For Older People with Sense

yes, carole, what color?

chrissy, we do our roofs pretty much like barbe. With tar paper and flashing over the wood, then asphalt shingles which come in about 6 different colors. Most of the roofs are slanted so the snow slides off, but the flat roofs have to be shoveled. Here in the NE US we use a lot of wood (cedar) shingles to side the house. It saves us from having to paint because they weather to a grey. So the little house will be stucco covered concrete on the white parts then shingled on the top wooden parts. I think we will probably go with a charcoal grey roof shingle too. It is just sitting on a slab, but most houses here have basements (cellars). 

The house I live in now is newer (built in 1985) it was built into the side of a hill so there is a walk out basement and also windows in the west facing wall so we get afternoon sun in the shop. From the front of the house, it only looks like it is 2 floors, but from the back it looks huge (3 floors). I had it sided in vinyl siding in a pale yellow, for the price and the ease of not painting.

I love the old buildings in older  countries. I really liked the cottages in Ireland. That's what I picture your house looks like, chrissy. 

What else were we talking about? I can't remember.

oooooh, beautiful Lisa. Is that your pool? 

In florida , I've redone the landscaping in front of the house twice. The first was the original. The second was SUPPOSED to be xeriscaping----------not grow much, tolerant to climate, with little watering. Overgrew some, others not living up to there description of how hardy they were per the installer--out it came after freezing and dieing over several seasons. 

Really, then the third time did zeroscaping next, Wrought iron, Art objects, bench, and teracotta/gravel stone. From the street and at house side it always looks very trimmed and neat------not a flower to be seen. Looks constantly fresh. I totally love landscaping , but here landscaping can be wiped out by weather sooo fast. I was tired of loosing $$$$. LOL

I did include forever plant plantars with the third change, but then DINI the lizard chasing lab/pit mix came. Destroyed the plantars and forever flowers which the lizards frequented.  Chose not to replace. It works. 

Miss the one plantar from california-irreplacable. It was so artistic. When Dini knocked it over I thought a Rocket blew up. It was a couple hundred pounds.

My grandfather was a cobbler. He was apprenticed in 1882 in Italy at 10 years old and came to the USA in 1892.

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He did for a few years.  Then after he learned English he went to Yale Divinity School and ended up being an Italian Baptist Minister.  Who would have guessed! And he married a my grandmother whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower. 

Love the home pics, too.  Your home is delightful, Chrissy.  Beautiful pool, Lisa.  No cellars or basements in south Louisiana.  Homes are either on concrete slabs or raised on piers.  In flood-prone areas, the houses can be raised 8 or 10 ft. so that there is parking underneath.

My living room color is called silken stocking.  It's a nice neutral beige color and will cover a mint green that dh picked out about 10 yrs ago when he retired.  I go back and forth between shades of white and neutral colors and more dramatic colors.  When we moved into this house 20 yrs ago, it was a dramatic color phase.  Next came serene variations of white to cover the color.  Then when dh retired, back to some color.  For example our bedroom is a caramel color and our master bathroom is cranberry red.  They will stay as they are because window treatments and bed comforter and pillows bring the two colors together.  Plus I still like those walls.  But this mint green has to go!  I never loved it and it's very limiting.

It's much easier to change things around with a neutral backdrop (says the woman with one teal wall in her living room. Our living room has a big window to the north and a tiny one on the west wall. DH planted a tree that shades the living room even further in the summer. The teal wall needs to go. Perhaps a pale aqua would work. The other walls are a pinky off white.

I have learned from YEARS of experience and MANY moves what colours to paint here in Ontario. (one year I moved 5 times!) I used to try to "warm up" northern exposures and "cool down" southern ones, but it's actually the exact opposite!! When you put a cool colour in a warm room you kill it. Dead. Same thing with trying to warm up a cool room. The trick is to not fight it. I kind of knew this years ago when I was selling flooring and someone wanted white carpeting to brighten up a dark basement. I told them that all they would have is light carpet in a dark basement. 

We moved into a loft condo years ago that swept up 18 feet and had a 24 foot span of windows in a narrow space. It was painted off-white. I felt like I was spinning down into the throat of a toilet!!! We painted the walls a bronze colour and it was AMAZING!!!!

Colour can really make or break a room. I am a quilting colour "expert" and speak often at quilt stores and gatherings. But coastal light is totally different than interior light and you guys can get away with the soft whites that we just can't out here. (on trim, yes) Does anyone paint their ceilings yet? I haven't done that except in bathrooms (taken the wall colour up and over). I also keep my trim dead white.

this is where I got my love of white and gold...

wren, what it the room used for? There is an amazing green called Green Smoke which is a grayed down value of green. A paint store should be able to help you with this. It would be a soft green that has grey added rather than white. 

Colour is really fairly basic. To bring it down to the simplest form it has either yellow or blue tones in it. For example, pink is a VERY cold colour!!! It's red with white. BUT, you can make a warmer pink by adding hints of yellow without bringing it to a peach level, which is warm. On the other side of the colour wheel, blue is a VERY cold colour! But, if you add yellow to it, it starts to head towards green on the colour wheel which is a warm colour. Orange is the warmest colour of all. Purple has blue in it. Teal has blue in a green. Aqua has more blue in it. 

Taupe can be beige, tan, coffee, latte, bandaid coloured, skin coloured, greyish, etc. 

Carole, I looked up silk stockings on Google and came up with a dark gray and a fairly dark brown. Are you using one of these?

Barbe, Our living room is used to read mostly, and to converse when we have company. I was going for a peach and aqua beach vibe when DH brought home a Pendleton throw in brown, muted orange, and turquoise. My son's dining room, which has lots of windows and is east of the Cascades where they get sun, is painted a bright yellow. I got a large sample from Benjamin Moore and it looked dark and forbidding in our living room. I'm considering painting our kitchen cabinets white with the pale blue green of old mixing bowls on the walls, although I'm pretty intimidated about the cabinets. I'm going to price getting new cabinets which would be more functional and already be white. The green I'm considering is a lighter version of the smoke green.

It really really lightened up the kitchen

It brightened your kitchen....not lightened it... I know, I know...semantics! The room is still the same lightness, it just looks brighter. (You can curse me in private....I hate watching home hunting shows when people say the "ceilings are so tall!". No. Cabinets can be tall. People can be tall. But ceilings can only be high. (Maybe they should say the walls are tall?)

Wren the throw your DH brought home was probably a LOT darker than the colours you chose for your walls. A lot of people look at a paint strip and say they "love this colour" (far down) but are scared, so they "do this one instead" and move their hands up the strip. Totally different colours!! At least you realized the yellow was so wrong for a north facing room! Good for you on that one. Watch out getting a "lighter version of the smoke green" or it could look pissy and weak. The colour I HATE the most is "boys room blue". I call it "pissant blue". It is SO COLD!!!!!!!!!!!  Your kitchen colours sound wonderful. A blue with yellow in it to make it green-ey tinged is all the rage today. Your other colours in your living room were '80s colours and were great for then, but must feel tired now.

Look at a colour wheel and note when the colours start to get warmer....any tint (white added) or tone (gray added) in that range would work in a sun-filled room. Opposite side for the northern rooms.

Sorry to hear that. Take it easy! Barbe ,I know nothing about colors or design. I wish I did. I just know I feel more cheerful with the lighter room