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 on this. When Danielle left that comment we moved a color-coded floor plan to the top of our list. We made a similar palette map for our first house and enjoyed tracking how our paint choices have evolved. Below is an updated color palette for our current house as it stands (we still need to paint the guest bathroom and the spare room). The graphic doesn’t capture every tiny accent—like the dark teal inside the back of the dining room built-ins, the office stencil, or Clara’s closet stencil—but it was fun to put together a floor plan in Photoshop that shows our main paint picks so far. Note: we also keep a full list of these paint colors elsewhere on the site.
One pattern we’ve noticed is how we balance bold and neutral. Rooms with brighter walls often include neutral surfaces—white cabinets, light counters, or softer backsplashes—to keep things grounded. Conversely, rooms with more neutral wall colors are where we ramp up pattern and color through curtains, pillows, rugs, art, and painted furniture. That contrast creates a cohesive but layered look across the house.
For comparison, here’s a reminder of our first house’s color palette. We still gravitate toward blues and greens and plenty of neutrals, but in the current house we’ve shifted from creams and tans to cooler taupe-grays while adding plum, pink, and warm yellowish green accents to avoid a cold feel. In a smaller home, lighter, more flow-y colors made rooms feel airier. Now that we have a larger floor plan, small doses of stronger color can feel intentional without breaking the flow.
We’ve seen beautiful houses painted all one color and equally lovely homes with a different hue in every room. We land somewhere in the middle: a limited palette of colors repeated in a few places to create visual flow, but not so much repetition that rooms feel cloned. For instance, we use the same soft gray on the living room and dining room walls, but the dining room’s built-ins are painted deep teal and the door is a bright yellow—so it still reads differently.
Meanwhile the living room relies on layered textiles and accents: a green geometric rug, colorful pillows, tone-on-tone curtains, and dark-painted beams. Generally, neutral walls get more patterned layers while rooms with bold wall color stay simpler in textiles and accessories.
One noticeable change from our first house is curtains. Back then we used white curtains in almost every room. In this house we’ve embraced colorful and patterned drapery to add instant personality.
We also bring color through art and painted furniture. The office, for example, has green chairs and a lively wall of art that energizes the space, balanced by neutral built-ins, a wood counter, and a natural jute rug. Handmade elements like our bedroom headboards add pattern and color too—both the primary and the guest bedroom headboards introduce texture and graphic interest alongside bold rugs.
The green headboard in the guest room is a carryover from earlier decorating experiments, showing our tastes evolving rather than changing overnight. In the first house we tended to keep rooms more muted—neutral walls, simple shades, and fewer rugs—whereas now we’re happier layering in color and pattern.
We still value calm, tonal spaces in smaller areas. Our sink nook, the frame-filled hallway, and the laundry room feature softer palettes and more neutral finishes so they feel roomy and organized. Small spaces usually benefit from restraint—one accent wall or a pop of color goes a long way without overwhelming the room.
Other spaces allow for more adventurous choices. The hall bathroom has a subtle plum undertone in a gray paint, bright art, a colorful window treatment, and teal knobs—choices that feel intentional because the room is slightly larger and can handle more contrast.
All told, this color-mapping exercise was a helpful pause to reflect on how we decorate. It’s like a time capsule: a way to see where we’ve been and how our style continues to evolve as rooms get painted and refreshed. We hope this gives you a clearer sense of how our house’s palette fits together.
How do you like to decorate? Do you prefer one or two repeating colors through your whole home, a different color for every room, or a handful of hues that recur in several spaces? There’s no single right approach—only what makes your home feel like yours.
Psst—For a more exhaustive tour of our first house and all the before-and-afters of our current house, check out the photo galleries on the blog.