One of the reasons that the living room has been progressing so slowly is because we haven't been able to decide what to do as far as a rug and a sofa. We've looked at LOTS of both, and nothing ever felt quite right. We both like the copper red/hubbard squash gold combination, but I just don't think we can live with it. It's an odd feeling, especially since we were both so enthusiastic about the color choices to begin with. But our brave choice has been dragging us down. We're just not comfortable with it.
I realized it last week after a discussion with one of my coworkers. I was looking through a magazine, and I commented that I should have painted the livng room green. Two days later, I had a mini-meltdown on the phone with my mom, and I realized Shayne and I needed to have a talk about where we wanted to go with the living room. Since then, I've looked at numerous pictures of red rooms and realized that none of them feel homey to me. Many of them are very nice and well-decorated, but it's just not us. I looked through pictures on OldHouses.com (the archives are like old house porn), and saved pictures of rooms that I liked and that felt comfortable to me, without regard to color. Without exception, every room that I picked had light walls with either a cream-colored or leather sofa. The majority of them had gold or tan walls, with one being green. Red is used as an accent, but not the predominant color. Here are the photos I came up with (All but one of the photos have links to their respective owners):
The bottom 2 photos are by far my favorites. The second-to-last photo just feels like home to me. The warm, creamy tan walls set off the woodwork beautifully, and the floors are about the same color as those in the Prairie Box. The last photo has walls that look like the "hubbard squash" paint we used for the area above the picture rail and the upstairs hallway. It's lighter and brighter, but still feels very warm and inviting to me. Both colors would allow the woorwork and any wood furnishings to stand out. With the red walls, they just blend in.
Acting on the advice of people wiser than us (thanks Mom!), we are going to pick out a rug that we like, without regard to whether it will go with our current color scheme. Since it will be the focal point of the room, it's important that we like it. The wall color will be chosen to compliment the rug, our wood furniture, and the wood trim. And hopefully, by doing things in the right order this time, we'll have a room we can live in.
