The Apt...Where it is and where it's going....

I'm going to use this blog to share with you the current state of our apartment as well as to share with you what is to come.  In doing so, I hope that you can get a sense of the feel the apartment has and then give me advice on a painting decision that must be made :).  I will start again by reminding you of our paint pallet:

In choosing the colors for the apartment, it was very important to me that it would feel warm and cozy, even during those brutal Chicago winters.  I wanted to choose colors that would do that, so I stuck with the warm color family.  My most unexpected paint job was the La Fonda Copper and the Del Coronado Amber.  I wasn't going to originally paint the living/sitting room of the apartment, but after going to Lowe's with my roommate at the time (Sara) we fell in love with these two colors, and here they are doing of fine job of complimenting each other:

Okay, here are pictures of what the living/sitting room look like as of right now, let me explain to you some things that are going to transform it even more.  First off (as you can tell) there are no pillows on the sofa or loveseat.  I did not like the pillows that came with the couch set and so from early on I got my mom to agree to make some for me.  JoAnn's Fabric&Craft store had home fabrics for 60% off one weekend so I went and picked out 3 different fabric swatches or pillows here.  The main pillows (2 for each piece) are somewhat of a tweed fabric with an orange/red color in them.  I then purchased a striped fabric and a floral-y fabric to make some accent pillows on the two pieces.  My mom is also going to make accent pillows out of the stripped and floral fabrics for the leather arm chair in the sitting room.  Next, onto the window treatments.  I feel like the windows are so big that they are making a statement for themselves and I wanted to draw them into the rooms and tie the two rooms in together using window treatments.  The big problem is that the windows are so big...they are about 106" high making window treatments SOOOOO expensive.  My solution?  Walmart!  Because my mom can sew and she's too nice to say no to me, I purchased inexpensive faux silk panels to put together "custom" window treatments for the living/sitting rooms.  The main big window has the radiator underneath it making it impossible to put ceiling to floor treatments on the window - no complaints here!  That just makes it cheaper!  I am going to put sheers on the main picture window in order to allow a lot of light in:

What I like about these is that they are a gold shade which will match the "custom" panels my mom is making me :).  In order to solve the length problems of the other windows, I purchased 2 dark chocolate panels (1 panel for each window):

These are only 95" long, so in order to get them to the desired 106" length, I also purchased a gold panel:

that my mom is going to cut and sew to the bottom of the brown panels to lengthen them.  This will serve 3 major purposes...1) It will make them long enough to fall all the way to the floor 2) the gold at the bottom will tie the orange living room into the gold/amber sitting room 3) the gold will also tie into the gold shaded sheer coving the main window.

I am also doing the same thing for the sitting room (the amber colored room), I am using 2 chocolate faux silk panels (again, 1 for each window) except instead of attaching gold at the bottom, I am going to attach a copper/orange ("sienna" if you will) to the bottom:

Again, this will serve multiple purposes...1) It will make them long enough to fall all the way to the floor 2) the orange at the bottom will tie the gold/amber sitting room into the orange living room.  

I purchased each panel for about $15 making the whole project roughly $115...SUPER cheap compared to the cost of getting extra long/custom curtains for each window...I just hope my mom won't hate me when this whole thing is over :).  

Onto the next room....

Our master bedroom was painted green in an effort to match my favorite bedspread (Duncan Stripe from PB) with Stephen's and my favorite color: green!  We painted this room Olive Grove (all of our paint was Valspar from Lowes), a Laura Ashley collection color.  Here's what's missing from this room:

Our beige pick-stitch quilt from PB that has been ordered but was on backorder.  This will help create a layered look on our bed AND lighten up our little cave-like room as there is barely any natural light that comes in.

Hopefully, I can get Stephen to understand the "value" :) in toss/throw pillows.  If so, I would like to have the "espresso" jute bordered pillow along with the yellow ("fall leaf") colored rectangular pillow and the red square pillow, all from PB...

Just like in the living/sitting room, I've arranged for my mom (more like I've destined her to a sewing hell :) ) to create "custom" curtain panels on the windows in order for them to go all the way to the floor.  Instead of going with the faux silk for this room, I wanted to tie in another type of material so I went with one called "textured stripe" to somewhat compliment the stripe on the bedspread.  

The main part of the curtain (again from Walmart) is called "clay beige".  I went with this color to go along with the quilt on the bed and also to try and help lighten the room.  The bottom portion of these curtains will be:

This is called "rich brown" (also from Walmart).  I almost went with this color for the main part but then I stopped myself for a couple of reasons.  The first being that the main living part of the apartment will have chocolate colored curtains in them, and also because our bedroom tends to get too dark (the windows have a lovely view of the brick wall from the neighboring building).  The bedroom window panels also ran me about $15 a panel.  I purchased 2 clay beige ones and then 1 rich brown panel (to attach at the bottom part of the beige curtains) so the whole thing ran me roughly $45.  I found all of the curtains for our apartment online, but because Walmart has the convenient "Site-to-Store" shipping, it cost me nothing to have them sent to the Walmart in Louisville near my parent's house.  I'm very excited to see our room finished with all these textural changes.  

Okay, I'm getting to the part where I need help with a decision...I had picked out all these paint colors and knew exactly what I wanted when I went into Lowe's.  Unfortunately, (if you read my blog from the month of September, you remember how stressful my trip to Chicago to move my stuff was) I was in such a fluster that I accidentally had the paint girl mix the wrong color tan for the bathroom.  I wanted (see paint swatches above) the lighter tan (Cincinnatian Hotel Carl Tan) and I accidentally showed her "Mocha Syrup" which is the darker tan.  She did exactly what she was told and started to mix the Mocha Syrup for me and it wasn't until she brought it to me that I realized my error.  I really didn't want the darker tan because our bathroom is so incredibly small and I knew the darker color would make it really seem like a cave:

So, my mom (being my mom) was so generous and she told me that she would buy my screw-up Mocha Syrup for me and I could go on ahead and get the lighter tan for our bathroom.  She said, "maybe you'll want to use the Mocha Syrup somewhere else in the apartment..." and that's where I need your help...

Welcome to my dining room!  I'm thinking about painting the Mocha Syrup (see paint swatch above) on the dining room walls...my sister and mom planted the idea in my head because they said that it would look SO great next to the China Hutch:

Also, we purchased a rug in a "khaki/beige" color on sale which kinda blends in with the wall color now - almost asking me to paint them a different color.  What do you think?  If you're wondering if it will make the room look really dark, I thought that too...although there are some things you should know.  The room has 2 large windows in it that let in a lot of light (they are not facing a brick wall), also there is a lot of trim and molding (all of which is white) in the room.  Lastly, the room opens up to the sitting/living room which also have windows that bring in a lot of light (see pictures below for visual examples)

What are your thoughts?  Should I leave the walls the "oatmeal" color that they are now?  Or should I open the whole gallon of Mocha Syrup paint just sitting in the utility closet and splash it up on those walls?  I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this matter and hoping that you'll really help me make this decision! :)