*A note from the author: This podcast episode (as well as all future episodes) will be transcribed automatically. The author is currently aware of, and getting hives at the thought of, all of the grammatical errors she's finding as she proof reads her transcript. She recognizes that her former English teachers are likely rolling over in their graves, if that is where they currently reside, but also knows that some things just have to give. Please feel free to listen instead and be sure to read non-podcast posts so you can rest assured that she does, in fact, know how to compose written words into proper story telling.*
Links mentioned within the show:
Facebook Community: bit.ly/design101group
Instagram and Facebook: @figandfarm
Work with me: https://www.figandfarmathome.com/design-packages
Speaker 2: (00:47)
I'm Danny. A former first grade teacher turned home decorator going from a dual income to a single income. So I could stay home with my babies, meant budget, like ramen eating, Goodwill, shopping budget. And I learned a few things along the way, like how to bring big styles to your home without breaking the bank. And I'm sharing it all with you. Tips, tricks, decor, and design advice. So you can learn to tell your story with your style where you can start living free from the Pinterest perfect trap and start living a life of intention. Welcome to fig and farm at home where redesigned happy living and where it doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful.
Speaker 3: (01:26)
Last week, we chatted about some of the things that could be making your home look and feel tired and dated. And one of the things I mentioned with paint paint is I would almost say my top thing I'd recommend to any client is either in home decorating or home staging paint can dramatically change the look and the feel of a room. Last week, I gave you the example of my boys' bathroom and it went from that fun granny Smith, green to white white, isn't always a foundation you need to work for or work with, but sometimes changing the color of paint on the walls is enough to change the feel of a room. You can take a room that is bland and boring and make it dramatic and playful and fun. Just buy a coat of paint, or you could do the opposite. You could take a room that is tired and dated and you can change the paint and make it bright and airy or warm and cozy or brooding and moody paint can change the feeling of a room.
Speaker 3: (02:35)
And sometimes it's not as easy as just picking the color one color. You might like the color when you get it to the store, but you get at home, you painted on the walls and then what now, how do you make the stuff that is living in that space? Feel intentional, feel cohesive. It all starts at the plan. And once understand that plan, you can then make sure that you are making those intentional choices to make that cohesive look. So today we're actually not going to be diving into the plan. And if you want to know the plan, I do want you to go back to my series and I want you to, um, find that one. I think it starts in episode six where I talk about, but where do I start planning the room, understanding the purpose, and then making, um, finding your ASA static and making that plan go back and listen to those.
Speaker 3: (03:30)
If you need to know the plan, but today I want to talk to you about the power of paint. Now you don't always just have to use paint on the walls to make a difference. What about paint on the ceiling? Have you done that? Would you do that? I tried. I've always wanted to do paint on the ceiling. And I finally got my chance last year when I painted my boys room, um, they're seeing their, their rooms surprised why, but I painted their room ceiling, a deep, deep Navy blue, and it's a star wars themed room. They do have a little bit of star wars wallpaper, but the ceiling makes the room. It is so gorgeous and ties into the other things that are playing out there. So you can paint the walls. You can paint the ceiling. What about the cabinets? Changing the cabinets can dramatically change the look in the feel of the room few years ago, when we first moved in our home had that honey maple colored wood for the cabinets, and we don't have a window in our kitchen.
Speaker 3: (04:37)
So it made it feel really dark. Even though our walls were light, they were not white, but they're light. But that would because it takes up so much landscape, so much real estate in the kitchen. It has a heavy, heavy presence. So one summer during nap time course, years ago when the babies were napping, I went to town, I took down all of the cabinets I painted now. I painted it myself and it's held up, but I don't necessarily recommend you painting it yourself. If you don't have experience doing the DIY painting, if you don't have experience painting furniture or painting things without using a spray can, um, I do recommend hiring someone because otherwise it could be one of those. You live it for a second and then you start wearing on it and it doesn't work. So it is worth hiring someone, but that can dramatically change the look in the feel of the room.
Speaker 3: (05:33)
I remember, um, the, the base was painted. The cupboards doors were painted inside and out. And as we were rehanging them, I just felt this breath of fresh air. It felt like sunshine was lit up in my room, in my kitchen in a way that it just could not have been before. It just could not have been with the dark cabinets. So what else can you paint? You can paint the furniture if your walls are fine, but there's something funky happening in your space. What about changing the paint of the furniture? If you have a piece that is been passed down, it was lived a previous life. If you are one step away from giving it to Goodwill or one step away from kicking it to the curb, why not try paint? Some of you right now might be thinking, but it's, it's abort, abort.
Speaker 3: (06:27)
It is wood. Do not paint wood. Okay. I will probably never convince those of you that land in that camp, that painting wood furniture is an okay thing. And I do have my own set of rules for those stuff that I will not paint. If it looks like it has been in grandma's dining room for the last 55 years. And she is used, um, pledge on it or some sort of wonderful, you know, wax or something to, to preserve it. And it is priceless and it's pristine. And it is just gorgeous. Do not paint that do not paint it. You will immediately bring down the value, but if you have a vintage piece that is wood, but it has scratches and gouges and deans and handles that are broken and doors that are kind of a little wobbly. And it is just looking so tired that it is lived its life.
Speaker 3: (07:21)
And boy, it was beat up. Why not paint that? Why not? Because sometimes paint can, can help deter the eye from those scratches and those things sometimes. And sometimes painting a piece of wood furniture, vintage parent furniture that is taking up a big portion of your room painting that can dramatically change the look and feel of your room, just like a cabinet would, if you ever wanted to learn how to paint your own furniture, give it a try. It's easier than you think. I have a paint course for you. It's painting 1 0 1 and I use chalk paint, and you can find that fig and farm@home.com underneath the tab courses. And you'll find that class there. But before we dive into the real heart of today's episode, I want to give you a little bit more information for what happens when you realize that paint is what needs to be changing.
Speaker 3: (08:19)
Paint is something that, yes. Okay. You are, you sold me, Danny. I need to paint. Okay. How do I make the best paint choice guys? It's not as easy or as simple as going to the paint store and picking out a color swatch. It's not as easy as that. If it were what it would end up feeling like is the days of old. When we had one room, one color, one another room, another color, a third room, a separate color. And none of it would tie together. It would feel discombobulated and not cohesive. So how do you go and choose a color when you want your home to look and feel cohesive? If you listened last week, I gave you a teeny tiny tidbit, a little snapshot of what that could look like. So here it is. Here's what I want you to think about.
Speaker 3: (09:07)
If you have a open concept home or even in a home that has some closed rooms, but you have a hallway that connects. I want you to think about setting a foundation and choosing a foundational color that will flow throughout in an open concept home or throughout the hallways. If a hallway touches a room that has opened an openness to it, like an open den with no closed doors, perhaps that should stay the same color as your foundational wall color, any door that is shut that's that's free, right? You can have free play like I did with my star wars themed boys room with the blue ceiling, you can have that free play once the door is shut, but how do you make a cohesive color palette when you have the open floor plan or when you have the hallways that go up the stairs and into the living room and dining room and kitchen.
Speaker 3: (10:06)
Here's my, here's my flow in my home. And I want to tell you, this is a foundational wall. So when you walk in the door, you see the library, the library extends into the dining room, the dining room to the kitchen, what we call the sunroom, which was an Eden kitchen that we converted and then the living room, and then a hallway into an office and a bathroom, the office and the bathroom are the doors that shut nothing else in there does. So the office and the bathroom are different and they're playful. And they're a little bit more fun. Everything else in that space is a light gray, a very light gray. You go up the stairway into the hallway upstairs, and you have a couple of bedrooms, a bathroom, and a laundry room, and a playroom that hallway, that stairway is all that same foundational color because it all blends together.
Speaker 3: (11:00)
All ties together. Even though we have a stairway separating the upstairs from the downstairs, that all blends together. Once we start shutting doors, that's when you can start having different personalities coming out. Now, one thing you might want to keep in mind is what happens when you are inside. One of those rooms looking out, does what you have inside looking out. Does it really clash or does it compliment each other? If it compliments each other? Awesome. Go for it. But it doesn't necessarily have to have that foundational color. So now you ask yourself the question, okay. If I can do free play within the walls of the rooms, that with the doors shut, how do I make whatever is left out all of that foundation of the home and you're, and you're saying foundational color over and over Danny, how do I know what that is?
Speaker 3: (11:51)
And how do I make it play well with the other colors I want to choose? Okay. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to go back to first grade math and we're going to make an equation. And that equation is going to be a starting point of 60, 60 plus blank equals 100, whatever foundational color you choose for your wall. Let's say white, you are going to have that represented in 60% of your home space. Of course, all the walls. And then other things like pillows and textiles and blankets and things like that, 60% is going to be visually white. And then maybe you want to have the remainder of that equation. 40 as one accent color, maybe you're, you're a white and blue gal. And you love the, um, the ginger jars that are white and blue, maybe that's you to a T.
Speaker 3: (12:49)
And so you know that, oh my gosh, here we go. Here's my formula. 60 plus 40, 60 white, 40 blue. There you go. That's my formula. I'm going to see blue repeated throughout. I'm going to see it in art, on textiles, in curtains, in all kinds of places, maybe even a blue couch, I'm going to see it all over the place, but maybe you want that remainder remainder 40 of that equation to be a couple accent colors. Do you want one dominant accent color, like 30% and then 10% something else maybe you do, maybe you want to equal accent colors, 20% orange in 20% purple. I'm making those two colors up. Don't don't put those together, but maybe whatever equation you have, you want to have that foundational color be the dominant, and you can work with 60% ish or 70%. Now I'm not saying go and take out a calculator and a tape measure and really record the square foot of every place that you're going to see white, for example, but you are going to get an idea of how much white are you seeing?
Speaker 3: (14:01)
Are you seeing 60? Are you seeing 70%? Where are you seeing it? And then you're going to do the same thing with the accent color. So whatever that formula is, 60 plus 20 plus 10 plus 10 equals 170 plus 30 equals 100, whatever it is you want that foundational color to be more dominant, more than 50%, 60 or 70 is a safe bet. Now, if you're thinking, how do I choose a foundational color? That really should be determined back in your plan. Once you understand the aesthetic of your home, the aesthetic that you're going with, but a really safe cliff note version is choosing those paints trips at the paint store, the very lightest color that is always, always a safe bet. Even if it's tinted green, even if that's tinted yellow, anytime you add saturation to it, it's going to make it sometimes a little bit more confining to decorate with having a lighter foundation of a wall can be, sometimes people say boring, but it can be really liberating because it allows so much flexibility with the other stuff you bring in.
Speaker 3: (15:11)
Okay, that's it. In a nutshell, we are going to be diving into that so much deeper later on, but really the heart of the show. Wasn't about that color formula. It wasn't about paint, paint, paint. It's about this it's about transformation. And what you're going to hear next is me walking through a room, edit with a couple of sisters who had a great plan and their plan was to surprise their parents while their parents were out of town with a room makeover. Now we were crunched with time. And so I, and I was close enough. I was able to go in and help them with it. Generally I don't for room edits, but these gals I did. What you're going to hear is me giving these girls a room, edit it is me speaking to them in a PowerPoint presentation with pictures that they presented of the rooms that they wanted to redo for their parents.
Speaker 3: (16:03)
And this was a beautiful act of love for them. They have done this before, but what I do want to caution you, if you think, oh my gosh, this is a great idea. Just remember that. Sometimes when you're working with other people's stuff, you need to be sensitive to, um, their choices. You need to be sensitive to the things that they have and the attachments they might have to it. So you might hear me saying over and over again, put it away, put it aside and save it for mom to go through later. Anyway, you're not going to want to miss this. This is so much fun. And one thing I want you to be on the lookout for is when I tell these girls all these recommendations of things they can change, but the one thing that is going to make the most dramatic difference, and if they do nothing else, they need to paint. I'm going to be posting these pictures before and after on my website, I will link it in my show notes so that you can go take a peak at the before and after and otherwise enjoy.
Speaker 4: (17:07)
Hi girls, you guys, I'm so excited about this project. I think it's so much fun that you want to, um, surprise your parents and do this kind of big make-over. It's not just one room. It is two with an entryway. So, um, that's pretty substantial. Um, okay. I'm coming to you here right now, because time is of the essence. And, um, we are meeting in a few days to talk about kind of details, but I think the more work we do now, the easier it's going to be to pull off. So let me pull up those pictures for you. And, um, and I'll tell you what I see that I think we should run with. Okay. So you mentioned that, um, that the flooring you don't necessarily like the flooring, but they're heated floors, which is awesome, especially in the Northwest. Um, and you mentioned maybe painting, um, mom and dad liked the lake cabin feel, um, and that you want to get some cleaners in there.
Speaker 4: (18:05)
So, um, what I notice is this, um, the flooring is not as problematic to me as the Wacom. I think the wall color really dates the space. And I think if we tone that down to kind of a lighter, um, white, creamy, white oatmeal kind of color, that's going to compliment the flooring and also compliment the wood color of the kitchen. So, um, and, and then if we can keep the color scheme in terms of, um, beachy Lakey, and what I mean by that is like, um, white screams, oatmeals sand, if you can kind of imagine sand blues, um, and then some greens even to bring some green thing in, because what I see, what I remember is that, um, they live on the lake, right? So this isn't just a, I like the lake, look, it is an invitation to pull the outside in.
Speaker 4: (18:59)
And so that's kind of the goal, but doing that in this space is going to mean a couple of things. So, um, sourcing big pieces of furniture, um, in such a tight timeline is really hard, I think hard. Um, so I think we should leave the couch. The couch is blue and it automatically goes into that blue of the lake. Um, but we can update it dramatically, um, by removing the quilt by removing this is a denim couch I can see by removing the denim pillows. Anytime you have the couch with the original pillows that it came with, I think it, it dates it automatically. It's like, um, when you drive a car off Carla, and you, you, you know, put my it's already dated, um, it's the same thing with the couch to me. So we're going to lighten that couch with some creamy, creamy pillows, different textures.
Speaker 4: (19:56)
Um, but I think, and I'm wondering, um, if we can replace these chairs, these chairs make that space feel really dark as well as the dark rug. So if we eliminate the rug too, um, that will lighten it up. Um, but not to eliminate it, we're going to replace it with a lighter rug, um, and, and a rug that more fits the space. Um, this one's a little bit too small. Um, okay. So back to the chairs, if we focus on chairs that are kind of a lighter color, um, a lighter color, and, um, they might have the same profile, but, um, just lighter in general, it's going to lighten that corner up and brighten it. This table is a little too high, too tall for these chairs. So we're going to find a new table, um, and a new, more modern lamp. This one looks a little bit dated, um, looking down the road, but I think we can order them now it would be to replace these curtains.
Speaker 4: (20:49)
So when you have kind of awkward, um, window spaces like this, um, one way we can make it less awkward is by putting, um, by, by dressing it with long drapes, long curtains on the side. And then we're going to replace that actually with, um, I think we should bamboo, um, bamboo shades. Um, we'll talk on Sunday. I'll give you my source super inexpensive. You're gonna be shocked at how inexpensive they are. Um, and the, the bamboo shade they're going to be the function. So that's going to be the light filtering and the privacy, but the curtains are just going to frame it and make this window thing not feel so awkward. Um, okay. Question about the chair. Um, right now, this says to me like, this is kind of the color I'm thinking about, um, for the chairs in the corner. Um, but the backing of this chair feels more vintage.
Speaker 4: (21:46)
It feels more shabby chic, um, that kind of thing. So can we remove this chair? That's one question. Um, and do we need a place for the dog? Um, you know, should we just get a dog bed? Um, so, okay. I think that's everything in here. Um, we'll address the wall hangings and things like that. A little more specifically in person in later. Okay. Let's go to the kitchen. Um, so you mentioned the like cabin and lake, and if we do the color formula that I'm kind of talking about, like the, um, the lighter white screenings, sand blues, and greens, um, this rug won't fit into that color scheme. So, um, and then also, do we need a rug in there? We'll, we'll talk about that because I'll need to see that in person, but do we need a rug in there in general, but looking in this space, what I notice, I see a lot of farmhouse.
Speaker 4: (22:47)
I see lots of chickens here. I don't know the pattern of that balance, but balances, um, date spaces too. So if we eliminate the balance, put a bamboo shade there, that's going to carry over with what's happening in the other room and also feel kind of beachy Lakey because of the natural woven elements here. Um, another, I see another chicken here and maybe those are some chicken plates. So, um, think about it because mom and dad don't know this is happening. Think about what to do with the chickens. Well, the chickens come back out. If we put them in a box, do we donate them? That's going to be up to you guys. Um, that's going to be up to you guys. Um, the other thing here as I see the coffee corner, so if we kind of want to do Lakey, we might bring Lakey in here too, and eliminate those.
Speaker 4: (23:35)
Um, and then again, you know, greens up here. So anytime you have lots of stuff up above that can date a space. If you have collections of things, and I see a collection of chickens, but that's not what I mean, but like collections of white pottery or collections of, um, that's really, that's really, um, you know, plants, plants are a generational plants are like an eighties, nineties thing on the top of the, the furniture or the cupboard. So let's plan on getting rid of those, um, excuse me. Okay. Um, and then anything else, you know, you can tuck away in here that might eliminate that visual that make the visual field feel a little less, um, congested would be a good thing. So, um, you know, mom should probably decide if she needs all those measuring cups, for example, but, um, but can you put them away and say, because if they see it, if they see it in a space and they see, oh my gosh, this is new and fresh and wonderful.
Speaker 4: (24:42)
They might want to then make those changes for themselves. Okay. Let's go into, um, this space and we already talked about the living room, but two more questions about that. Um, okay. The, or I love since that's Lakey, we're going Lakey. I love that. Um, do we need to keep the coffee table really any pieces in here? Do we need to keep them, can we get rid of them? Um, those are the questions to ask before we meet and then right over here, which is what I'm assuming is the entryway. I see another farmhouse element. Um, and if we are going Lakey, maybe that needs to be removed. Um, if we do bamboo shades here, we'll want to do them here and then we won't need curtains. Um, and then this is kind of a cool, it looks like a bench, but we might B's pillows, which I'm assuming went with those chairs.
Speaker 4: (25:38)
Um, we might want to get rid of it cause it just darkens that corner. Um, and so if we think about lightening that up, if we do want pillows there, we'll make sure that they're light and airy and have those that color story happening again. Um, all right, you guys, this plan is doable. The biggest amount of work that's going to need to happen is the paint that it's the biggest amount, but paint is it's going to be worth it. It's going to be, um, when, once he start unifying those spaces with paint, it's going to make this space field dramatically changed, um, all by itself. So, um, if we do one thing and if we only do one thing, I think it should be paint. So, um, I will see you guys on Sunday to talk more in detail.
Speaker 1: (26:34)
Are you curious now? What did they do? Did they paint? Did they not paint? You'll have to go check out the show notes and go to the link to sure. You see the transformation. Also, if you couldn't tell I was doing that outside, that is one of the perks of working from home. You get to have your meetings outside on the back porch, and if you want your own transformation, like that room edits are a possibility whether I live in your hometown or not, you can go find them on my website, fig and farm@home.com and look under work with me and you'll find the room at it. All right, girls, I'll see you soon.
Speaker 2: (27:11)
Hey, real quick. Before you go, if you learned something new or found value in today's podcast, would you head over to iTunes, to fig and farm at home and leave a review and subscribe to the show? That would be awesome. And if you'd like to connect with my community of mamas who are burning to be intentional storytellers within their own homes, join us at bit dot L Y forward slash design 1 0 1 group. There's always more room at the table. See you soon.