Let the BETTYFICATION begin!

BETTYFICATION - noun/pun on the word beautification. The process by which ordinary houses become fabulous homes. WORD ORIGIN: Betty Box, composer, seamstress, package wrapper, home decorator and all around creative trend-setter, has helped to decorate the homes of every woman in my family, accommodating very divergent tastes and getting beautiful results using unique methods and always thinking outside the proverbial Box! MODERN USAGE: Any creative overhaul of decor with fabulous results, often including pictures hung close to the floor, trinkets suspended by fishing line, and the display of decorative yard sticks.

BETTYFY - verb/pun on the word beutify. To make ordinary houses become fabulous homes. WHO CAN BETTYFY? Betty Box, naturally, Corinne Simpson, Susan Rozier, all of the Simpson daughters and daughters-in-law, and, to a lesser extent, me, with a lot of help from Betty, Corinne and Susan.

This post is really just for my decorating dream team, comprising the above-named Bettyfiers, who will be visiting me and Bettyfying my home at the end of June (picture me doing cartwheels at the thought of it!). Most other readers will find it boring because they lack the ability to think outside boxes and dismiss things that cannot be noticed from atop galloping horses. The purpose of this post is to orient my team to the projects at hand and seek advanced advice so I can be as prepared as possible for the convergence of this brilliant team. For further correspondence, we can chat in the comments section below, or through regular email.

And now to business...

My house is 4 bedrooms, two baths upstairs and a kitchen, guest bath, hallway and two living areas (one including a small dining area) downstairs. Although every room in the house needs work, I would like to focus during your visit on the downstairs only, MAINLY the more formal of the two living areas (which I refer to as the living room), which is what one sees upon entering the front door.

Here's the front door and what you see when you go through it.




The downstairs is basically a circle around the stairway. To the left of the entrance there is a hallway that leads to the garage door at left, guest bath straight on, and one entrance to the kitchen at right, as shown here. That bulletin board on the left is really my first successful project in the house. It's covered in a fabric that complements another fabric I have, which is yet to be turned into a side-table cloth or runner or something fabulous that Betty comes up with. Here is a look at the fabric, which shows my hoped-for color pallet, although I'm not sure the colors will turn out true on this medium. Also, truth be told, I'm a bit iffy about the colors I chose. We'll talk more about color in a bit, but just to put a name to the colors you see here, that's soft orange and a deep red and a yellow/gold. I LOVE the red (my fireplace wall, which you will soon see, is in the process of becoming that red), LIKE the idea of the orange, but am feeling a bit insecure about how/where to use it, and I'm not crazy about the yellow/gold here. It comes off as too green, I think.


Back to the tour. If you look to the right from the open front door, you see the formal living area, which is a long, narrow room. Technically, I think a portion of it is designed as a formal dining area, but we won't be using it as such. The room is a bit problematic in how narrow it is, but I just know the team will come up with furniture arrangement that will make it look great.

From the open door:


Turning to the right from the open door:



A view of the front door from the far end of the room:


Current couch placement (many things are out of place because we're painting and because we just moved a big shelving unit--known by Mom and me as "Brown Bob"--into the family room):


Piano "wall":

In this piano photo (above) you can see the entrance to the family room/dining room, which adjoins the kitchen, completing the circle. On the right side of this opening is the fireplace, which is a pass-through fireplace, with access from both rooms. Here below is a photo of that, and the architectural elements above it that most definitely need to be Bettyfied, Cornified and/or Momified (at the left of the first picture below you can see the aforementioned Brown Bob, who houses our computer and arts center):



It should be noted that on the living room side, the ceilings are two stories high. On the family room side, they are low. Here is the family room side of the fireplace:


The fireplace wall--BOTH living room and family room sides--is being painted red. In this picture, it has just been primed.

Now here are more pictures of the family room and dining room area:

Meet Brown Bob.

Dining area, obviously.

Sliding glass door to the right of dining area, leading to back patio/yard.

Detail above sliding glass door...needs a bit of help.

Kitchen, which is to the left of dining area, opposite sliding glass door. Nice 80s oak and white tile as you can see. I'd like to overhaul it entirely, but of course that will have to wait.


And here we come full circle to the hallway with the bulletin board:

I did this stenciling around the bulletin board, but it may need to be painted over, we'll see.

Below are the pantry and hall closet opposite the bulletin board.


I thought we could make a few little touches to my guest bath that would spice it up. It has a cowboy theme, but it needs a rope border (like Marissa's room) and maybe some vinyl lettering on that gigantic mirror. Also, I'd like to paint the big star red and have other red touches.




That's bluish, vertical striped wallpaper that fits just fine with the cowboy theme so I'm keeping it.

And now more about color...There is a website called kuler.adobe.com that is a very cool place to explore and create color combinations. I created a pallet there called LaDawn Happy Autumn. HERE is the link to it. On further inspection, I find the brown there to be too dark, but the red, gold and orange look right.

Anyway, I've got all these white walls and they're driving me crazy. I would like to try to have them all painted before you get here, but that means I have to make color decisions without you and that scares me! Initially I had chosen a cocoa color, but then I looked around. My couches are tan, my carpet is tan, my wood furniture is oak, my hard floors are light, my piano is brown...get the idea? WAY too much neutral. So I set out to find some actual COLORs that I could live with and that's when I came up with the pallet that, hopefully, shows on the link above. I was going to do the long living room wall orange, the fireplace and perhaps the alcove around the front door red, and the rest yellow, with the hallway and upstairs brown. Then that seemed like TOO MANY colors. My lack of decisiveness has left my walls white, and getting dirtier and dirtier by the week (children, markers, hand and footprints etc). I realized I was being stalled by the enormity of the task...which colors, which walls, and those hugely high ceilings in the living room. But I was certain I wanted the fireplace wall red, so I'm just going forward with that.

I'm not that big a fan of that yellow/gold color, but it seems the least obtrusive, so I thought I'd use that, but I just don't like it enough. I DO like the orange color, but it seems a bit too bold to put on an entire wall, especially the size of the long living room one, so I'm wondering how to better include orange in the space. And the brown I love, but it seems a bit too dark, and perhaps too neutral for all those big walls as well. So, taking these thoughts into consideration and (hopefully) having seen the colors, do you have suggestions?

Another thing to mention is the wallpaper in the kitchen/dining room area. It's visible in the dining room picture above, but here is a close up of it: There's a bit of glare on one of the leaf sets, but the set at lower left shows the color. It's definitely green, which I'm not crazy about, but I'm hoping a simple brown will complement it and go well with the red also. Eventually I definitely want all the wallpaper gone, but truth be told I'm totally intimidated by the idea of removing it all (my upstairs bathroom is a wallpaper disaster!), so I'm just trying to tie it in for now.

So, that's color. Let me know what you think.

The next thing I want to talk about is an idea I have for a feature in the living room. As you'll see in the pictures below, my long, narrow living room is flanked by pretty windows, but there's a long, empty space (I estimate about 16 feet) between them. So far I have separated the room into sitting area and work area (when Brown Bob was in there) and/or library. I imagine we probably still will separate the space if I know my team. But to unify the divided-use space, I thought a long shelf up at the level of the upper window that spans all three walls might be nice. Kind of like the big one Paige has in her living room, only turning two corners as well. We could bring fabric down from each end of it, or shelving for books, or both. Window treatments could also hang from it. I already have several 2x4s that could be painted for the purpose, and I have a couple of brackets that are attractive. Shelving is definitely a priority, as I have many books that have never made it in from the garage. Also, children's books ABOUND!

Between the right window in the picture above and the left window in the picture below is the approximately 16 foot wall I mentioned.


Other ideas include shopping for an area rug for the family room, pillows and throws for the living room couches, a major art piece or arrangement of pieces for that big long living room wall, and generally arranging furniture and already-existing decor items, of which I have many. I have two or three boxes of things I've not yet incorporated, and a fair amount of fabric as well. I have lots of curtain rods and shelving possibilities on hand already. As for a theme or feeling for my decor, I'm thinking colorful, artistic, and slightly ethnic. I have some interesting pieces from my travels in Africa and Italy, and I like the idea of finally displaying them. My budget at this point is around $500. I'll see if I can manage to add to it before you get here.

Here are some examples of what I have with a 'colorful and slightly ethnic' vibe. Carved wooden bowls, variously textured balls, vases, Aztec artifacts, Masai masks, Sicilian papyrus, etc. I also have some large carved mahogany elephants that Jamie has been storing for me. I'll get those back from her this weekend.

And here are a couple of pieces of furniture I have that are now in other rooms of the house but that could be used as the team sees fit:


Okay, Ladies. Comment away! Let's get going! I can't wait to hear your thoughts. Thank you so much for being willing to help me. I have so many ideas, but implementation is practically impossible (let's just say it's highly improbable) without a support group full of getterdone ladies like you!