advice & ideas for decorating extension..

[herladyship]

we have had a 'granny annexe' built onto our home for my pil. our old dining room is now their bedroom and we have a new dining/family room to replace it.

it is a rectangular room, 5m by 4m which leads off kitchen. it has patio doors onto garden.

i feel totally uninspired! at present it is bare plaster walls and ceiling with a solid oak floor.

our old dining room had table, piano and 2 seater sofa in. we need to decide on colour scheme, furniture, soft furnishings etc. but interior design is not really my area of expertise.

any words of wisdom, or links to inspiring ideas? pretty please?

What is the furniture like? How does the room sit with the rest of the house - is the original house modern or period, big rooms or small? Is the garden an inspiring focal point? What colours do you like? What do you want in terms of storage?

well, we have a small oak dining table (seats 6) with cream chairs, a cream 2 seater leather sofa (small) and a piano at the moment.. think we will probably need to add bits as these pieces might be a bit lost

the original house is a 1930's semi, bay window lounge at front, hall & stairs with kitchen off and new room is behind kitchen

garden has been mainly trashed by building work but it is large and does have nice new patio outside the french doors. hopefully in summer it will be nice!

no storage needed much, other than maybe a bit of extra bookshelf.

i am crap at colour schemes but rest of house is quite bland

i may be a lost cause

Well, I would go for something quite strong as it will get lots of light from the large doors and it probably isn't trying to look like the rest of the house, iyswim. Grey-greens are quite strong colours but work well with oak and then you can have lots of much brighter accessories such as cushions, throws, lamps etc - maybe aubergine, kingfisher etc. A really good rug around the sofa seating area (don't put the sofa against the wall, have it freestanding with some chairs).

Perhaps rather than putting the piano against a wall (I'm assuming it's an upright), you can angle it away from the wall a little so that it becomes more of a piece of furniture and part of the room.

I'd cover the wall on the sofa side of the room with shelves and fill with books and break up with things you like (vases, photos, mementos, clocks - sorry, I used this idea on someone yesterday but I think it works) and on the opposite wall I would have one really big piece of art (doesn't have to be expensive or frightening, a well-framed film or exhibition poster - large format).

If you are a bit scared of colour I suggest looking at the Farrow & Ball range: I know it's a cliche but their stuff, even the strong stuff, is quite subtle and you can play with it. Don't play safe because your furniture sounds very neutral and I think it could just end up being a bit porridgey if you do which would be a shame.

Hope that helps (and if it doesn't, at least you know what you don't want).

wow.. lots to think about

just had a look on farrow & ball website and i am thinking that 'stone white' is quite a nice greeny grey. like the idea of the aubergine accesories as well, so will do some internet browsing.

i always say i am going to have furniture freestanding, but for some reason seem to gravitate back to pushing everying against a wall!

thank you for the suggestions,

Stone white is nice, I like Cooking Apple as well and, a MN favourite, Vert de Terre. Have fun and really mix lots of colours into the accessories so it doesn't look too prissy and matchy-matchy.