Seen through a window

Travelling allows you to broaden your horizons in many ways.  You get to experience different cultures, climates, foods and transportation systems.  While many things stay the same from country to country,  there are also subtle differences in many of these areas.  One of my favourite things to do when I am walking in a new city is window shop with my camera.  Here are shots from Munich and Prague that relate to interior decor. Hope you see something your like.

Bling is in and the metal of choice appears to be chrome with lots of crystals....

Bedding inspired by nature and the fall season was everywhere.  

 Fall table settings

 Purple is popular.

And quirky clocks are always fun. Sometimes you even get a surprise when you take a shot. I'm looking in and out!

Paint it blue

While I was in the UK recently I was struck by the number of blue doors I saw.  Where I live  I have a difficult time convincing someone to go with a blue door, sometimes navy, but never a vibrant blue.  Blue was also  a constant accent colour I saw in France and Greece.  Is it a cultural or climate thing?  Living in the middle of the North Atlantic, we have our share of fog and cold so possibly blue is too cool for an entrance colour.  Red doors are very popular as a result. I'll have to investigate this further. As you can see blue can be many things.

Bright and vibrant and warmer, these are my top three doors  from all the ones I saw.

 

and getting cooler  ...

 

and paler...

and paler still.

How do you feel about blue doors?

Thursday Tip #4- Layering accessories

Laura Martin Bovard

What do you have in your house that your friends don't have? What personal touches make your house into a home?  Accessories may be small but they have a big punch in decor. This is an area where you should strive for personality plus.  Choose things that mean something to you or your family, and then combine them  to make an interesting grouping. Forget about spreading things out along the top of a cabinet or mantle- group, group, group.

Why does this vignette work? 

• the  colour tones are very similar
• there's  a variety of objects, textures, shapes and sizes (love the sphere)
• the objects are layered forcing you to look through to the back (providing a visual journey)
• the art work is overlapped , but you can still see each piece
• the format of the vignette is a classic v shape with the height at the edges and the lowest point near the middle

 

Thursday Tip # 3- Destination walls

 What do these rooms have in common?

Jona Collins

Powell/Kleinschmidt, Inc.

Fiorella Design

Elad Gonen & Zeev Beech

All  of the walls featured are small  "destination walls" which you walk toward.  The darker colour draws the eye and helps to visually draw you toward them. They also serve to showcase the furniture that is in front of them.  Do you have a destination wall in your house that would like a shot of colour to help anchor it? Look at the end of hallways or in long narrow rooms.

Achieving colour continuity

Colour continuity in a colour scheme is important for a smooth transition from one room to the next in your home.  It is even more important if you have an open concept home, a smaller home or one that is organized around a central hall plan.  If you were to stand in one spot in your house and do a 360 degree turn you should have a harmonized look.  Many people understand this basic concept in decorating, but often it's the execution that causes difficulties.

Colour continuity does not mean having every room painted the same colour (but your can).  It means a smooth colour transition from room to room.  My preference is to choose up to 6 neutral colours for walls in a two story home and then organize them in an interesting flow from room to room. I like some surprises and greatly dislike a look that is too put together (matchey, matchey is my term).   Walls are an envelope to contain the excitement you create with accessory choices.

 The simplest way is to begin with a colour key or inspiration piece.  It could be an art work, a piece of fabric, a photo of a scene, an area rug a piece of pottery or china - the sky's the limit.  In my case I began with an artwork by Elena Popova   France 11 that  has a personal connection for me and always makes me feel happy....

I kept the wall colours in the house very neutral with warmer tones in north facing rooms and cooler ones  south facing. Then I used  colours from  the artwork to choose furniture and accessories.  My window treatments tend to be as neutral as my wall choices.

Deciding what your accent colours will be and how you  allocate them is  a personal choice.  I happen to love the peaceful nature of green; I feel fresh and relaxed in its presence.  It appears in many guises and in varying degrees in each room  in my home. I also like purple and green together (my favourite plants are often purple). There is a direct relationship between the colour palettes I use in painting and my subject matter and what I put in my house. Sometimes we understand why we are drawn to certain colours  and other times we just know what we like. 

My accessory colours are green, buttery yellow and purple, 

 but orange keeps popping up in the art work I buy or trade (and I keep saying I dislike orange). In the dining room the walls are BM Light Khaki which has a greenish undertone. It is the only wall that is actually a "colour". I had to warm it up because it gets little light.

My accent colours move around my house in happy harmony  existing in  varying proportions from room to room. 

But what happens when you already have major furniture pieces and you want to establish a new colour scheme?  Look for a  fabric that already has some of your furniture colours as part of its colour scheme and move on from there.I find paintings and textiles the best sources for colour inspiration.

Here's a glimpse of how  my colour scheme works .

 My living room wall colour is BM Elephant Tusk which is a great neutral colour for a north facing room.  The largest portion of green in my colour  scheme is my living room sofa and chair. You can also see the purple reflected in the cabinet, pillow, and the flowers in the vase.

More purple, a touch of golden yellow, and one hit of red.  Every room need at least one unexpected colour somewhere. My favourite "hit" colours are turquoise, lime green and red.  I like to mix up patterns too. Over the years I've tired of wood tones and have been slowly removing them from furniture.  The floors are enough. I've committed the worst sin by painting solid wood furniture a neutral gray!

My kitchen wall colour is BM Rockport Grey. The room  sports a recycled wicker chair purchased for $40.00.  A little spray paint and away you go.  I've paired a  golden beige with it. Remember the hit of golden in the border on the Turkish throw in the living room? A lighter version can be found in the artwork above the chair.

The sofa in the family room was the inspiration for the cabinet in the kitchen and the mantle colour. Notice the purple/ blue used as accents.  Gray  is repeated in this room in furniture, pillows and other accessories in slightly differing proportions than in the living room. The walls are BM Rockport Gray. It works well in this south facing room that has warm light most of the day.

And my vase of pods moves around! The table is painted BM Iron Mountain.  Love that gray.

You can see purple and green used in accessories in the porch. I now have a lovely light purple pillow. The drawers are on casters and pull out  for storage. The bench is Wish AF 680 in Affinity line by BM. The walls are AF 675 Fusion (lower picture is closes to real colour).  My house is as much about comfort and convenience as it is about style. It can't just look good, it has to work.

A  yellow green is used as an accent in the study upstairs. This is an unusual  colour combination that I took from  the fabric that I used to create a stretched fabric piece.

 

And how about this great roman shade?

And that's how I went about developing my colour scheme.  My home isn't a showpiece, it's a place where you can relax and mess  it up a bit and it's always in transition. Stay tuned for  my dining room make over....

Thursday Tip #2

Webber + Studio, Architects

Use accessories to carry colour

 The vibrant yellow green in the artwork in this hallway is repeated again in the pillow in the bedroom. A darker green appears in the art work above the bed.  When walking down the hallway your eye pops from the artwork into the adjoining room  which is seen at a distance.  This causes visual movement from one room to the next.  A small thing but very effective for connecting one room with the next. Never underestimate the power of accessories to improve every room in your house. Have you carried colour from one room to another in your home? 


Check back for my next post on Colour Continuity when creating a colour scheme.

  

It's never perfect

There's room for improvement in most decors because perfection is difficult to create and every set of eyes will see a design in a different way.  I'm amazed by the discussion that ensues when several decorators look at the same photos of a project.  Often an  aspect of a  room that I will focus on may be ignored by someone else or one of my colleagues will bring up an aspect of the design that I didn't even notice. 

  Look at each of the photos below and see how you feel about the decor. You will notice a general theme of art work running through my commentary.That's because I feel strongly that art work can make or break great decor.   What do you think are the strengths in these rooms?  Is there anything that bothers you?  Is there anything you would change  (add or take away) if you could? Or is the room just perfect in your eyes?  Decide what you think and then scroll down to my commentary.  Did we focus on the same strengths and things that could be changed to improve the overall design?  Did entirely different things come to light for you? Remember it's opinion.

Number 1

 BHG

A bed between two windows calls out for symmetry which this decor has.  The colour scheme that supports the light wood tones is very soft and  pleasing  which I predict would make sleeping in this room pleasant and relaxing. Given the overall symmetry of the room, I find the artworks above the bed begging to be lined up with each other.  Better still I would have just one piece hung since the second piece almost reaches the ceiling.  I crave  pattern for variety and it could be added in pillows , a throw and/or and with the addition of an area rug under the bed. I'm personally not fond of all the wooden furniture matching  and think that something more bench like  would work at the end of the bed.   The lovely cabinet could be moved to another room.

Number 2

BHG

I like this neutral bedroom that just sings with the splashes of orange red on the bed and in the art pieces above it. Any art work arranged in a grid interests me, but this bed seems to need larger pieces above it.  Even with the massing of smaller, brightly coloured  works, the scale doesn't work with the bed.  It's crying out for something with more visual weight. I bet there is another spot in this room where these pieces could be used to better advantage.

When choosing artwork for over a bed I like to see at least 2/3 of the linear space occupied. With a queen bed,  I'd aim for  two 18 x 20 or 20 x 20 inch works or one larger piece of approximately 40 inches in length. The higher the headboard the smaller the vertical measurement.  Something brighter and larger in scale could be added to bring more visual interest to the bedside table that is visible. While there isn't much pattern in this room, the little bit on the pillows appears enough for my tastes.

Number 3 

SchappacherWhite Ltd.

The elements in this room are quite interesting, especially the inclusion of the yellow flowers that are beautifully framed by the doorway beyond.   The zebra is an unexpected touch and creates some pattern in this room which seems a little devoid of it. The two things I find jarring are the two pieces of artwork.  I want to line up the small piece on the left with the chair under it and the large piece on the right  is much too large for the space and looks awkward and squat. Sometimes this forced confinement of a work can be used to great advantage, but this work doesn't have that kind of imagery. I want to see it on a large wall which allows  breathing room all around it. The brown  light fixture  is  large, but it works because the room is vaulted and the dark colour connects with the wood on the ceiling.

Number 4

 Garrison Hullinger Interior Design Inc.

Many times in our homes we have to use the furniture that is available  and arrange it to best advantage.  I think the table is such a piece of furniture.  It reads as just a tad too big to place between the two chairs, but thought has been put into creating  visual flow with red to connect the disparate pieces and make the vignette look inviting.  Your eyes have no choice only follow the pops of red that have been set up in the age old triangular format.  My one great annoyance in this room is the plant that obscures the art work behind it.  It is never a good idea to mount art work and then cover it up with the next layer of design.  Perhaps it is only me who has this pet peeve;  it might be the artist in me rising to the top.
 

IMHO... in my humble opinion. As I said, there's no one correct way to design a room and we all perceive a room differently.  Do you have any reaction to these rooms?