We weren’t crazy about our first set of interior design options from our contract interior designer, Ellen. Fortunately, she took our feedback and used it to create a progression of options that fit our tastes better and better. Next up was a palette of options for floor finishes and stone for our kitchen/living room fireplace:
She wanted us to pick the combinations we liked. Our feedback was that we liked S1/F1 and S1/F4. S6 was in the running too, but we didn’t particularly like F3 (too amber). For the most part, we strayed away from the stone options that were either too orange or too monochrome.
Stone, Wood, and Carpet
Next up were combinations of stone (for the fireplace), wood (for the main living spaces and maybe the office, and carpet (for the bedrooms):
Of the 4-packs, we liked either of the first two, but liked the fireplace from the third. Or the S-1 option from the first set of options into either of the sets. When it came to the carpet, we were glad to keep things neutral. We have great views in our house and a lot of art to hang on the walls. If anyone walks into one of the rooms in the new house and has a strong reaction to the carpet, we’ve screwed up somewhere along the way.
This was the piece of the interior design process where it felt like it was starting to make sense to hire an interior designer. It was easy enough for us to decide what we liked and didn’t like (and fortunately, most of our tastes are in-line), but it was a lot easier to do that when presented with a limited set of options, rather than every wood floor option in the world vs. every carpet in the world vs. every stone treatment in the world.
Lots of Tile Options
Next up, we selected from a big slate of bathroom tile options:
Ellen’s initial suggests were along the lines of the following:
SW-x were examples for shower/accent walls; CT-x for floors. Here were her suggestions, interlaced with our responses:
- Powder Room:
- SW-5 accent wall
- C-3/CT-7 floor color
She: not crazy about SW-5
He: same. I also think we could go with a strong-ish color/pattern in the powder room since it’s fairly small. I like SW13 maybe.
- Master Bath
- SW-1 shower wall
- CT-3/CT-6 floor color
She: Like SW-1, prefer CT-6 to CT-3. (He: me too; CT-3 reminds me of bad teeth) I really like SW-10 and SW-7, I think those could be fun. Maybe SW-7 and CT-3. Pretty sure [he] would not like SW-7 though. (He: Agree; I like SW10 a lot though.)
- Lower Level Bath
- SW-6 shower wall
- C-2 floor color
She: SW-6 is fun, CT-2 is fine. (He: agree)
- Lower Level Washroom
- SW-6 accent wall
- C-2 floor color
She: fine. SW-8 might be more fun for the girls. I might want to do a funky wallpaper in here as well. (He: not sure SW8 reads as fun to me, but lower level washroom is a good place to play with funky colors/patterns).
- Lower Level Laundry Room
- SW-3 accent wall
- C-2 floor color
She: I really want to go super bold in the laundry. See some of the wallpapers I’ve pinned. I think CT-2 floor would work as a base for most of them. I wasn’t planning on doing a wall tile in there.
With that, Ellen turned things around for another set of drafts.