Living Room and Loft style

May 31, 2005 14:36





This is my inspiration for my living room. Have I done anything with it? No. But I have two lovely chairs sitting out in my garage, wasting away, waiting for me to reupholster them in a rich red fabric. Part of the theme I have running through my house, eclectic as it is, is bright punches of red in every room. But I don't want that red to always fall in the same form (ie red curtains in all the rooms, or red furniture), or even in the same solid pattern. I love this living room because it has so much texture. Right now, I have a very conventional two story living room in a newly constructed house. I have the typical drywall with the patterned skimcoat in an unwashable white paint. It's bright, but very boring.

The drapes are incredible too. It took me a while to figure out that the drapes actually have two colors, one is blue, which punches up the color of the windows, and the other an almost bronze-neutral. I'm going to need some help to do this in my living room since I have three windows, two of which are stacked, separated by a few feet of wall. The measurements would have to be precise, the seems incredibly straight and the touch on the fabric really delicate. And this doesn't even take into consideration the whole possibility of angling the fabric to account for the ceiling angle - something that may be a bit over the top - not sure if I want to really do that, or how I would keep them in place.

I already have five black Lack shelves (long) from IKEA stacked on one wall leading up to the loft in a very dramatic display. This holds 3 paintings on the top shelf and the next four shelves house my Dia De Los Muertos collection and some art books. This is the wall that I'm thinking of doing in faux brick. Ideally, that would be a faux brick panelling, but I've not been able to locate a panelling in the style that I would like (aged red brick with light grout). I'm not sure I want to commit to actually adhering a shallow brick facade to the wall.

The long wall that supports the staircase has two low bookcase butted together for a long shelf - I'm okay with painting it, adding additional doors, or even changing out doors to frosted glass. The wall itself could also be bricked, but since this is a pony wall, would present some transition problems at the top. I would like to add a cap for the wall that would flow up the stairs and around the wall of the loft in a lacquered maple - a price project no doubt. The hand rail would also have to be painted or replaced to match, preferably with a contemporary looking metal or wood style. The wall on the other side of the stairs could easily be painted in a neutral color, a putty or mustard perhaps.

Looking at the ceiling of this model room, the wood finish lends a real warmth to the space. I think it would be important to paint the ceiling to convey that idea, perhaps color blocking the beam that runs along the peak of the ceiling in a darker color, such as a rick dark brown.

The wall that runs along the opposite side of the room, the far east wall of the house, is the biggest wall to contend with. This wall is the one that I really want to finish in panels painted to look like rusted metal, as if the entire wall were covered in scrap metal. I think the warmth of the rusted finish could be really nice, adding texture and interest, with a certain amount of warmth, but keep a sort of industrial/loft tone to the room. I'm concerned that that and the faux brick would be entirely too much, but maybe not. Maybe I just need to dare to do it. At the very least, the rusted paneling, though laborious to install, would be removable.

The front wall of the house I think could either be brick (though this assumes that the pony wall is not bricked but painted the same neutral color as the other side of the staircase)

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