This Living Room Traded Bright Turquoise Walls for a Paris-Inspired Neutral — and the Difference Is Wild

The minute I saw this mid-century tri-level on a wooded hill, there was no going back. My husband Brian found the home on Zillow by looking outside the interstate around our city of Louisville, Kentucky. I never thought I’d live “outside the Watterson,” and I definitely never thought I’d live in a house so new. (When you’ve been in back-to-back 1880s builds, a 1950s house feels downright brand-new.)

It was spring of 2024, though, when interest rates and the housing supply crunch meant we had to be open to things we’d never thought we’d consider. Like 8-foot ceilings. Yes, I know how that sounds. But we’d only ever lived in super-old houses, and we had 11- and 12-foot ceilings in our last two homes. Eight feet sounded claustrophobic. 

But this house came with the original vintage pink wall oven in the kitchen and a built-in ashtray in the pink bathroom, and did I mention the trees? So it was easy to look past the turquoise walls in the living room, and the sort of mustard yellow on the built-in bookshelves, even though they were a definite departure from my own style. 

Honestly, it was a relief that color was the only thing that would have to change. As a serial renovator, I had taken a string of homes down to the studs and re-imagined them over the last few years. I was tired. And after all those renovations, then turning 50, moving twice, experiencing an earthquake, and quite a lot of circling the globe — all in less than two years — I was ready to settle into someplace calm. And while I appreciated their very real aesthetic commitment to the era of the home, the bold choices definitely leaned more high energy! than treehouse sanctuary.

Even though my renovation history included a lot of demolition, I still know the power of a paint color change. When you’re sitting in this living room, your view through a huge picture window is nothing but treetops. All that green — all those trees — needed to be the star. 

I wanted the living room to feel like a cocoon, a warm and inviting space that asks nothing more than for you to curl up on the couch to watch the sky change from morning to night —and track the leaves changing from spring to fall — with no competition from electric colors.

So I swapped the vibrant, saturated shades (all throughout the house) with one quiet, rich neutral, pulling inspiration from my favorite place: Paris. There’s an Airbnb there that I love, with the most beautiful paint color that truly makes me want to lie on the couch and watch the light shift and dance along the walls. I actually asked the host if he knew the name of the paint color, and he didn’t. But, while there with a guest on a culinary tour I led in Paris, she commented that it reminded her of Benjamin Moore’s Old Soul (CSP-65). 

Without a single paint swatch or testing anything (I know!), I committed to having all the communal areas of the house painted in that color. I chose to accent the bookshelves and front door with a deep, inky green (Benjamin Moore’s Salamander (2050-10) to further connect those features to the outdoors. 

And when the painter finished, it was an entirely new space — light and airy and far more open than I’d have ever expected with such a “snug” ceiling height. Having the previous owner’s period-specific furniture, which was almost too stage-set perfect, swapped for our own more eclectic-traditional and leather-leaning pieces — with that lovely, calming color — suddenly made it feel like our space.

With a fresh backdrop and the main pieces in place, all that was left was to tell the story of who we are. With 25 years of living for travel under our belts, that was the easy part. 

Mementos from our trips — old guidebooks, travel photos, objets — brought the room to life. Then we layered in another biophilic design element with an abundance of plants in all sizes. We layered various types of lamps in the room, as there was no overhead fixture, and added mirrors to make the absolute most of the natural light. A vintage rug (the only thing I’ll ever have as long as we have dogs) pulled everything together. Before long, the spaces, especially the living room, looked and felt like we had been here forever. It also looked and felt nothing like it did the first day we toured it. 

I’m writing this piece in the living room now. My dog is asleep on the couch next to me. The birds are chattering outside. All I see out the window is green. The room may be messy at the moment, but it’s home, and it’s ours.