Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Inspire me...Please?

For the last 8 months we've been working on finishing our basement and now the time has come.... to pick paint, carpet and all those frills. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!! (kari runs screaming from the house)

I have no idea where to even start. No one ever uses basement pictures to inspire people in their pain choices & design! Our house is built in 1920 and is a craftsman. The upstairs has lots of period details & we used earthy colors like brown, green, orange, cream & blue/gray. Now we have this entire basement & I am so out of ideas.

It has no personality - just sheetrock. Two bedrooms will be for the kids, plus a family/rec room, a hallway & the kids bath. I don't know if I really want lots of different colors on the walls down there (maybe just 2 different ones) and I know I don't want to many dark colors because its already sort of dark. We can pretty much start from scratch on the kids rooms, both kids need new bedding & don't really have color themes.

Hmm....just writing this out is giving me ideas actually.... I think i just need a couple neutral base colors that I can accent with brighter colors.

Lately I've loved how everyone (or just orange poppy and The Nines in Portland) has been using aqua. And I've always been madly in love with my friend's red/light blue combination. hmmm.....

sigh. So all you folks out there with ideas stuffed into your brains, do you have any for me? Links to any cool sites? Anything awesome that you love and probably won't use? Inspire me! I guess I better start spending time on design blogs & get my bum in gear.

7 comments:

Andrea Elliott said...

What fun but definitely stressful! I don't have any ideas for you... but I can't wait to see the pictures of what you decided to do!

Shauna said...

You can do it! I'd go with a neutral for all the halls.. the media room you can have more fun with - what furniture will be down there? The green couch? The kids rooms sound fun - but well, I hate painting if I don't have to (hence the boring neutral walls in Hailey's room). I REALLY want to do our living room - but to me, doing it means getting a new couch and chairs and redoing the fireplace...and that is going to take money and that's not really something we have to spare so I'll keep dreaming and browsing CL for steals.

Shauna said...

Oh right, so paint colors. I love the aqua idea and that's what I wanted to do in my living room...but now that so much yellow is on the wall, and we have ugly furniture (not to mention how uncomfortable that couch is) I'm totally uninspired. Um...dark red is always good in a media room... of course,I really want to know what furniture will be there... . I have a great book for ideas though (ha! you gave it to me!) and you can borrow that if you want. :)

TheFiveDays said...

I always like the Pottery Barn Kids' paint schemes, especially the play rooms and boys' rooms. I really want to do Jacob's in a red/blue with maybe some type of camel/neutral and they use those a lot. The play room pictures might be helpful inspiration for your rec room? http://www.potterybarnkids.com/room/rom/romply/index.cfm?cm%5Ftype=gnav

Good luck...that's a lot to figure out and I am so design-challenged!

Rebekah said...

oh my I actually get so excited hearing that you have an entire basement to do!!! I would love to see some pictures of the space but I would love even more to come visit and help come up with ideas!!
I have an idea, you help me with gardening and I will help you decorate - sound fair? :) I hate yard work!
just say the word, seriously!

Andi Mae said...

I think you should totally take Rebekah up on her offer! I was going to suggest looking at some of the great design blogs out there, and then I read Rebekah's comment and thought "Perfect!" I would seriously pay to have her come help make my house beautiful...

P.S. I love Misha's aqua and blue walls too :)

P.P.S. Lovely as always to talk to you today. I miss you so much!

BrenV said...

I think you need to paint a rainbow in either the kids new bedroom or the play room. Maybe then you won't have to get a car with rainbow colors!