A New Apartment Calls for an Inspiration Board! (Part 1: Paint)

I love inspiration boards. They're such a great way to collect your ideas into one place and be able to get an idea of what does and does not work together before you make any big decisions or investments.

I'm currently in the process of picking out paint chips for the apartment. Sweet hubs is being quite kind and allowing me to decorate the apartment (with the exception of his office area) - which makes me oh so happy!

The building we're moving into was built in the early sixties and still maintains a good bit of that flair. They're currently renovating the common spaces, and while sweet hubs and I were apartment hunting, we were able to view some of the other apartment buildings by the same management company which are also under or nearly finished with their renovations. Let me just say that the end result is gorgeous.

But I digress... our apartment has got some great vintage features, but also has a few less than desirable traits which were products of the late seventies / early eighties (euro kitchen cabinets - yuck).

Some of the fantastic features that I love are:

Large Living Room with lots of light.  (Living room, viewing from the foyer.)

Large sunken living room with adorable wrought iron railings on each side of the steps.
 (Reverse view of the living room.)

Nicely preserved vintage bathroom.  

Awesome original built-in drawers and cabinets in the hallway next to the bathroom.

I love the idea of picking out two darker colors for the living room and bedroom, since they are much larger rooms, and then painting the other rooms lighter variations of the same colors. That way it will all feel cohesive but each room will still be slightly different.

So far, here are the first round of paint chip color families that I'm looking at.  They are all in the blue/green/gray family.  I'm sure I'll change my mind over the next two weeks, but at least this is a good starting point.

The bedroom is fairly large, so it can handle a darker color.  I plan on doing all of the trim throughout the apartment bright white so everything will look very crisp, calming and cool.

BEDROOM:

"Bon Voyage" or "Bayside"

Since the bathroom is located just outside of the bedroom, these colors are in the same family, just obviously much lighter shades.  Also, the bathroom isn't very large, so I want to keep the color in there bright and as light as possible.

BATHROOM:

"Rhythmic Blue" or "Ice Folly"

The living room is quite large, so I'm looking at a darker color for in here as well.

LIVING ROOM:

"Aspen Aura" or "Garland"

The foyer is another large space, which leads into the living room, so I'd like to stay in the same family as the living room, just go with a lighter shade.  The kitchen is also off of the foyer, so I'm going to do a lighter shade than the foyer for the kitchen.  Also, the kitchen cabinets are a "euro"style cabinet, so I want something that will take down their beige color, which a cooler light green shade will do.

FOYER & KITCHEN:

"Country Mist" for the kitchen, "Marina Isle" for the foyer.

The office, which will be sweet hubs home base for work, will be a light blue-ish gray color, per his request.

OFFICE:

"Misty Surf"

We spent this past weekend packing and on Friday we will receive our keys to the apartment, so I'll have another design post very soon!