A budget makeover

Ryuhei sent us the following email: I'm Ryuhei, a young interior designer based in Brooklyn, New York. I recently won Behr's Room for Color 201o contest with the living room from my very first 2BR project. Since the rest of this vintage inspired, yet modern bachelor's pad is now complete and my client has fully settled into the apartment, I took some photos that I would love to share. This budget 2BR makeover was designed for my friend - a typical, young professional who moved into a small pre-war tenement. As a team, we hoped to create an example of how good even an everyday space could look with some effort and creativity. This apartment is such a great example of using colour to provide interest to rather blah spaces (LOVE the living room colour), vintage finds for intrigue and a homey feel, and funky lighting that functions as art. Fab job Ryuhei!

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House facade help

HAPPY CANADA DAY to all of our Canadian readers! Hope you all have a fun day off work, partying it up and enjoying the festivities. I'm hoping to get out in my front yard at some point and attempt to snap a photo of the Snowbirds as they fly around the capital. (Last year I just missed them).

Today I've got a few things to blog about - the first is a request for some paint ideas. Later I have a book review, a new store to share, and a request for guest bloggers.

So to start, here is a request from Nataliya:
"A few weeks ago you did a wonderful post of someone's house exterior with reader comments on how to improve it. I was wondering if I could get so lucky as to have my house get the same royal treatment :) It's a Minto home on a Minto street and I'm looking to make it extra special and fun. I would love to paint the trim, front door, garage door and storm shutters, but not sure what colours to choose. Currently I love white, black and red. However, a red double garage rood scares me a bit! :) Any comments would be very very appreciated."

Minto is a very popular builder of suburbs here in Ottawa and this home is very typical of what you'll find here. (I grew up in a very similar home). So Nataliya needs help making her home stand out from the rest because as is typical of the burbs here where all homes are built by the same company, every house looks the same - which is one of the main reasons why I am staying out of the burbs. So if you guys have any suggestions for Nataliya, fire away.

Reader dilemma

Angela sent us an email with a dilemma that I'm hoping you all can help her with: "I have recently purchased a small red brick home that was built in 1930 - I love it and cannot wait to get my hands on it. Currently the house is red brick with a heinous John Deere Green trim that I am dying to paint but I have yet to stumble across some really great inspiration or references. It has natural shingles so there are technically three fields of area that need color, red brick being the majority. I love the idea of something slightly eccentric but still classy - like the grey house with the lime green door. I would appreciate if you could point me in the right direction." Having never had the opportunity to be able to paint the exterior of a house, I am sort of at a loss as to suggestions for Angela, which is why I thought I'd open it up to all of you. Her house is absolutely ADORABLE as you'll see below, so getting rid of the awful green will make a huge difference and make her home even more fantastic with great curb appeal. Leave your ideas in the comments!

  

Paint help

Jack, a long-time co-worker of mine, and his wife Shannon are redoing their living room and Shannon is looking for paint help. She left a comment on Jo's post earlier today but I thought I'd post it seperately in the hopes there are some good suggestions out there as I am not much help. Here's her dilemma: "I am looking for a soft, silvery blue-grey (not grey-blue--I've found there's a difference) paint for my living room. I recently painted with a soft grey-blue (i.e. blue was the base colour) and it just reads as 'kid's room baby blue'. I"m looking for something like the wall colours in the fourth and fifth rows down (the living room with the portrait of the woman over the mantle and the living room with the yellow/chartreuse chair and blue rug). Does anyone have any colour suggestions???"
Here are the photos Shannon is talking about:

   

Reader dilemma...and my least favourite colour

I need your help with this one folks. Lauren wrote us with this problem: "I am going back to school, and my friend is oh so graciously letting me move into his house (rent free!). So, I feel like I should not complain too much, but the room needs a lot of help. I attached a picture for you to see the bedroom, just to give you an idea of the wall-to-wall maroon carpet I have to deal with. He has taken down the wallpaper boarder and painted the room a buttery yellow, but I think it kind of looks like a nod to McDonald's now... He actually just replaced the carpet (but kept maroon, I'm not sure why), so I have to live with that - and the room is pretty large: 16' x 13'. But he did say I can paint, which is a good start. So, my question is, do you have any ideas as to what color scheme would work with this carpet? I am normally a "blue" person, but just feel like I can't completely disregard the carpet color. I was thinking maybe repainting the room white, and doing an accent wall - possibly relating to the maroon carpet, but I'm not so sure. Any ideas would be much appreciated!"

When I see maroon/burgundy I practically break out in hives. So I'm a bit at a loss as to what Lauren should do with this. My only thought is getting sisal rugs and trying to hide most of the carpet, and maybe painting the walls a pink (on the pale side). That's all I've got. I'm hoping our readers might have better ideas.