Pivoting design plans to work with an existing color palette

As soon as we realized we’d be keeping the home and renovating it ourselves, I knew we needed to be as nimble and cost-efficient as possible. My original designs for the rooms—many of which would’ve been changing dramatically—had to go out the window. But the truth is, I’d already put them to rest when we decided to sell the home.

In fact, a wonderful new friend (Hi Kim!) who happens to be a therapist walked me through a goodbye ceremony. Have you ever heard of one of these? I hadn’t. When I first walked her through the house, I could still see my first visions for the house: the milky pinkish-gray front living room with a built-in bar and the dining room’s dark green bookshelves and wallpapered ceiling. We did some classic woo-woo lady magic: read poetry about letting go, lit some sage. And then on the way out, we walked through the rooms again and I let go of my visions. I imagined them floating outside of my head and into the sky so I could more clearly see the house exactly as it is, right now at this very point in time.

A month later, I felt more free to start from scratch with a design for this rental property rather than my dream home. We’ve decided to renovate the downstairs first so we can start renting it out sooner, and you’ll see it has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room, kitchen, dining space, and laundry hallway. Given that we couldn’t dump a ton more money into this renovation, I knew we’d have to work around some major parameters. And instead of viewing them as annoyances, I like to think of them as strong guardrails to guide the new designs. We’re working around what we can’t change, so at least we have a starting point.

I spent a few hours making this little color wheel to show the existing color palette of the home. It’s not too shabby, right?! We’ll likely a few more tones of colors as we go, all while keeping this wheel in mind.

*White trim: Unfortunately the molding throughout this home is a hodgepodge of styles that have obviously been added on throughout the years. We had planned to make it all uniform, but now we’ll just be making it work by touching up areas that are dingy. In most cases we’re using the basic white semi-gloss interior paint from Home Depot (paint + primer in one). It’s not the absolute least expensive paint, but it’s the second cheapest. I often use this approach when ordering wine. It has to be better than the absolute bottom of the barrel, but let’s not go crazy here.

*Light gray walls: One of our (many) mistakes in this experience was being hands-off with the painters who prepped the home to sell. I was so emotionally closed-off from it that I didn’t want to weigh in, and the painters used Sherwin Williams Repose Gray nearly everywhere. It’s not that it’s a bad color per say, but it’s a contemporary tone that isn’t great in homes that face North (it reads way more cool than I want). BUT here we are and I just can’t paint every single wall in this home now. And so we decided to keep what we absolutely have to and change the rest.

*Green fireplace tile: We’re almost positive that this tile is original to the home, and it does bring a really wonderful shade of green to the palette. The tile itself shows remnants of soot from the fireplace that has since been blocked off (and would’ve been taken out in our renovation). I love how this color looks against white, and it’s best in a room that gets great natural light, like this bedroom. Originally this room would’ve been our playroom, and I had big wallpaper plans in here inspired by that green tile.

*Green front door: This is another color selected by the painter that luckily I like fine enough to keep. It’s a warm green-blue that looks happy against the yellow siding and also feels complimentary to the blue porch paint.

*Slate blue metal back doors: A pair of slate gray blue metal doors (one of which needs a fresh coat of paint) lead from the laundry room hallway to the outside of the house, and one can be seen from the kitchen. I’ll be keeping this in mind as I think about kitchen colors.

*Blue porch paint: When we purchased the property last year, the porch paint was peeling a ton. The painters added a fresh coat in February, and I’m pretty sure this is the off-the-shelf gray porch paint. It’s certainly nothing special, but I like it just fine.

*Purple fireplace tile: It would’ve been impossible to salvage this tile in the renovation in order to remove the concrete and build out a gas fireplace, but the truth is I really love this color. It’s warm and welcoming and actually looks nice paired with the light gray walls (this might be the only room in which I can say that’s true).

*Wood floors: The front three rooms of the home have original wood floors in decent condition. I love the old nicks and divots and wear from lives fully lived in here. We need to patch a few areas, but then we’ll be staining and sealing them. Unfortunately, the back rooms in the house have been stuck under carpet as an attempt to conceal a big slope in the back hallway. One theory we have is that the back bedrooms were once the home’s back porch, but it’s not clear. Because of their less-than-perfect condition, we’ll need to fix and paint the floors in the back half of the house.

*Vinyl siding: The house’s original siding is a butter yellow clapboard, and we know this because it remains in the laundry hallway. At some point, yellow vinyl siding was added in the same hue. We had hoped to replace this at some point, but it’s definitely staying now!

And finally, these are the rooms we’ll be painting downstairs:

*Dining room: