My Latest Inspiration

My mom is really good about sharing her magazines with me after she's read them and I love her for it. Last week she gave me the latest issue of Better Homes & Gardens. As I made my way through the magazine, I found this living room makeover that has inspired me to do something about my living room. The design problem at hand was that the living room in the magazine was very beige, brown and dull. To quote the article, the room had "brown overload." Here's our living room at Christmas:

So I show the article to my husband and he say's "Oh my god, we have BO." Yes honey, we have BO and it has got to go! (corny, I know, sorry.)

In the next few weeks french doors will be going in on the west wall that will lead into our screened porch, so now is the time to pick a new paint color, and yes this will be the third paint color for this room, but I think I've finally found something I love. After my husband acknowledging our interior design problem, I drove over to our local Benjamin Moore store. I was immediately drawn to their new ENVISION 2011 brochure. The cover had the most serene, fresh, calming living room image and I knew this is what I wanted to do with our living room. So here's my latest inspiration. The wall color is Smoke 2122-40 with the ceiling color shown as Kendall Charcoal HC-166 and I'm in love.

You can find these photos and more inspiration room scenes on http://www.benjaminmoore.com/ and search for Envision 2011. I ended up buying a paint sample of Smoke 2122-40 to test out, but with our new kitchen I think this new design scheme of pale blues and gray tones will work perfectly in our living room.

So what's your latest design inspiration?