calkelley btw, for many years when I was growing up, I thought I hated wood and wood furnishings. It turns out that was a blond, light oak, and similar period.
I've discovered I just love the dark and rich woods - mahogany, cherry, etc. Still hate the light stuff! And pickled? Gag...

toby1994 Hi Charmean, We live in a house full of oak wood trim and medium oak flooring. I love the colour Valspar 'Grandma's Linen', sadly I cannot get this paint, I live in Manitoba. Do you know if the colour is a match to any Benjamin Moore paint? Or can you recommend anything that will go with all this wood!!! Thanks so much. Nichola

Charmean Neithart Interiors, LLC. Hi Nichola. Try Saybrook Sage HC-114 by Benjamin Moore. This will be pretty close. Hope that helps. Charmean

calkelley Love my Ikea bookcases for price/looks; Ikea dressers are hidden so don't need to spend a ton on them.
But since moving to FL part of the year, I have discovered treasures galore! Consignment shops in Palm Beach are so affordable and filled with some great things - I've decided I'm almost never buying new furniture.
Not true antiques, consignment pieces are great older pieces near the top of their line. Solid wood, great patina, well made and with more style - terrific prices. And not afraid to put them into use. Best is they provide good bones for accenting a few very nice antiques.
As for true antiques, I have 2 mirrors from Paris antiques markets (shipped our minivan over the year we lived there and put the mirrors in for the trip home). The huge one is late 19th century with gold leaf with a painting above. The other is smaller with silver leaf but from at least the early 19th, if not before. Gorgeous and at the top of what we could afford for an extravagant purchase.
I also have some little collectibles - old coffee grinders, irons you would put on top of a stove, wooden pattern stampers and not so old but cool metal molds from a chocolate factory.
I certainly could not afford everything antique. But I think my mix of good, solid older pieces and the antiques is very nice.
Bookcase for game storage - $300
Large 9 box dining room storage $1000 old Henry Link

sleeekdesigns the best antiques i own were from the side of the road!

Rebecca Jelfo Auctions are the best. I've gotten some really nice pieces and very reasonable prices ( absentee bidding). One place estate auctions. Pook and Pook auctions is excellent everything eventually comes up for sale. Even a pie chest I bid on (lost) but cool stuff.

calkelley I love it! But part of the cohesive flow of the house is also achieved thru the dark wood trim. While the room colors might change, all the wood one color really tied the whole design together, I think
So for me, the bare bones can create a cohesive look too. Everything was bought new ofr this house, not adding pieces gradually so the designers were able to establish that better than I've been doing. Maybe I'll have to stain some things.
Though I think I need to choose one color for accents that I can then bring into the public rooms. I like how some rooms have it more integrated while others pick it up as an accent.
As for kids rooms, I never consider them part of decorating the house. I'm decorating them and their interests to give them their own retreat. One of the boys has baseball stuff all over (Go Giants!) while the other is just wild and fun. Because, boy, are they different kids!

tkc649 I love blue and green, guess I always have thinking back to Home Ec in school some 45 years ago I made a dress....guess the colors??? We have since renovated a 1966 home keeping some era pieces such as fireplace,hearth, 1960 Frigidaire range, colored bathroom fixtures in yellow,mauve and beautiful blue :) and we added the modern style to suit the old. Colors of course are blue and green :) Good job on the model home we to have the blue geen mix throughout the rooms on top floor and have the green through the bottom floor. I just might set up an idea book....if I knew how :(. Thanks, loved it all.

Mary DeWalt Design Group Thanks so much - I love that you have kept some of the period pieces!

hazeldazel I don't understand why anyone would want to make furniture out of pallets. They are embedded with toxic chemicals to make them weather-resistant, in fact it is against the law for them to be inside any building that manufactures any pharmaceuticals because they are so toxic (I'm in the industry). I get they're free wood, but honestly they're not worth the price.

calkelley Another idea - if you want the grain to show through (like semi-transparent stains) you can pick your color and have it put in a deep or ultra deep base. These base paints have less titanium dioxide (white) and therefore also provide less coverage - meaning a red paint with TD might take 1-2 coat for coverage would require 3- 4 (or more) for the same coverage of paint without TD.
So you need to put less water in (which I thought could break some of the paint bonding quality) and it's kinda semi transparent.
It's what you do if you want to work with a paint to faux and can't or don't want to put in glaze. It does make it a faster dry though.

We have an outside ceramic brick patio the previous owners painted with concrete 'stain' (in essence, a paint). As it was prohibitively expensive to pull all the paint off, we repainted in a creamy white so in FL sun, it's not too hot. But it shows all the dirt and faint moldy issues we have. So I got a brick red in the same paint but on its ultra deep base and will be 'marbelizing' pieces. Really it's just to get some color to darken and break up the dirty look. It's transparent enough it won't completely cover the cream into a hot, dark layer.
At the very least it will look like a broken up and motled color wash. But I think I can get it to look marbled - we'll see!
Patio's painted. Will have to wait until after summer vaca to do the marble...

fabbyfarito Thanks for the ideas! I'm going to give it a go!

jukesgrrl I stained a raw wood picture frame with food coloring from my pantry. I've had it hung up for years now and the color hasn't even faded, which I expected.

calkelley Is her baby happy? Maybe that's more important than stressing over constantly struggling with cleaning....
If you have the means, perhaps you can offer a cleaning person every other week. You can always say 'with the new baby, I thought you needed some help'. It would probably be the best present she ever got.
Other than that - my suggestion is to not say anything. She knows what's up and commenting isn't going to help. jimho

cardiganqueenmrs Thanks Alison! This was really on point for my current feelings. Today I was forced to consider what my DH actually does around the house. He is responsible for laundry (wash, dry, hang dry things that do not go in dryer, fold & put away). My gripe was that he doesn't vacuum & mop but he does many other things that I'd never considered before today. The reality is that he doesn't do what I want him to do...I must relinquish control :). He doesn't mop but so what I don't do laundry AT ALL.

calkelley best beach thingy ever - google sand anchor. It's a thing that screws into the sand and it has a tabletop which is something we use all the time! You can keep your drinks, glasses, books, etc out of the sand. It's also an umbrella stand.

lesshazney Where could I get that adirondack swing?

calkelley decoratinglady - you can ask Sherman Williams to do a small sample of Humble Gold half color strength. Paint it on and watch the great colors as it changes throughout the days!

Robert Nebolon Architects I posted a new picture of this bathroom shown in this article (now attached). A low window in the shower stall allows reflected sunlight off the water to enter the shower. The rest of the house is in the "San Francisco Floating Home" album.

Trending Accessibility Great article. We are in total agreement about your comment regarding "treating the use of yellow as artwork". A little bit goes a long way, and when used as an accent color or to create a distinction between one area and another in a free-flowing space... such as in the photo attached. Yellow much like other accent colors works as well.