Pre-renovation planning - paint colours!

Given that our renovations should start by the end of January 2011, there's a few things I can start thinking about now. One of them is paint colour. This is something that has really limited how good I could get our place looking prior to the big works. We always knew we were going to be knocking down walls etc, so there wasn't much point in painting. It is, however, the thing that makes the biggest overall difference to a place and can totally change its look and feel.

I found the coolest toy on the Taubman's website where you can test out your colour choices on finished rooms from the latest series of 'The Block'! I love playing with things like that.

I'm thinking of going for a colour scheme of grey, charcoal and antique white - sophisticated, able to make an impact, but still 'neutral' enough. For the two bedrooms, I'd like to do something like the following picture which I found on a blog called 'My Sweet Savannah' that has a few good grey decorating examples.

I also really like dark greys and am thinking of using this colour to define our entry alcove area when the wall is removed. I'm not sure if it will make it too dark, or separate the space in a funny way though? But I think the big gold mirror and the red Japanese lacquered bench in the entry would really 'pop' against a dark grey background. I found some awesome photos of how dark grey can be used at Design*Sponge.

The open-plan living/dining space I will just keep an antique white for the walls and a bright white for the ceilings to hopefully make it as bright and airy as we can.

Well, that's all for now. I'm off to the beach to soak up some nice weather before NYE celebrations tonight!