We are first time newlyweds, just bought a 20 year old house, and are in the midst of doing some updates. We need help with our color scheme, making it work with the furniture we already have (without buying new), and still staying true to the design looks that we find to be aesthetically pleasing. The downstairs layout of the house is as follows: the front door opens directly into the carpeted living room (with very light grey walls--which don't seem to go with our furniture--, a golden/dandelion yellow couch, a yellow gingham captain's chair and ottoman, a green and cream antique loveseat, white and cream lamps, a white mantle, white coffee table, end tables, and hutch for the TV). The living room forks to allow entry into the kitchen or the small hallway to the dining flows. From the living room going into the kitchen, it flows into the open "L-shaped" kitchen through a standard door sized casing (with soon to be refinished "jacobean" hardwood floors, a white mobile kitchen island, white cabinets, a tall white hutch, and tan laminate countertops-which we would like to replace. The kitchen also has french doors leading to the back porch. The kitchen and dining room are joined by an 8' open casing (since we knocked out a wall), and the dining room has french doors opening to the screened in porch. The dining room has soon to be refinished "jacobean" hardwood floors, sky blue walls, white chair rail, white bead board, a dark walnut "barn style" dining table, cream captain's chairs, dark walnut chairs recovered with light blue/teal and white fabric, a black antique buffet, and a white corner cabinet with black bead board shelving.

When we complete these updates, we would like for our home to have an inviting, warm, cozy feel. We love natural, neutral, clean designs, but love pops/accents of color here and there. Our living room is small with very little natural light coming in. Our kitchen and dining room are a bit larger, more open, and have more natural light coming in, but are still kinda small rooms, so we are trying to stay away from too dark of wall colors.

After that long, hopefully understandable description (since I have no pictures currently to upload), here are my questions:

1. Do the dining room and kitchen need to have the same wall color, and color scheme based on their layout and the openness from one room to the other?

2. What color should we paint our living room based on our yellow, green, cream, and white furniture?

Thanks so much for your help! :)