It's Like An HGTV Show But Without Pictures To Keep You Interested

1. My cold is better but I still have no sense of taste or smell. This makes life surprisingly bleak and uninteresting. I know I am eating Peppermint Patty Bites and yet I cannot taste them. I cannot even taste that they are sweet. It almost renders eating them not worth the effort. Almost.

2. Patrick is as cute as a million baby seals.

3. Pregnancy... what pregnancy? I am refusing to think about it until some as-yet-unspecified event in the future occurs to confirm or deny the likelihood of an actual baby. The first few weeks have lost their ability to thrill, frankly, so I am just ignoring the whole thing. OK, I am not actively sabotaging myself by quaffing Nyquil (o! glorious green licorice of the gods! absinthe of the New World! how you would have eased my troubled slumbers long these many nights past) or foregoing the nightly progesterone shots (my ass has LUMPS; honest-to-god LUMPS from the progesterone injections even though I am rubbing it hard and sitting on a heating pad afterwards) but beyond that... we'll see what happens when we see what happens. First ultrasound on Monday and I GUARANTEE there is only one (if that.) I would bet anything you like that I am not pregnant with twins. Just so you know.

4. Steve continues to dwell in the basement.

Steve has been in the basement for weeks now, emerging briefly for a business call or something only to descend instantly back down the steps. Patrick's daily commentary runs thusly:

Daddy is using a hammer in the basement!

Daddy is making a really big noise in the basement!

Daddy is building a big house in the basement!

I don't know what it is about little boys and even minor domestic construction but Patrick is having the time of his young life. For example, this morning I found Steve and Patrick arranged in a charming tableau. Steve was on a ladder framing the last of the two columns that will prevent the house from crushing us when we are down there and Patrick was standing next to the ladder handing up screws on request. They both looked at me like, this is a private construction site, lady, so I went back upstairs to drink tea.

Forgive the wifely pride, but Steve is so fucking good at this sort of thing it is scary. It fills me with awe and there is absolutely nothing less suited to marital bliss than awe. So I'll just tell you how impressed I am and continue to roll my eyes at him as he describes why he has chosen to use American cherry for the basement trim rather than the darker Brazilian cherry that covers every conceivable surface upstairs. He does plumbing. He does wiring. He does rough carpentry and perfect finicky trim carpentry. He does structural things and design-element things and he makes incredibly tidy little drawings of it all on huge sheets of graph paper. He's amazing.

Do you want to hear about my house? Probably not but it's what we have today. Besides, in blogs as in art, I am always partial to a pleasant domestic interior. I like reading about everybody's minutiae, so here is mine.

The intention when we bought this place was to finish the basement at some point. The impetus to start actually doing the work was when I told Steve that I would like to turn the long bedroom upstairs into two separate rooms, creating a bedroom for a second child and a study for Patrick and said child to use when they are older. This was three pregnancies ago but hell, who's counting? The nice thing about being a recurrent spontaneous aborter is it gives you LOTS of time to get the nursery together. YEARS, really.

So putting up a wall will give us two kid rooms, a study, a guest room and a bathroom up there. It also renders Steve's big TV homeless since we currently use the long bedroom as a family room. This was unacceptable to Steve so he concluded that we needed to get the basement finished if we were going to modify the upstairs. Now we are a couple of weeks away from having a basement with a big family room, a guest room and guest bath, a storage room and then another storage room with a washer-dryer (for Steve's hunting clothes, ahem, yes, Steve desperately requires separate laundry facilities for the clothes he wears to hunt.) Finally there will be a home theater in the back but we (we! how do you like the use of "we" there? It's ok, Steve is one of those people who says "we" are pregnant. Drives me crazy but he persists) are going to wait to finish that part until later. What we will NOT have, as you will have noticed if you were paying attention, is a second child's bedroom upstairs which was... anyone? Yes! The POINT. But, again, we have t-ii-iii-m-e.   

It has been sort of annoying to be a basement widow but I am now getting excited about having it done. Besides, after months of having my sensible suggestions shot down with withering scorn (Can't you just put another window in over here? Why don't you move this column over there so the view of the television from the little bar isn't obstructed?) I am finally getting a chance to exert creative control. Carpeting! Countertops! Paint! Wheeee!

Unfortunately, I suck at this sort of thing. I wish I could have you all over and you could help me with it. I thought about posting pictures but I just don't think it would translate well. Largely because I also suck at taking pictures. Really, my incompetencies know no bounds. So I'll just describe the general situation and if you have any hard-won insight feel free to pipe up.

Carpeting, despite being the totally uncool flooring choice, is necessary for two reasons: 1) the floor is poured concrete and 2) this is Minnesota. You have NO IDEA how cold a concrete floor can be until you have padded barefoot across a basement slab in Minnesota in January. A girl I knew lost a toe that way. So Steve and I have spent the past week looking at every carpet available for sale in the United States. Here's a hint: do not look at the really really nice 100% wool carpets at C'est Chic Carpet Boutique and then go back to Home Depot to see if maybe they have something similar. They do not and the carpet that you originally thought might be suitable will suddenly feel like an acre of Brillo pad. Do you want to put Brillo all over your comfy floor? Of course not.

Damn it. I have been trying to find a picture of the carpeting we just ordered but both Ralph Lauren and Karastan are suspiciously quiet on the subject. Why is that? Licensing arrangements are always so odd. We wanted something thick and soft but not plush and these three requirements caused everyone we spoke with to send us into the frieze section. Originally I recoiled in horror because really, people, frieze is just a shag carpet with a haircut but the more I looked at other things the more it kinda grew on me. It IS thick and it IS soft and it will hide a buffalo let alone a grape juice stain or some cracker crumbs. A practical carpet for a family room, if not a very glamorous one.

The carpeting they (the crazy DINKs who built this place) put in upstairs is about one shade darker than snow and it perpetually looks awful (sock lint! who knew that ordinary pairs of old black socks shed more than a Persian cat?) so we knew we needed to go with something darker. The floors on the first floor are all maple thus, for lack of anything better to inspire us, we tried to kind of match that color and we went with a light brown but on the golden side.

An interior designer originally "did" this house when it was built (not by us, I repeat hastily, we just got here) and we are too intimidated by the oppressive perfectness of it all to make any changes to the existing rooms. As much as I dislike the idea of the copper-leaf stenciling in the living room I have to admit it is rather pretty and it certainly works in there. Still [FUCK! I am making myself a cup of tea and I was too lazy to get a spoon so I was just tap tap tapping a little sugar in from the bowl when WHAM! a veritable iceberg of sugar detached and landed with a mighty thump in my cup. I am not kidding, I think I just put 1/4 c of sugar in my tea] all of the walls are painted depressingly neutral, mushroomy colors and I would like to jazz things up a bit in the basement. But earth-tones! Jazzy earth-tones like, um, well you tell me.

My mother has requested yellow for the guest room and both Steve and I tend to loathe yellow so it is making it difficult to pick just the right one. Because we keep saying Ick! If you have used a nice, soft, inoffensive yellow anywhere and would like to recommend it I will be forever grateful.    

So any thoughts? I know this is vague but surely you have built a house/done a remodel/painted a room/played with Barbie's Dream House/watched Trading Spaces at some point in your life. Imagine a fairly large space with windows and a sliding glass door on one long side only. Now picture the lightish-brownish carpeting. The trim is cherry (American cherry! not Brazilian!) Now... what jazzy earth-tone are the walls painted? Come on! I need you.

Comments

[Emily]

A friend of mine, who is an amazing decorater did her bathroom in what she calls dijon yellow because she's going for a french look. I thought she was nuts but it looks really good. She uses blue accents and lots of silver to help offset it and the bathroom is white. I don't know how that color would look in a larger room like a bedroom, but it's a thought. My personal favorite kind of yellow and what we intend to use for our kitchen is what I call '40's pottery yellow'. I collect antique pottery such as bauer and their earlier stuff is very soft yellow (the later stuff is screaming yellow) and it's a nice subtle tone.

I have one word for you about flooring -- heated floors.

Good luck and love reading about the house.

[Jessica]

I have a favorite color that could pass for yellow. It's called Philadelphia Cream by Benjamin Moore. It's in a few rooms in my house and was a color borrowed from a friend of mine. It's not really yellow, more like a creamy butter, neutral kind of color.

It's worth a look, I promise. Good luck on Monday. All of my fingers are crossed.

[Marivic]

jazzy earth tone...in the olive family perhaps? not puke olive, but more like a heavily saturated (almost piney but not quite) high-gloss (to take advantage of the ambient light) olive that plays nice with beigy carpeting. tres lovely with the trim, no?

maybe not. but as a neutral i swear it matches everything - bergundy, cobalt blues, those mustards, gold/silver/copper/you name the hardware/patina and blends well with assorted food substances that may or may not find their way to your walls. justsomethoughts.

good luck!

[wix]

i apologize in advance for the URLage. now that that's out of the way:

surfboard or collegiate yellow are nice: http://rlhome.polo.com/rlhome/products/paint/items.asp?haid=83&start=0&pg=1

...and i started to make a lot of wacky suggestions for the basement, but i think my design sensibility is not going to jive too well with y'all's. HOWEVER, i am almost positive you'll find a color you like at the ralph lauren home collection. i'm not one to promote a label, ever, but i am making an exception because these colors are fantastic: http://rlhome.polo.com/rlhome/products/paint/default.asp

[oliviadrab]

I used a buttery yellow in part of my kitchen. Considering I HATE yellow with a passion, this one wasn't be too bad. It is a Ralph Lauren color mixed into a Behr base. The first color I got was butter yellow and it was repulsive. I got a tone lighter and can't for the life of me remember the name of the paint. I help a lot, huh?

[Danae]

Large space. Cherry trim. Lightish brownish carpet. Dude, that's already neutral. There's really not a color that wouldn't work in there. You can use any color you like with that setup. Neutral or not. Seriously.

Personally, I'm into the deep blues and oranges right now. But I tend to choose bold color rather than neutral whenever I can.

Anyway, have fun with it. Go look at swatches and see what jumps out at you. Maybe use more than one color. Dance in the aisles. Oooh, you could do vertical stripes of the same color, but with different sheens - you know, one eggshell and one semi-gloss! I love this stuff, can you tell?

I'd definitely go with you to the paint store if you lived closer. I might even help you paint.

Good luck on Monday, babe.

[Abby]

Errr...umm...I was going to suggest Butter Yellow by Behr, but I see that Oliviadrab described it as "repulsive". Well. Oh, what the heck-seeing as I'm about to paint my living room that color (as well as one of my daughter's walls), I stand by my choice and recommend it!
And what about a sagey green for the walls of the basement? Those greens look great w/browns and woods.
I have to say that I wan't bored AT ALL by your renovation entry. But that would be b/c I'm currently doing the same. However, instead of finishing a room or any variation of that that would actually give us MORE room, I'm doing the cosmetic type stuff. Like painting, since we haven't painted in 9 years. Only in order to paint I've had to scrape, and now I'm going to have to seal the concrete (we live in a 1950s era apartment building), plaster, sand, prime and then paint. Has Steve ever plastered????? If he has, how did he get the texture to match that of the adjoining walls??? This question is looming large in my universe at the moment.
I have to say that my friends are totally sick of hearing about light fixtures (even the ones that I've installed w/o electocuting myself), switch plates, and about how I'm going to tile the back splash myself. Party poopers!

[shannon]

Restoration Hardware makes the world's best yellow: it's called Butter. I painted my home office/Room of My Own with it, and I love it. Never once have I thought it looked pastel-y, which is a good thing because I hate pastels. (And if you're looking for a darker color, Restoration Hardware's "Silver Sage" -- a very nice greyish green -- is beautiful. But I'm not sure how it would look with cherry trim.)

[B Mare]

In my painting experiences, it's hard to go wrong with Farrow & Ball. Expensive (or at least it is here) but really wonderful quality. It might sort of a pain in the ass to get ahold of in terms of stockists, but the website is good. Shades of yellow here: http://www.farrow-ball.com/main.php?terr=usca We did a bedroom in E's old house in Dorset Cream, which was lovely.

I like the sound of something olivey green for the basement. Again, some nice shades at F&B.

[Melissa C]

Ooh ooh! I have a yellow suggestion. Of course, you've already gotten several fabulous ones, so I'll just add mine for the sake of discussion. We just bought our house in October, and the previous homeowners had done a very nice job with the colors. They were kind enough to leave their leftover paint in the garage, neatly labeled with the original color swatch, in case we need to do touch ups. The name of the color is Inviting Ivory by Sherwin Williams. And I know ivory sounds so...well...ivory, but really, it is a lovely shade of light yellow! In fact, when I finally got around to looking at the paint cans in the garage, I was surprised to see that the word ivory was in the name. It's on the walls in our kitchen and master bedroom, and it is warm and yet neutral.
As for the earth tones, I will probably sound like a nut, but what about eggplant? And yes, I know, that's a vegetable, not an earth tone! But it might look really pretty, even if you only put it on one wall, as a focal point. Maybe khaki on the other walls?
Alrighty, now that I've revealed my unusual taste in colors, I guess I'll move along. Best of luck with the rest of the decorating - and congrats on having an (almost) finished basement. I'm envious!

[amy]

I am a fan of bold colors (see my blog for proof), but I like the idea of olive green, a nice deep, earthy, green. Maybe it would be better to call it mossy.

I'm in the painting stages of my house building project. You could call it a renovation on steriods: the house was built in 1720 and we had it taken completely apart and then put it back together two states away. So now it's almost done and we are picking colors too. But my colors are more like navy blue, pumpkin, brick red, etc.

Good luck! Have fun!

[lydia]

I really like the other poster's idea about a deep cream color instead of YELLOW (actually a soft yellow can be awesome). You could also ask mom if a very soft peach or pale pink, which makes everybody look great, lol, would do.

As far as the big room: I would go for a warm, sunny terracotta red, with accents in deep royal blue, gold, olive, cream. There is a lot you can do with colors that are deep and jewel toned, and they really bring a lot of warmth to a neutral room.

[Laura K.]

Will be thinking of you Monday for the event-that-cannot-be-named. :) Here's to coming out of denial.

As for decorating ideas, I'm no good. We called my sister the paint nazi, and pretty much any colors we picked for the main areas of our house had to first be approved by her.

But, I would like to know if Steve hires out! For remodeling only, of course (that's not to say I wouldn't come down and ogle him every once in a while, mumbling about how lucky that Julia is...ha ha)!

Laura

[AB]

With all that brown, I am going to have to ask you to use white on your walls. I know! It's CRAZY! But I have the perfect white, which I will tell you the name of if you want but I have to go look it up, and it will look clean clean clean, and it will really make your husband's precious cherry look fabulous, and you can then switch out your accessories -- throw pillows, vases, slipcovers, and the like -- when you need a change, rather than painting the stupid walls again.

Also, my house is AWESOME, so you should totally trust me. Heh.

PS. No to yellow, which mostly just ends up looking dirty. Go with a pale apple-y green (green has yellow IN it, Ma!) instead.

[Christine K]

Ugh. Yellow. That's a very hard color to paint with. Best advice, go at least one shade lighter than you like. In our old house, when we redid one bedroom for a nursery, we redid the bathroom next to it for our DS. I found a beautiful yellow - it exactly matched a shirt that I had that I loved. Then we painted the walls. And it was this screamingly bright yellow! Not soft, soothing, pretty. We were able to make some accessory adjustments that made it bearable, but it was such a shocker. My sister did the same thing with a bedroom at her house.

I do love that Restoration Hardward "butter", but haven't actually put it on a wall, so am not sure if it does the same thing as the yellow I had.

Good luck - have Steve take pictures when it's done so we can all see how gorgeous it turns out!

[elsie]

We just went through something similar and I let my kids pick all the colors. Scary. But they were way more bold than I would have been and I love the way things turned out! Two variations:

Burnt orange, from the "oops" pile, that looked so great in a big wood-trimmed room we had to go back and make more. With dark red accent walls. Really, it works!

Forest green. We have a big whole wall of it studded with lots of framed art/pictures that really stand out. And yes, a brown carpet. Also good as a trim color with ivory and sage.

OK, so we also painted really ugly dark paneling lime green so you may not want to listen to carefully to me. I won't suggest that :) have fun -

[Laurie]

For the guest room- Behr Candlight yellow. It's a soft taupey-yellow that doesn't look like dried pee ;)

For the family room, terra cotta would look wonderful and is very earth-toney. My dining room is Behr Idian Paint Brush- stupid name but nice color.

[Carrie]

Christine's advice about going one shade lighter than you think you like is good - also, go beigier (is that a word?) than you think you want. Yellow is notoriously hard. Windham Cream by Benjamin Moore is well-liked. Cornsilk by ICI. My other assvice is to splotch with a quart before you invest in a gallon or two. What about a blue-green for the rest of your basement? That would look awesome with cherry, either Brazilian or American. My Minnesota basement was finished before I got here...in knotty pine! Someday I'm gonna have to do something about that, but I'm still dealing with the first floor.

[Soper]

You know, I would comment, but I am too, too popular to do that.

I'm never gonna let you live that down.

Actually, Steve is right to require the separate laundry facility for the hunting clothes. I grew up in a house of hunters. Hell, I grew up in a culture of hunters. So I understand that hunting clothes MUST be washed in unscented detergent at all times and, if possible, fox pee.

That's right: FOX PEE.

And really, do you want that in your other washer?

[Ninotchka]

I totally relate to this post. Guy is the UBER-handy man and he can build anything. Being an artist, I especially love his sketches so I smiled when you wrote about that. He cooks and cleans too. I'm so lucky, I know. :)

Call me crazy, but upon your description of the space I thought a nice, warm (not too dark) "pumkin" would look gorgeous on the walls. I'm totally digging that color as of late.

Keep us posted! Good luck on Monday. :)

[KatSkat]

Oh, my Julia... I had the (mis)fortune of spending a few days in my friends semi-finished basement floor in Maple Grove a few months ago in October. It was DAMN cold. Even with Berber carpet and the central heat on all night.

We're getting ready to gut our house and add on a master suite, so I'm just getting ready to deal with some of these same questions... so I'm no help on colors. But, we have a slab floor too and I'm wondering if you've seen the ads in those home remodel magazines for some product, a sort of wood slat subfloor that goes on top of concrete slabs under the carpet/foam to keep the floors insulated. Have you seen it. Heard of it? I'm thinking of investigating for our family room which is slab.

This is a great diversion for you, I bet! Take care, Kat

[Erica]

I am clueless about paint colors and decorating in general, so I'm useless except to say that AB has taken pictures of her house and it makes me DROOL, so you should take as gospel truth anything she recommends.

Let us know how the carpeting works with the cat, will you? We need to replace our carpet and we want something that will not show the vast quantities of cat puke that are produced around here.

[sinda]

Julia,

We are about to sell our house, and so had the interior painted this week. Some neigbors who have the same dark wood trim as we do have a fabulous color in their dining room, so I just got the name from them - Kelly Moore, "Sesame Oil." So beautiful.

Sending good thoughts your way,

Sinda

[Mamar]

I'm coming up with apricot. Sorry, unhelpful I know.

[Sarah]

Julia,
I, like you, am a kick ass cook, but if you ask me to decorate I get all wacky and unsure of myself. Does teh cooking leach decorating from our brains? I ahve nothing to offer, we went thrugh all sorts of colors when we moved in and ended up with gentle cream (Benjamin Moore) and Navajo White.

However, I would like to comment on the husband awe factor: my DH and I were in a car dealership getting the 'talk' by a salesman and he was so masterful and manly at talking to htis guy I wanted to, uh, do him shall we say, right there.

I too shall check in tomorrow for the post about the event that shall not be named.

Sarah

[Agent E]

I like a color called Navajo White by Benjamin Moore that gives a taupe-y yellow look, especially when there's a whiter-white next to it (white window frames or something). Calling it yellow maybe a stretch, but at the same time, it's sunny.

[m]

Paint. I have to confess that all the lovely color swatches make me delirious, and not in a good way. We needed to make a choice quickly, so we hired a decorator, who at least came highly recommended, and picked the paint and carpet in 53 minutes. What I learned from this experience?

Test first. The soft cozy green she picked out without seeing the room first was a bust. We liked it in her well lit shop, but it turned out to be overcooked artichoke green when it hit the bedroom wall. Since the painters started the bedroom after the paint store closed, it was a near disaster in paint world terms.

Light colors reflect light, dark colors absorb it. Ok, so I knew that one already—I just forgot it when I decided it was a good idea to paint the high ceiling in the family room a beige a couple of shades lighter than the wall. Fine during the day, but at night we end up with that creepy English manor on the moors effect. (Ok in some settings I suppose, but not if you want to stay awake past 8:30 pm.) Can’t wait to hear how it turns out! Oh, and the baby thing, that would be good to hear about too.

Oh, one more—don’t paint the basement when your pregnate!

[Ruth]

Yellow ... it's a tough color to paint with. Pick one you think looks pale, light and buttery and you end up putting a basket of sunglasses outside the room to block the glare. I've used yellows twice before, and Carrie is spot on ... go much paler and beige-er than you think you want to be. Buy quarts and swatch the walls ... Benjamin Moore is now selling little bottles of many of their colors, so testing shouldn't be too expensive.

As for the main wall color, the living spaces in our old house were all painted with Benjamin Moore's "Powell Buff", from the Historic Colors collection. It was perfect ... sort of tan, sort of gold, sort of yellow ... warm and the perfect background color. It would go well with the wood and carpet you already have.

[Ashley]

Benjamin Moore Concord Ivory. Don't know why they call it ivory because it's definitely a shade of yellow. We did the playroom in this color and it's really perfect I think, especially for those who don't love yellow.

Benjamin Moore Adam's Gold. I hate yellow, and half the house is in this color. It's warm and soothing. Very "hearthlike" feel to it.

[S]

For your yellow, the suggestion of going one shade lighter than you like is a good one.

For the basement, I wouldn't go olive green with brownish carpet or you're going to feel like you're in a forest (unless that's what you were going for).

Red with a white ceiling is inviting for family rooms, assuming your room is large. I'd go a nice cranberry red, myself, like "Sweet Spiceberry" from Lowe's, American Tradition brand. I have an accent wall painted that color now. I would paint all the west and east-facing walls that color and the north and south-facing walls a different but complementing color, like a lighter color from the same swatch. It's a subtle way to mix things up. Note: if you paint with red paint, you'll need a red primer or you'll be painting 10 coats. Just get them to put the wall color in the primer.

[jen]

I dont know if you can get these colours over there as I am in the UK and they do things kinda different over here. My two not-quite-yellow-but-could-pass-for pale earthy but jazzy nice wall colours to quite possibly go with your decor are...

1. Gardenia - our house (c. 1980) interior is 100% gardenia apart from the kitchen (it clashed with the tiles in there so we went with "stone" for that room). This is made by Dulux and i can't explain how the colour on the Dulux site makes it look pink, when in fact it's a lovely pale creamy yellow and really does wonders for the house
http://www.dulux.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/DuluxColourDetailCmd?langId=-1&storeId=10752&colourNumber=3033
You can't go wrong with this colour as it makes a room look x2 as big and is really cheerful. If it's a family room you might want to get the wipe-off stuff... best of all it's bog standard paint (Home Depot vs Ralph Lauren).. so you can splash out on the carpet instead.

2. Yellow Ground, and Farrow's Cream. These are lush paints, and I can't afford to use them in my house. My mum's entire house is painted in Farrow & Ball paints, and they are just divine. Those two colours - the latter more pale fawn-yellow and the other pale primrose yellow, are really lovely and my mum has used these to great success in her house (early Edwardian). THis stuff isn't cheap though, so be warned. YOu can go to home depot and get some actual brillo pads to put on the floor if you want to save enough to get this paint! But it's nice to dream...

I'd use all these choices again - we're about to move and one room is HIDEOUS so I can't wait to get a slap of Gardenia up there. I'm due to have a baby in August and the nursery will be gardenia with some colour stencils (which I normally hate but these are nice plain kites - v old-fashioned but not at all Disney).

Hope this helps and good luck with your room. Even more important, good luck with the ultrasound. I'll get back to lurking now... ;)

[LisaC]

I'm gonna second Ashley's Benjamin Moore Concord Ivory (HC-12). It's a wonderful non-yellow yellow--leaning towards the gold family. We have it in our family room, and people love it so much that I have actually made up index cards with the name, number, and a little splotch of paint.

[wavybrains]

We're in the process of also redoing our basement and have a pile of color samples. I would advise against anything too yellow--not good with basement lighting. Get some samples and tape them up to see how it looks actually in your basement. We're thinking light grey carpeting and very very light, silvery walls that I saw in Real Simple. Perhaps a Latte or Coffe with Lots and Lots of Cream color for your walls?

[cass]

I second (twelfth?) the cautions about yellow. We picked a lovely, soft, creamy yellow and it ended up so bright and primary-colored. We repainted with a yellowy ivory (Lowe's American Traditions "Vanilla Bean" I think) but the idea is similar to others above - creamy, with a hint of yellow. I have nothing to suggest for the other room, although some of the dusty greenish suggestions sound good to me. And even then, pick a shade lighter than you think you'll want. It always looks darker when there's a whole wall of it.

[Boulder]

Perhaps I'm stating the obvious, but what about the charming yellow of 200mg prometrium caps?

No?

Well, then nothing much to offer than what's been said, except, nothing wrong with painting a 2'x2' piece of wall & trying it on for size. That way you can look at it in different lighting & moods & weather. Also, try a color you like in different finishes - eggshell, flat, etc. - because the way they reflect light can change your opinion of how much you like a color.

Case in point: a Sherwin Williams Martha Stewart color that I loved (oolong) would look khaki some days & on others would reflect the lawn & take on an amazing greenish tint, but you'd never believe it on an overcast snowy day. Also, fwiw, paints are nothing more that Pantone colors defined by numbers that indicate the correct "recipe" (ah, see cooking - a familiar place for you) for the mix. The names are nothing more than marketing by the various companies. Pick a color you like & take it to your favorite paint place & have them mix it for you in the paint you like.

Oh, and don't underestimate the value of a properly tinted primer. Not that I painted a certain wall in a red that took 7, yes, 7 coats even with a primer. Probably would've been 14 without it!

You sure about the prometrium caps? Oh.... ok....

[jennifer h-m]

I really dislike yellow and find it too jolly for a bedroom- not peaceful enough. However, to please your Mum, why not paint the walls a nice cream colour and then accessorise in the yellow? You could pick curtains with yellowy blooms on, or stripes- that might make the whole thing less blatant.

I love decorating. Can't *wait* to have my own place!

[Al]

Restoration Hardware has a "buttercream" paint that might work well. Or, they used to, at least.

[giddy]

All the Benjamin Moore "creams" are excellent. They are surprisingly non-yellow and yet give a yellowish sheen that is pleasing to lovers of yellow, esp when sun hits them. Also, we have been v happy with Restoration Hardware's Silver Sage (as color-matched in Behr paint by Home Depot) with our cherry-toned furniture. Ours is oak, but stained a cherry-like color. We went with that color because we KNEW it looked good on the wall from liking it at the store, and it IS so hard to tell what a color will look like on a tiny little sample card. By that token, I would bet that the R.H. Butter is also a good color if you need yellow, since it looks good in the store.

Good luck!

[Kerry]

I live in northern Canada, so I know from cold concrete floors. I wondered if you'd considered a sub-floor? It's basically a patchwork of 2X2s covered with plywood, so your floor is actually ~3" off the concrete. It doesn't take long to put in, a couple of days at most. If Steve is really ambitious he could insulate it too. Then you could use any flooring you want. We have a subfloor and it's awesome, it makes a big difference in heating cost too. Just a thought. Imagine how much easier to clean up grape juice from a laminate or hardwood floor than carpet!

[halloweenlover]

You got so many suggestions, I feel it is a waste to even comment! But I will anyway. I love Montgomery White by Benjamin Moore. It is a gorgeous creamy yellow, very pale, leaning towards white. Beautiful! And I even read in an article by the leading real estate agent in the Northeast that she always has her clients paint their entryways in Montgomery White. She thinks it sells more houses because it is such a lovely color.

This weekend I am painting our guest room a nice silvery sage color, and we have neutrals in the rest of the room. It looks too light on the swatch, and then when you put it up it makes the room soft, cozy, warm, its great. Called Soft Fern by Benjamin Moore too.

Good luck!

[CursingMama]

I can confirm the danger of a concrete floor in February in Minnesota...last night Gameboy lost most of a toe nail goin barefoot in the basement (ewwwwwww). I have no idea how he did it, and frankly I like it that way.
In the words of Red Green "If they don't find you handsome they should at least find you handy". The supreme package is when they're both.....

[Kelly]

I don't like yellow on walls at all... period. I like soft greens or warm cocoa colors. We just painted our bathroom this weekend. We used a faux painting technique called blending. We painted the wall in a flat off white shade with rosy undertones (Vanilla Latte by Glidden) and then used two cocoa colors - several shades apart (the names escape me now but I'll look if you ask)in a semi-gloss. We ragged on the first color generously and rolled on the second color lightly in small patches and wiped it off immediately. It looks AMAZING! I find that this technique works well in areas without a lot of light.

We did the same type of technique in our last house but we ragged on both colors and it looked ummm... blotchy. Blending it gave it a much warmer feeling.

If you want pictures just ask and I will email them over.

[blondie]

Just wanted to drop by with this observation....Steve sounds amazing. Perhaps you could get the clinic to write you a note saying no sex for SIX months. Seriously, you'd probably have a Summer house by then.

And if you saw a teeny heartbeat, does that mean Steve is in like flint?

Sorry I can't help with paint colors. You've already got that covered.

[Lilly]

How about an orangy color? Not pumpkin though! The house next door has orangy walls with bright white trim and blind with an olivey green furniture. Sound gross but wow! It is fabulous. I want to do that in my house. I have seen a yellow that is finished with a glaze of darker colors that really looks neat. It is a golden yellow with a gold/brown glaze and it looks great. Other then that I have to suggestions: celery to sage green and lemon chiffon to very light cream yellow.

[dayment]

Deep dark espresso brown and light bright baby blue.

Then the guest room could be more baby bright blue with some soft lemon and white. Make it all Martha Stewart-y and shabby chic with a white quilt and lace pillows.

And have you looked into FLOR carpeting squares? Pretty hip. And you can replace the squares as they get stained!!