Hi Amy, How about a light stain. One that would show the wood and still lighten the ceiling. Semi transparent stain would work. You then have best of both worlds!

keep! is lovely

Wow a bit of a dilemma for sure I see an awful lot of wood once you remove the wall you will need to add more wood ceiling to make it work so I think you need to really think of what you like. I do have to say I do not like kitchens open to LRs DRs yes .I think I need to know more about your style to give any help . Remember if you open that wall where will you redo the storage you lose . So I always like to advise clients to live in a space for a bit before making major decisions . I do not think we can know without having a lot more info as to your style for sure

When I bought my home one of my first thoughts was to remove the wall between the kitchen and living area. Thankfully I was unable to do anything right away. I posted pics of my space and got a lot of feedback. Patricia was one of the people who said - don't do it. She also recommended changing the kitchen to a galley kitchen to increase work space.

The longer I lived in the space the more I realized that the only things that didn't work in my space were - I needed more work space and I hated that you can see my sink from the front door. I am planning on doing the kitchen reno next year. It will be a galley kitchen with just the dining space open to the living room and the kitchen open to the dining. Opening it up may have been pretty - but I would have lost so much functionality that it would not have been worth the trade.

Thank you everyone for your ideas! We are not in our space yet but will consider all of these great options. The kitchen will be a big factor and something that wouldn’t be tackled right away. So we will be able to see how the flow works.

I think the biggest thing is to reduce the overall brown tones so perhaps just starting with a new paint color on the walls would be a good start!

If I were to open your space I would just open to the doorway height and leave the lower ceiling in the kitchen.

Bad PhotoShop but hopefully represents the idea . . .

We think keeping the cedar ceiling adds a lot to the space. Perhaps you might want to keep it for now and see how you like it before painting over it.

Modern Desert Classic Home: Family Room · More Info

What did you decide? Would love to see pics!

We decided to go with a different house actually! The new one has a lot of maple and needing a good refresh of paints and eventually bathrooms etc. I made a new post. Thanks for reaching out. Sad to have missed out on these views of the lake!