Mr and Mrs Monday are not beige people. Nor fans of “gallery white”. If you, gentle reader, prefer those neutral shades then you might want to go fetch your eyeshades before reading on.

Their house has COLOUR in a big way.

Here is the primary bedroom:

The primary bedroom is composed of what was two smaller rooms, a 11×11 bedroom and what was often called a baby’s bedroom, or bassinette room about 6×8, a very small bedroom opening off the parents’ bedroom.

The wall between the two rooms happens to be a load bearing wall, and readers will well remember the fortune spent on steel posts and LVL beams on the lower floors … so on the bedroom level they worked around the load bearing wall. Thus the bedroom has two areas, a sleeping area and a dressing area, like this:

Rather than paint all four walls inside each area the same colour, or both areas the same colour, the Mondays went for colour arranged by view line.

Thus when in the sleeping chamber viewing towards the dressing room, the dividing wall is painted like the dressing room, and from the dressing room one wall is red when looking toward the sleeping area. It’s a technique I employ in my house too, but apparently is not widespread.

So, from the dressing area looking toward the sleeping area, all walls in one’s view are red (marked “I” on the plan):

And from the sleeping area, looking towards the dressing room, the walls in view are gray (marked “B” on the plan):

This has the additional bonus of having a surprise of one other colour on one wall only of each room.

Not to be out-done by her parents, Little Miss Monday has a colourful bedroom too:

Two shades of gray are repeated frequently throughout the house. One wall of the two storey hall is dark gray:

The other walls in the hallway, both downstairs (shown above) and upstairs are light gray. The middle bedroom / office is also light gray, as are other other accent walls in the house.

The grays don’t show up as brightly in the photos as the other colours, but the overall paint scheme is restful and elegant grays with pops of bright colour inside the various rooms. The within-room colours are separated from each other by zones of light grays.

And don’t forget, all the high baseboards and door trims and stairs and ceilings will be various whites. We’ll see those in the next two weeks.

Downstairs, the kitchen is another light gray. With the aid of the bulkheads, the island counter top, and different coloured walls the rooms on the ground floor living areas will both be open to each other and yet subtly separated by function and emotion:

The perimeter walls of the dining and living rooms are amalfi:

The light gray on the hall and short wing walls functions to separate the rooms and provides a neutral zone:

In the above pic the two rooms seem different hues but that is a function of the lighting at that moment. The sunlight plays a big role in the colours as the day goes on.

When in the house, it is becoming more apparent that there is a old house feel to the major structural elements and walls, with individual rooms being furnished in modern colours.

In the old back porch, which has been repaired and strengthened and the new window put in, the purple shade is dramatic and bright. The walls will be competing with coloured children’s toys and lego blocks.

 

Off the back porch is a powder room, or half bath. The walls and ceiling are to be … black. I think the floor tile is black too. Here’s the paint edges going in.

and the last bit of primer-while drywall being painted black

 

 

and the view from the porch / playspace into the half bath:

Meanwhile, as the orgy of painting draws to a close (it takes 3 and sometimes 4 coats to cover new drywall with bright colours), the tilework has commenced.

Here is the saw used to cut the porcelain floor tiles for the upstairs bathroom.

The tile cutting is being done outdoors to reduce dust inside the house where painting was still under way.

The square shower pan slopes to a centre drain. This requires a change in the floor plane along a line extending from each corner of the shower diagonally to the centre drain. Since the black tiles are large this necessitates a LOT of cutting to fit.

It is further complicated by the floor tiles being laid in a running bond or “brick” pattern, so many of the cut or grout lines will not align. Here is the not-yet-finished shower pan floor:

Note also that each tile had to be cut or nibbled into a curve to fit around the circular drain. Choosing a square drain would have made the job go faster. The water running around the showerer’s feet will remind one of Venice at high tide:

For keeners trying to imagine the wall colours, here is the key drawing for the bedroom floor (the primary bedroom is to the top and left):

and for the ground floor, the porch being the small addition:

And here is a “electrical sketch” that shows the rough outline of the former principal bedroom and dressing area that was created out the space formerly occupied by a bedroom, the baby’s room, the linen closet, a bit of hallway, and a small canteliever taken from over the stairwell: