A Cape Cod Living Room Layered with Color

This living room kept its bones: the original fireplace mantel, the built-in bookcases on either side, and the arched doorway leading into the rest of the house. What changed was everything underneath and around it. The wall-to-wall carpet came out, and since there was no hardwood hiding beneath it, we laid new flooring in the same tone as the home's original interior doors, so the new floor would feel like it had always been there. Mornings start on the bay window bench, and evenings end gathered together on the sofas. This room is used from first light to last.

The day starts on the east side, where morning light pours in from the sun porch through a window and the little white door beside the fireplace. By midday the sun has moved around to the bay window, where the bench looks south over the park. Through the north window, you can look down and see the kids playing in the playroom below. In the evening, softer west light finds its way in through the front entry hall from the library, the right light for when everyone is ready to settle in.

A Schumacher print was the hero decision. Its golden ground, birds, and hand-painted florals set the whole room in motion before anything else was chosen. Yellow drapery at the bay and a yellow-painted chest carried that gold through the room, while soft blue walls picked up its blues and a glossy green coffee table answered its greens. A gallery wall went up over the sofa, mixing original art in gilt and painted frames, with nothing matched on purpose. A pair of vintage ginger jar lamps anchored either end, their block-print pleated shades repeating the same blue. Wicker chairs wore a botanical cushion fabric with indigo pillows, and a vintage rug pulled the palette together underfoot. Brass candlesticks and pink tapers warmed up all that pattern, and a large photograph of a red lighthouse settled over the mantel to close the room out.