apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I have a very small guest bedroom with mostly white furniture ---- I really want to paint the walls black because I think it could look awesome. But the fear of it looking awful keeps those walls boring and beige.

Griffin -

To paraphrase Nike: Just Do It! (After all, It's only paint)

My BSG (big scary project) is putting down radiant electric heat and new flooring in my living room/hall/kitchen/hall bathroom (I want the same flooring throughtout to make it feel larger and cohesive - the biggest problem is that all of my rooms are pie shaped, so I can never figure out which way to orient the tiles (if I go that direction) - and I've got no place to move the furniture except out into the common hallway when I do decide to get started...

I'm in escrow on a house built in 1948. It has lots of natural light original oak floors and big picture windows. I want to paint the wall where the fireplace is located dark grey, almost charcoal, then paint the wood mantel (now pink) glossy black. My wife isn't quite on board yet. But I hope she'll come around.

i like the look of white painted floors too but i would never do it either!

mine is knocking down a bathroom wall and expanding my bathroom so that i can fit a large bathtub. i'm too scared to do it because it would make the 2nd bedroom smaller and a kind of odd shape. it's a load of cash to spend for something that could devalue the property. eek.

I'm dying to paint the inside of my walk-in closet light blue and put up silver pegs for my belts, scarves, etc. (not to mention replacing the light fixture). I'm only holding off on it because I'm (hopefully) going to be moving at some point.

Do you really want to find yourself on you deathbed wish....if only I'd painted my floor white...?

I have wanted to paint my bathroom black since the picture came up on here. It looks identical to the bathroom in the picture, I have art and sculpture picked out, we even had the paint. I'm just not brave enough.

I want to paint my powder room black and silver leaf the ceiling!

I want to go daring and out there and paint the outside of my house turquoise. BRIGHT turquoise. I bought a little pot of the colour I like... painted a panel on my patio... and was nearly blinded...still want to do it, but instead I am trying to convince my boyfriend a grey/green... almost like apple green with grey mixed in. :D looks fantastic (have seen a house painted this colour in another neighbourhood, looked amazing with white trim) so maybe I'll leave that turquoise in my "I WOULD LOVE TO HAVE THE GUTS TO DO THIS, BUT I DON'T" file. lol.

Go for the black, all of you who want to. It will look great. And it's only paint.

I've always wanted black floors, a black kitchen and drak grey walls. Fortunately I went for it and love it:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29627987@N04/sets/72157610709036978/

You could always paint a "rug" of white onto the floor to see if you like it.

Paint my bedroom orange.

I don't think I have a design dare anymore!
We removed a load bearing wall which necessitated adding 2 beams, relocating plumbing AND heating.
We removed two closets making our entry nice an open, where previously only one person could enter at a time.
We tore out our ceiling and floor, plus kitchen and bath/laundry room.
We've done most of the work ourselves, with 4 and 2 year old sons.
We're in the home stretch and it couldn't have come sooner, I'm expecting in May.

I painted my floors white last year and never looked back. I love them. They've elevated the apartment to home-like. Everyone raves about them. Granted, the wood was in bad shape so I didn't feel bad about doing it. It looks so much more polished.

Floor to ceiling drapes in a fresh shade of green. Most of the stuff in my loft is charcoal gray or black and green is my accent color. It's mostly a cost/commitment thing.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ursonate/3090925027/

We have a 1,200-square-foot house in Berkeley--two bedrooms and two baths. The problem is that one of those bathrooms (my bathroom--my husband and sons use the other one) doesn't want to be a bathroom. It's right off the kitchen and used to be a breakfast nook, but the previous owners changed it in order to make the house more saleable. It would make a great teeny office, or even a great pantry, but it doesn't want to be a bathroom.

But I just don't think I can share with two sons and a husband and maintain my sanity.

@sfdoddsy--beautiful colors in your flickr pics.

I've done just about all of my design dares, including staining our ugly oak flours a wenge shade (should have heard all the "don't do it -- think about resale!" comments)... painting 2 walls in our infant son's room black, 2 walls in my daughter's room bright fuschia, putting a very fluffy and very white flokati rug in our infant daughter's room... making the ceiling in our bedroom silver, living with Ligne Roset's Togo in the living room for almost 20 years (19 and counting).... installing skylights in our bathrooms (husband: can't be done! shouldn't be done! and now: absolutely loves showers by moonlight, )... the list goes on...

Don't decorate your home to please who you think may buy your home years down the road!

We once spent months agonising over whether to make an opening between our kitchen and living room to make a broghter space. I went out for about an hour, and in that time, my husband discovered there already was a space behind hardboard. It was one of our best 'renovations'.

oops, brighter!

My decorating dare would be to throw/give away/sell all of my furniture from my tiny studio apartment, and paint the walls and celings white and have very minimal functional furniture (I currently have wenge coloured wood floors, and cream walls with dark red accent walls) - I only chose my current colour scheme to match the furniture I already had when I moved in... also a lot of the furniture is 'from a previous relationship' so for me getting rid of stuff and painting everything white would also be a sort of psychological 'starting over'!

I have some of my landlord's not so nice painted white furniture and I would love to paint the dresser glossy black. I've already changed out the handles. I still might do it. I live in Egypt and these cats never give you your security deposit back.

After the holiday dust settles, I'm building a tiled corner bathtub/soaking tub from scratch in my ridiculously small bathroom that now sports one of those shower stall inserts. Every time I take a shower in it, my elbow winds up hitting the temp control knob, and I either flash freeze or scald myself. I can't wait--the design's full-blown in my mind and ready to go----

I'm dying to knock down the wall shared by my bedroom and living room wall. I want to increase my living and dining space so I can entertain more. I also want to paint my big a$$ walk-in closet blue.

i think people just have to go for it sometimes. in my current apartment i painted a bright green accent wall in one room and a bright yellow wall in another. its just paint. if you hate it, paint over it. to everyone with ideas about painting a wall or bathroom black (above), your ideas sound great. maybe just ask for some advice from the paint store before you start.

they may be different/loud, but it turns out the walls brighten my rooms on the cloudiest of days since the rooms don't get much sunlight. keeps me cheer-ier i think. and if nothing else i can laugh at it and think "well at least i tried it".

as for the white floors, why not try a cheap piece of remnant carpet in cream/white first? i have a huge off white knit rug from ikea that was like $40 for instance. just an idea. (i will say that my white painted window seat has little grey footprints all over it from puppy feet, so make sure you seal the floors if you paint them.) good luck!

I think I usually do the stuff I want to do - paint the living room turquoise and the bedroom orange, for instance. What I don't do is less limited by fear than by expense (replace cheap furniture with the good stuff), feasibility (I rent, so replacing those hideous kitchen cabinets is a no go), or laziness (I really will paint the radiators NEXT summer, I swear.)

I am a minimalist while my live-in boyfriend likes to display things. He enjoys showcasing his autographed baseballs, casino dice, ancient Pepsi cans and the like, but I find it to be annoying clutter. Of course, telling him this would hurt his feelings because these items have sentimental value. I want to take an afternoon and compromise with him: half of it gets stored and the other half can be displayed tastefully.

I want to get a new coffee table. My boyfriend and I have pooled our loose change into a container for the last six months or so, and we've saved nearly one hundred dollars for the purchase just by doing that.

I'd also like to change the interior paint color in my house, but I rent and I'm not allowed to paint. The living room walls are this bright peach color that do NOT match my taste. Maybe after a hassle-free year on the lease my landlord will be more open to the idea...

I guess painting the alcove in the foyer a metallic moss green was the most daring move so far -- I worried it might be too dark or take too many coats, but I quite like it and the 2 coats were fine.

For normal wall paint, just do it (assuming you are authorized.) Way too easy to fix if it doesn't work out or you need to neutralize before moving.

For painting furniture or floors, just do your research first. If you want to paint floors white, talk to people who have done it or paint store people who can advise on how to do it properly so you will be happy living with the results. (Then do it right, of course -- half-a** jobs will only bite you later.)

For changing things that might effect resale, don't forget that some improvements INCREASE value. Paint neutral just before you move, but don't worry about it until then. Think about installing neutral colors for expensive permanent items like ceramic tiles or granite, though -- YOU might get tired of something more crazy, too, and neutrals can be accented for different looks. (On the other hand, if you really love and can afford something more intense, it IS your call. I think I'd call in a realtor friend to give their opinion first, but it's not their decision in the end.)

The only thing I might think really hard about, apart from that, is something like painting good condition oak molding in a Craftsman bungalow, or changing other period details that people covet. (Remove stained glass windows, for instance.) If you own a period home that is pretty much intact, and you don't care for it, maybe you'd be better off selling it to someone who appreciates it as it is -- good condition intact period homes are more and more scarce, so messing one up for a whim of the moment is kind of harsh.

I really really want to not only paint the floors white, but more so the ceiling. I have a unique terracotta & concrete ceiling. But the terracotta, is well, pink! I know it would look great white!

Resale scares me though. In an urban dwelling, where turnover is higher than in a suburban or lifetime home, it's really a no-no. If you do it, just be expected that some people will hate it, while others will love it.

If you do it, post before & after pics!

If I paint the walls black in my little WC, what do I do with the ceiling?