Traditional Home In Need Of A Little Makeover

Wondering where I have been lately?  There are a ton of decorating blogs out there and I have been visiting them over the past several months. I have to confess I feel a some pangs of guilt knowing that I have neglected my own. I am still trying to find my place in this whole new world. I was a homeschooling momma for a total of 16 years but I worked myself out of a job. It is a mixed hazard/happy result of such a job. It does leave you standing around, turning in a circle a bit, wondering what to do next.

I haven't done much in my own home but have been busy in a friend's home. Been getting my decorating fix on there. Do you walk into your friend's homes and think, "This room would look so good painted a nice _________ color." Or, "Wouldn't it be nice to have a room like this to decorate?" My friend had decorated her home when she first moved in over a decade ago. She feels she isn't "good" at the decorating thing and asked for my help. Her home is about three times the size of mine with big rooms vs. my small colonial-cape rooms in my home. Ooh, this is going to be fun!

This is a two story home with a walkout full basement. I was asked to help update the main floor. Here is a floor plan of the main floor. (It is not to scale, just my chicken scratch rendering.) :

The foyer:

The formal living room:

Yes, we started this project right in the middle of the Christmas season!

The formal dining room:

The kitchen: I always forget the before photos so the house was already being torn apart when I snapped these.

The family room:

The plan is to lighten and brighten this home. My friend likes the Scandinavian style: clean, minimal, light and airy. Like me, she also likes bold and bright pops of color. She also loves the beach and wants to incorporate some of that feel into her home. (You know that's my jam!)

We are working with a lot of the existing furniture and two pieces of existing artwork.

A budget was set. I went home and put together a plan. I then met with both her and her husband and tweaked some things based on their preferences. We set up a Pinterest board as a place to share ideas and products for the project. You can find it by clicking here.

We jumped right in with paint. The kitchen, family room, mud room, guest bathroom and foyer will get some fresh color!

This will entail a series of posts, probably going room by room. Thanks for visiting with me today and I hope you come back to see the progress.