Q: Hi guys! I was snooping around your blog to try and find a floor plan of your new home with the colors you used for each room (like you did in the post from Feb 24/2010) but I didn’t find one! I would L-O-V-E to see what your new house looks like now, with a visualization of the color scheme per room. Is this possible, or am I asking way too much? HAPPY NEW YEAR by the way! – Danielle
A: You’re right — we were overdue for this. After Danielle left that comment, we bumped this project to the top of our list. We created a similar color map for our first house, and it was fascinating to see how our paint choices have shifted over time. Below is the updated color palette for our current home as it stands now (we still plan to paint the guest bathroom and the spare room). Some small details are harder to show — for example, the back of the dining room built-ins are dark teal and there are stenciled accents in the office and Clara’s closet — but it was fun to make an updated floor plan of our paint selections so far. Note: we also keep a full list of these paint colors for reference.
One thing we’ve noticed is how we balance bright wall colors with more neutral elements. For example, our greeny-yellow kitchen walls are offset by white cabinets, white counters, a soft gray backsplash, and warm cork floors. Conversely, rooms with neutral wall colors often get their personality from patterned curtains, colorful pillows, geometric rugs, bold artwork, or painted furniture. Those layers help each space feel intentional instead of flat.
To reflect briefly on the past, our first house leaned heavily on softer sea-glass hues, creams, and tans. That palette helped a small home feel open and airy. In our current, larger house we’ve allowed more saturated accents — plums, pinks, warm yellow-green — while keeping lots of taupey and soft gray neutrals to prevent things from feeling overwhelming. We still love the coastal-inspired tones of our first house, but our current home lets us add bigger pops of color without fragmenting the layout.
We’ve seen beautiful homes painted a single color throughout, and others that change color in every room. We fall somewhere in the middle: we use a handful of repeat colors across several rooms to create visual flow, while letting other spaces have their own personality. For instance, the same soft gray appears in both our living room and dining room, but the dining room is distinguished with deep teal on the back of the built-ins, colorful curtains, and a bright yellow door.
The living room, by contrast, layers in pattern and texture — a green geometric rug, colorful pillows, tone-on-tone curtains, and dark painted beams — creating contrast and depth without changing the overall wall color. In rooms with neutral walls we tend to introduce more patterned textiles and accessories; in rooms with bolder wall color we often keep furnishings more restrained.
One notable shift from our first house: we moved away from white curtains everywhere (except Clara’s room) and embraced colorful, patterned window treatments throughout the current house. That change alone injects a surprising amount of personality into each space.
Bold color now appears not only on walls but also in art and painted furniture. The office, for example, features green chairs and a vibrant wall of art balanced by white built-ins, a wood countertop, and a natural jute rug. Handmade headboards in the bedrooms add another layer of pattern and color, paired with bold rugs and bright pillows to make each sleeping space feel cozy and curated.
We still create calm, tone-on-tone moments where needed. Small areas like our sink nook, the framed hallway, and the laundry room stay more restrained so they don’t feel cramped. The laundry room has a soft avocado wall color, but the rest of the room remains neutral with white cabinets, simple fixtures, and cork floors — a good example of using a touch of color without overwhelming a small footprint.
Room size often dictates how much color and pattern we add. Larger rooms handle bolder choices more easily, while smaller spaces benefit from softer walls and strategic accents. Take the hall bathroom: we used a gray paint with a subtle plum undertone, added bright artwork and a colorful window treatment, and finished with teal knobs on the vanity to give it personality without crowding the space.
So that’s our slightly meandering but much-needed color floor plan update. Writing posts like this serves as a time capsule for us — it captures how the house feels at a moment in time, even as rooms continue to evolve with new accessories and updates. How do you approach color in your home? Do you prefer one or two paint colors throughout, a different color in every room, or a handful of recurring tones? There’s no single right answer — it’s all about what makes your space feel like you.
Psst — for a more complete look back at our first house and a photo tour of our current house, we keep galleries documenting both projects for those who want a deeper dive.