Coral and Grey Living Space Inspiration

Hooray! The first room at the new house is almost finished. We have walls, a floor and lighting and now it is time for all the lovely bits.

I adore researching interiors, I carry scraps of paper of real home photos around in the bottom of my handbag, and the lounge is littered with home inspiration magazines. 

The family living space in the house is a large rectangular shaped room with a door to the hallway, conservatory and the kitchen off 2 sides. The room has several dark wood original beams and we are lucky to have an enormous 8ft wide fireplace as the focal point of the room.

With dogs and small boys, we decided that hard flooring was a safer option, given the muddy paws and dirty bare feet that run from the garden through to the grown up lounge across the hallway. The beautiful oak herringbone flooring we uncovered only went across half the room, so we made the painful decision to cover it up. One day when we can chip all the old concrete out and source reclaimed parquet, we will do, but for now we had to get the room finished, the most economical way possible. But the good thing is we know it's there for later! We have taken the original walls back to the plaster and stripped off the old lining paper so you can really see all the quirks in the walls. 

The house was built in the 17th century and we really want to see all it's character rather than hide it under lining paper. Of course that does mean you have to get used to lumps and bumps but we love it!

We removed the partition which created a snug area, in favour of a larger more open plan feel and have chosen to keep the walls white as a neutral base for the rest of the furnishings.

It does look a little stark at the moment which totally goes against my love of clutter and colour! But I am going to restrain myself and keep to a soft colour palette of greys, corals, mints and a hint of gold, to bring warmth into the cool space. All week I have stared at these roses on the dining room table and love the deep rich colour they bring to a room.

I like the concept of keeping your biggest items neutral, your walls, flooring and main pieces of furniture and then accessorising to bring in your chosen print or colour scheme. That way when your tastes change after a few years you don't have the vast expense of changing all the really expensive items!

The room serves 2 purposes, a family area in front of the fireplace and a dining area at the back of the room. After lots of searching I found the perfect sofa and farmhouse table and now I need to get to work on my charity shop chairs and source 3 more. Mis matched but not completely mis matched! There's a space for an armchair too to make the area around the vintage coffee table I found in Olliebobs locally more cosy, but we are still on the hunt for that now!

We chose the Anglepoise range of pendants and wall lights for their classic but contemporary feel and now need to source table lamps to replace the lanterns on the console which are more at home in the fireplace. 

I love creating mini mood boards. They help you imagine what your room will look like and you can take a little inspiration from each picture, rather than replicating a room set. Here is my current collection of beautiful images.

I LOVE the dipped furniture and would love to be brave and paint the thrifted chairs with coral feet.  The mint and coral colour brings a more feminine feel to the room and I love the hints of gold in the lamps and accessories. You can find all the images on my Pinterest board here. 

These room shots are my favourites. Contemporary lines mixed with traditional prints and fabrics. Eclectic but not cluttered.

So we have a little way to go before it feels homely. I am sifting through all our photos deciding which ones will go in frames on the deep window ledges and having lots of fun finding cushions and curtains, to make it feel less white!

Let me know any recommendations for soft furnishings, I am always on the look out! I can't wait to do a full tour of the room when it's finished, so check back in soon.