seafoam green; the living room was going to be green to match but at the last minute I went with the yellow of the kitchen to match that side of the room. That may have been a mistake. A mistake that will unfortunately cost me a few hundred dollars to correct. I need to get this right. I was afraid to go with three separate colours for the hall, the living room and the kitchen which are all open onto each other. I thought it would be too much and not look good. I am thinking differently now though. I absolutely love corals, and I am now thinking that I want to put coral in the living room. A big part of the problem when it comes to the living room is the window in the middle of the room. The window itself is only 22 inches wide. It’s tiny and looks ridiculous in the living room so to offset the look, I went out and purchased a longer curtain rod and extended the rod and have the curtains full and extended to about 4 to 5 feet. Trying to find curtains that go with a coastal look is not easy. Most coastal looks incorporate sheers for that flowy, breezy look which I, by the way love. I cannot do that here though because you would then see the wall on either side of the 22-inch window and it would look ridiculous. Right now, I have blue drapes with white sheers in the middle to go nicely with the yellow walls. That said, the look is a classic look not a coastal look. So, now I have 2 different themes going on in the living room and it is clear that I am in a bit of a pickle. I’m really not sure what my next move will be to try to get the look I am going for. Hopefully the weekend will bring inspiration.