You have some great ideas. You can always paint the ceiling white. I did it in my kitchen photo, turned out great and made the room look twice as big. The black lacquer shelves in my photo came from ikea. We built them into the wall and drywalled around them. Good luck

Hi!

We have 3 large black dogs that are heavy shedders, so carpet will be out of the question unfortunately. As for the laminate, yes, I absolutely love the black (but I love everything in black)! However, the ceiling keeps gnawing at me and am not quite sure how that would work in unison. It wasn't until I looked at these pictures again today that I realized how brown and woody the ceiling is--absolutely killed my vision. Lol.

Our old house has white walls....AND paw marks all over the bottoms, so I'm looking for a color that would compliment the room in the new house AND potentially hide all that. I'd like to just do white walls and maybe black trim, but am weary of the white with my dogs confined to the room, hence why I came up with gray. Any suggestions?

As for more pictures, we are actually still in escrow so I don't have access to more photos as of yet! It does open up into the kitchen, pictured below.

Overall, we're trying for a clean and simple modern/contemporary look. I really do appreciate your help! As I said, we are complete novices and welcome any advice you have to offer!

Jan, I love what you've done! Unfortunately, the Mr. Wants to leave that nasty brown wood bare and al natural. I personally love the white, it truly does open up the space! I'm hoping your pictures may convince him otherwise. Thank you for your response!

The good thing about leaving the ceiling is that it never has to be painted - one maintenance job off the list, maybe The Mr. is thinking that way too. I checked out many photos on Houzz for you of rooms with timber ceilings and it isn't so much the $ value of the rooms but the fact that the ceilings are generally higher and the rooms are far better lit than yours with walls of windows and doors so it is the natural lighting rather than the actual timber that is the problem. One way to offset this is with as much white as possible in the room. With the colour of your timber furniture, and the dog/fur issue, I would be looking at a bleached laminate for the floors, putting a chair rail around the walls and painting the lower area a blue similar to your chairs and the upper part a soft warm white to match your fireplace. You can now get laminate as tiles too which would break up the all timber look. When my dd first moved into her new home the previous owners had a black dog and the bottom 18" of every wall was black from the dog, so I do know where you are coming from here.

Just a little food for thought too - with the dogs and their fur your floors are going to get the same amount of dirt and shedding on them regardless of floor covering and colour, you are going to have to vacuum absolutely every day to stay on top of it. Carpet will hold the fur in place till you clean and stop it spreading to other areas, where a hard floor will allow the fur to float around in every little breeze or air movement spreading it to other areas of the house and giving you more cleaning each day.

Lighting is definitely something we both would like to work on down the line, as budget probably won't allow it now.

I considered the chair rail too....or what do you think about wainscoting? Just a small note, these are the photos from the MLS listing, that's actually not our furniture. The only thing I know for sure at this point is that we'll be putting our black leather sectional couch in the same vicinity as that blue couch and the tv will likely go on the fireplace as well (black). Everything else will be new, so I welcome any other color suggestions you might have for the chair rail, as I won't have anything blue in the room. :)

I actually ordered some samples of bleached laminate and as well as porcelain tile w and w/o the wood grain design in varying shades of white and gray a few days ago just to play with the idea. The Mr. is on the fence, but samples haven't arrived yet, so we'll see. I do like the idea of lots of whites and varying shades of black, white, gray furniture.

Thank you for the input for the carpet issue but it really will have to be laminate or tile. My oldest lab has frequent "accidents" and won't use the doggy door. From experience, carpet is just too difficult and disgusting to clean. Our old living room has hardwood floors, so we just run our Swifter robot before we go to work and it sweeps up most of the fur with no problems. I just touch up here and there as needed.

Again, really appreciate your input! We're getting ready to close escrow, so I want to come in with our ideas finalized so we can get the dogs' living space DONE and move in asap! Thanks!

Understand about the older dog issue, I just like to look at everything from all aspects, sometimes when you are really close to something it is easy to overlook little things.

I love wainscoting, we generally don't have it here, but I think it looks lovely and rich. I was mainly thinking of something darker on the bottom of the walls for the dogs and only suggested the blue because of the lounge. You could do a deeper grey shade to keep to your colour scheme still with the white above it, but whether you do wainscoting or just a chair rail for division would be up to you and probably the chair rail would be a cheaper option too.

I can't live with tiled floors, my old joints just don't like them and I don't like the increased noise levels they create, but they would be practical with the dogs, especially the older one as I believe laminate isn't good if it is likely to get wet and not mopped up quickly. I do love those plank tiles that look like wood though, there are some really nice colours in them, but I would still try to keep them as light as possible. I am still a bit concerned about the amount of natural light in your room and the danger of dark colours making it look too cave like. I think I would use some really sunny yellow accents to give the room a lift. Good luck, hope everything goes smoothly for you.

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Thank you so much for your suggestions! Truly appreciate it! Happy 4th!

The planned black sectional sofa with low wood ceiling (I love natural wood ceilings), dark floor, and grey walls seems really a bit oppressive to me. Unless you like the dark feel (and some do), some lighter elements are needed, IMO.

Lol I just have a general preference for dark colors--my entire wardrobe is a muted mix of blacks and grays with speckles of color here and there! :)

We both really do like the previous suggestion about using a chair rail and doing a dark gray bottom with a white top for the walls. The issue now is agreeing on the flooring. :)

It really helps to be able to throw ideas back and forth with you all...thanks!

I'm seeing a different solution - perhaps down the road - to lighten this room. Replace the window with French doors or windows to open it up to outside and add natural light. As for wainscot, it will just draw a line around the room and emphasize the linearity already inherent in the window. If you have all low furniture, you'll be adding to that effect.

Yes! We're hoping to replace the sliding doors with french doors ( not pictured, but located to the left of the fireplace) and open up those windows. There's not much of a view, but this room is in dire need of more lighting! It won't be something that can be addressed soon, but indeed, somewhere down the line!

For practicality I would suggest lighter floors with low sheen and a heavier grain pattern. This does a better job of hiding fur, drool, and general animal mess. My nice shiny dark floors show everything.

I like your vision but you need to talk your husband into the white ceiling.

We actually did decide to do the white ceiling. Thanks!

Thanks to you all for your suggestions. We ended up going very light and loved it! With the yellow walls gone, I was satisfied with leaving the beams alone (although I painted the beams in the master white!). We're not done, but it's coming along fine!

Looking good. Amazing the difference painting the fireplace brickwork made. I love the touches of bright pink too, a nice change from the usual colours but I would like to see a touch of green with it to really add some life.

Wow what a difference already! Looking forward to seeing more!

Thanks! They're actually red accents. I think I might try to add a few more accent pieces here and there, but I really want to minimize the amount of items in this room because this is the dogs' living space and they like to DESTROY! Lol. I'll have more photos up when the bar is done. :)

Well, it is a very nice red. I'm an indoor plant freak and would still like to see a pot or two of greenery - provided the dogs remember their manners of course. I wouldn't put any more red in, too many things can make it look patchy and takes it from classy to messy.