SFGate

olldbobbi Consider brining in a navy and white area rug, with navy and white pillows on the dark wine sofa: [houzz=
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judyg bobeeeeeeee, you need sleep. Where is the wine sofa in your attached pix? Kevin needs you alert. And the rug is black! Holy Moley Cow! I am reporting this to Olld!

kevino50 Thanks Judy and Bob. Your ideas do help inspire. :)
For the uninitiated, what is Olld?

olldroo We are - Old Ladies Love Design (and a lot of other nonsense) :). Kevin how about some photos of the lounges and the room. On face value I would suggest you have one lounge recovered, it could be cheaper long run to achieve the room you really want. The two colours don't sound like they would like each other very much. If it comes down to second best to make do you will never be happy with it.

paul333 Use strong solid white aspects. Keep the tonal quality if the whites very cool. Play with natural wooden elements sparingly and add gold accents to spice up what can easily look blown or washed out

olldbobbi judy, get a grip! The rug is beautiful and navy. Maybe it's your olld eyes?

creeser It's black and Kevin, I like the creams and whites.

olldroo I still reserve judgement until I see the room and the lounges.

olldroo olldbob - maybe it is your olld computer fading. It is black on my screen, couldn't be blacker in fact.

olldbobbi Alright, I'll concede! But honeslty it looks navy on my screen :))

olldroo Too much turkey.

creeser Wild turkey? *snicker*

kevino50 Well finally coming back on this topic now. :)
I couldn't put pix of the room, as it was a garage being converted into a small sitting room. It's all done now. We didn't go with the white, as suggested. We decided to go with two colours on the walks to compliment the two couches. Mustard for the navy one and a powder room pink for the wine one. We brought it all together with cushions that have all the colours.

kevino50 Here's some pix.

kevino50 And some more.

olldroo OMG, can't believe the OLLDS really lost it here. Blame it on Thanksgiving.

Amazing colour combination and you did it all by yourself - take a bow. If I may critique - would you consider painting the inside of door the same colour as the wall? With the timber around the fireplace, I just feel there is too much happening on one small wall.

kevino50 Why thank you. :)
Regarding the door. All the doors in the house are white and also the window sills and skirting boards. I'm not in the US. I'm in Ireland and the convention here is for internal woodwork to be either white or a wood stain. I don't know why but it is. Lol An internal door in yellow would be odd. I do thank you for the suggestion, all the same.

I have just started painting the new kitchen and will upload pix of that when finished too.

olldroo Kevin, being an Aussie, we have sort of retained the British ways too and use either white or stain. I do understand what you mean about odd, I couldn't see your skirting and didn't think about window frames. It probably would have been obvious had I been in the room, hard with just photos. I have sometimes painted a window frame if it isn't full length and gotten away with that. It can be a bit of a pain, I have tried a couple of times to blend the timber when I have felt it necessary and ended up in quite a dither knowing just where to stop and start, given up and gone back to all white.

Love to see your kitchen, I hope to have a new one this year sometime so am accumulating all the ideas I can get.

kevino50 Sorry for assuming that you are American. I thought that most people on here were. I should have known from your nickname that you were from Oz. :)
Yes I know what you mean about not knowing where to stop sometimes. Hehe
I will be happy to show you pix of the kitchen, before and after. I have been through the process over about three months, so am somewhat expert. :)
There is a great website for designing in 3D and it's particularly good for kitchens, so you should give it a go. It is great for developing and contrasting different ideas you might have. http://www.easyplanner3d.com/

olldroo You're forgiven, Kevin. It is a lot of fun though hearing all different opinions from around the world and seeing how things are done in other countries but then it gets frustrating when you see great products you can't buy. I would assume Ireland is like here and very limited in choice and expensive. I speak to some Scottish ladies who complain of that also. Thank you for the website, it will come in very handy

My kitchen is literally falling apart, this reno is waaaaaaaaay overdue so I don't think I want to take photos of it, I really don't want to remember it. It is small by standards here but that doesn't bother me as I'm totally over fancy cooking. I have to fit everything in pretty much as it is now, I don't have a lot of choice to play around with but I plan on swapping a wall oven and a fridge and I am taking a full length cupboard and a broom cupboard and adding it to my pantry. I saw a great idea here of a pantry with extra bench space in it for small appliances -

[houzz=
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and as I don't have a lot of bench space and I like things out of sight where they can't collect dust I thought I would like to put a whole U-shaped bench around the pantry and have all my appliances stored there. My existing pantry has power in it so I can extend that for additional power points. I would never have thought of that myself, yet it is so obvious. I also intend to maximise on drawers for storage, I'm getting too old to crawl around on the floor getting into base cupboards trying to clean and find things.

Once I get all the appliances under control that will free up a lot of space in cupboards for 3 drawers instead of 2 shelves so I maximise more on space to offset the extra pantry space, which will be used for storage as well. Of course I have also been purging and downsizing everything I have - that has been a lot of fun.

I have just finished renovating my ensuite and main bathroom - know what you mean about becoming an expert once you have done a renovation. I am presently trying to return order to the chaos from that and also conducting a major purge, husband is horrified at what I am tossing but my joeys are suitably impressed I can be so ruthless, even they are opting to take things rather than see them tossed, and they are the ones warning me about leaving them to clean out when I go!!!! Haven't got any photos yet, in all the upheaval I can't find the 'safe' place I put the battery charger for my camera.

olldroo ooops - forgot to ask, what did you use for your benchtop?