color

Sleeping in a Cloud…Dreamy Gray Bedrooms

Funnily enough, as I was packing paperwork for our trip back to the US this summer, I stumbled across an old folder with some of my long-term gray bedroom inspiration images. In light of my last post, I can’t resist sharing them, although they are actually the old-fashioned version of actual tear sheets and in most cases I have no information on designer or publication. If you know any of the details, please drop me a comment and I will be sure to credit it.

Familiar players appear in this tight shot reflected back in a gorgeous Venetian mirror, including it, lovely white linens, stripey gray silk taffeta and European style bed. I’m not sure I would ever get up if this was my bed.

This is one of the earliest images, torn from The Washington Post Magazine and dated Oct. 4, 1992. It is on very faded paper, but I promise you it is gray, as is that standout Belgian cabinet. Just noticed now that there is even a blanc de Chine figure on the ledge.

I always had a hankering for a bit of architectural wall detail, which has been created here with the simple use of different color gray paints. There is some ticking stripe here too – in the bed hangings for instance – although it is hard to tell in the beautiful bright light of the photo.

In this very well-known bedroom by Mary McDonald from the November 2001 issue of House & Garden, photographed by Melanie Acevedo, simple molding has been painted out in white to create architectural interest. In the end, I have never had a space that would have been suited by this kind of detail, but I always love it. Note the Bagues sconces over the fireplace and the bits of ticking stripe amid all the stark gray and white. The natural floor covering warms things up, which is something I should consider.

Other images, saved the more modern way on my computer include this divine one by Alex Papachristidi in a 2006 Elle Decor. Yards and yards of gray silk taffeta tempered by the contrasting glow of the gleaming antique commode and gilt-wood mirrors.

Another influential Papachristidis image is from the living room of the same apartment (and the one the cover of his book The Age of Elegance), in particular the grid of black and white images above the daybed.

A corner in Suzanne Rheinstein’s NYC apartment is another favorite, with its Bagues sconces and Gustavian settee covered in what looks to be a very fine stripe. The whole apartment is subtle and full of gray and can be seen in Elle Decor.

Do you keep tear sheets? I still like them better than Pinterest somehow – more tactile, more real.

Jun 16, 2014 By tokyojinja in Books, Movies & TV, Color, Interior Design Tags: Alex Papachristidi, color, gray, gray and white, gray interiors, gray rooms, grey, grey interiors, grey rooms, Mary McDonald, mirrors, stripes, Suzanne Rheinstein, ticking

It’s a Crapshoot…Picking Paint Colors Long Distance

I’m a hard-core believer that paint colors have to be tested on the wall before selection, but unfortunately that’s not possible for our house in Doha. I’m actually ecstatic that we can paint at all as our house in Japan was covered in an off-white textured wallpaper that could not be changed. And better yet, we have just discovered that there is Benjamin Moore to be had in Qatar! So if I can give my husband the paint color names and numbers in the next day or so, he can leave the paint for the painters in each room and that is what will go up on the walls in lieu of the ugly yellowish beige they would normally paint.

I always tend to choose a cool color palette for my own projects – it’s just my instinctual nature – and my plan for the house is to have it be a seamless assortment of pale grays, with a bit of pigment in some rooms where a color is called for. Gray is by far the most difficult tone to get right and there are thousands of posts and even entire blogs devoted to the color. Since I have such limited time, I’ve constrained my search to my own tried and true colors and decorator favorites. I routinely recommend Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter HC 172 and more recently Balboa Mist OC-27 to others, but I never use them for myself as they are warm grays, not cool. After quite a bit of deliberation, I’m positive I don’t want cool blue tones in the living room/dining room or in the entry and hallways, so I am pushing myself to use the light and warm gray Balboa Mist. These kind of warm grays look awful to me on the chip – very beige which you know is like a four letter word to me – but lovely on the walls.

This is the photo that inspired the use Balboa Mist in my Chicago client’s living room…

…and it has been a great success. The room is still in progress and quite neutral, but we are finding that it can handle any color thrown at it.

And the most important decision for my new place is how the color will serve as a backdrop to my silver leaf and pine byobu and the rich color of my bamboo altar table?

Inspiration photos reveal it to be a wonderful gray with greens and medium toned woods.

So I have convinced myself and it will be the main color in the house. Wish me luck as this would be my largest mistake if it is wrong!

The den will get much of my existing living room furniture and rugs so it should ideally be a blue-green gray. I’m going with Nate Berkus’s favorite Pale Smoke 1584, which is very close to the now discontinued Benjamin Moore color (from three color wheels ago – I’m dating myself!) that my New York living room was historically painted.

It is best known for his use of it in Katie Lee Joel’s Manhattan townhouse.

That’s not to say that I’m not still considering going dark and dreamy in the TV room, using something like Farrow & Ball‘s Hague Blue like I wrote about here, or even F & B‘s Claydon Blue, but those kinds of decisions will have to wait until I’m there.

My bedroom has been an easy pick – Harbor Gray AC 25 – and my only struggle is that I almost want to change the living room and dining room to this purer gray. In my heart I know it’s not the right thing to do, but this is the kind of gray I like best. It nudged out Stonington Gray HC-170 by a small margin as the Stonington has a touch more blue.

I just happened to stop by and visit our tenants in our New York City apartment yesterday where the master bedroom is still painted my (also discontinued) dream gray, a color by Sherwin Williams called Windham Gray. I dug up old photos of our bedroom there for you (you’ll recognize much of the furniture from our Tokyo place here and here) and I was able to match the paint chips to the wall. I’m feeling impressed with myself that the Harbor Gray I had chosen before going there was as close to an exact match as could be!

My elder daughter is lucky enough to be having her room entirely re-conceptualized and re-done when we get there. Blue is her unquestionable favorite color so I am going with a favorite of designers Steven Gambrel and Vincente Wolf called Iceberg 2122-50. This is the first digital chip that doesn’t do a good job of representing the color – it is much bluer and less seafoam than it looks here.

And I am cheating here as I don’t know for sure that this Jeffrey Bilhuber bedroom is actually Iceberg, but I can’t resist using it as it has some of the ideas we are planning on, including tons of one textile and accents of black. For more of her ideas for her room, she has started a Pinterest board here.

My younger daughter is getting a consolidated group of her things and her older sister’s including that divine painted armoire. For her room we are choosing a soft French green called Silver Crest 1583.

It has a very shimmery quality. She will also have deep raspberry as an accent color, but I couldn’t find any inspiration photos with that kind of colorway.

I’m also planning on using this wonderful wedding noren, which is less blue in person, as a bed hanging on a four-poster.

The guest bedroom needs a twinge of a yellow-green so it will either be November Rain OC-50…

…or Silken Pine 2144-50. I’m worried that the November Rain is too putty and the Silken Pine to literally green.

The color needs to set off these antiques – an old Tabriz and a lacquer tansu.

The bed is white iron and the bedding is all white, with a bolster made from and antique velvet pelmet.

And I think I am going to paint the office Gray Owl OC-52 just because I love the color and I want to see it on the wall. It’s a gray with quite a bit of green in it, which is why it wasn’t quite right for elsewhere.

Joan used it in her kitchen and I love it and everything she does.

It’s an option if the Balboa Mist turns out to be a fail and looks beige, which is my secret fear. This room is so seductive because it reminds me of the arched entryway into our new living room.

But I’m sticking with my Balboa Mist as my gut says it is the right choice. Opinions? I know you have them! I figure if I even get 50% of the rooms correct, then it is well worth it to just have it be done before the container arrives and the unpacking begins!

Image credits: All paint Benjamin Moore paint chips via Benjamin Moore, Farrow & Ball chips via House Beautiful, 3. Buckingham Interiors, 6.via Apartment Therapy, 7. Lindsay Reid in House Beautiful June 2011, photo credit: Amy Neunsinger, 9. Nate Berkus, photo credit: Evan Joseph, 15. Jeffrey Bilhuber in Elle Decor, photo credit: Simon Upton, 17. Beth Elsey in Atlanta Homes Magazine, photo credit: Mali Azima, 20. via Design Sponge, 22. via Decorpad, 26, via For the Love of a House, 27. via CCG Interiors. All other photos mine.

Jul 10, 2013 By tokyojinja in Color, Doha Move, Expat Life, Interior Design Tags: color, Doha, moving, paint, painting

Gorgeous Green…Rooms Inspired by a Bamboo Forest

I am dreaming of swaying poles and rustling leaves and the deep but soft grey green of a bamboo forest. I have dug deep into the inspiration files as this is not an everyday kind of color, but when it works, it is spectacular!

It is no accident that many of the following images are from British magazines or are attempting to create an English feel as this seems like such a quintessentially Anglo color. Suzanne Slesin’s library/dining room may be in New York City, but the light fixture, chairs and glass doors give the room an “English library atmosphere”. Combining the dining room, which tends to get little use, with a library is such a typical NYC trick, but one that would be useful anywhere. Books are always the best decoration!

This library, painted Farrow & Ball’s ‘Sutcliffe Green’ is in England, on the Norfolk/Suffolk border to be exact. Called Blo’ Norton Hall, it is the home of Charles and Rachel Morris. The cozy room occasionally serves as the dining room too. I love the white slips on the chairs and the thick white molding with the rich green paint.

Yet another library, this one by Martyn Lawrence-Bullard, is a favorite of mine. Too many black and white photos hung together can be stark, but these are set off so perfectly by the green wall and the unusual green Persian carpet. The warm golden-hued Biedermeier desk and chairs provide just the right contrast.

It’s hard for a room to go bad with a wall of french doors and transoms, and this eclectic beauty doesn’t disappoint. I imagine it to be as pleasant to sit here in the summer as it is cozy in the winter, with the great mix of textures and textiles. Unfortunately I have no idea who designed this room – please let me know if you do!

This is an image I have been holding on to for years and it continues to inspire me. Calling the look “Swamp Palazzo,” interior designer Rosemary James has packed her tiny New Orleans house with amazing French furniture. The dining room is painted a shade she calls “Empire Green.” I love the simplicity of the bare plank floors and the perfect lines of the furniture paired with the opulence of the silver and mirrored cabinetry. The rest of the house is equally charming, including the pale lilac bedroom which will have to wait for a future post.

This dining room by Gregga Jordan Smieszny is renovated in a “twenties rendition of Adam style.” Beautifully proportioned but a little formal for my taste, I couldn’t help but include it as it has bamboo wallpaper, Asian porcelain and those yummy velvet chairs.

There are few people more elegant than Carolina Herrera and her interiors are a reflection of her persona as she designs them herself. The painted Italian chairs make me swoon and the whole room feels like an extension of the garden.

Green kitchens are unusual, although there have been some very bright, very contemporary ones featured lately (Miles Redd anyone?). This English country kitchen in Brynderw Manor has such a casually assembled feel, with mismatched cabinets and chairs, blue and white transferware and those fabulous Majolica dishes on the table.

Compared with the manor house above, this kitchen, with its rustic beams and cheery toile curtains, feels like a country cottage. Again, I wish I had more information and details on location and designer.

This Hamptons (as in Long Island, not England) bedroom looks like it might be right upstairs from that kitchen! Designed by Fox-Nahem, it has just the right ingredients for a summer house – spool bed, striped linens, and airy voile curtains.

One of my bedroom fantasies is a tented room. This Paris apartment has trompe-l’oeil wallpaper to replace a real tent (which gathered too much dust). With the craze for all things Indian and Moroccan unabated, expect to see more of these!

This pretty, pretty bedroom was designed by Renzo Mongiardino for Contessa Christiana Brandolini (a sister of the late industrialist Gianni Agnelli). Somehow I am crazy for any decor that has anything to do with the Agnellis, and I think it is his doing! Click here to read more on this legendary designer.

Is it cheating to add garden rooms to a post on the color green? I don’t think I care. The Paris garden of Pierre Bergé is simply divine…

…as is the conservatory dining room of Robert Kime. I want to have a party under that Venetian chandelier and all those paper lanterns.

For more green (of a very different shade), check out Habitually Chic’s post Green is Good. And thanks to her for the Carolina Herrera photo as I couldn’t get mine to scan properly!

Image credits are sketchy on this post as many of the photos were torn from old magazines with no further information recorded. Please let me know if you have any dates/names, etc. 1. House & Garden, December 1996, British House & Garden, June 2009, 3. Martyn Lawrence-Bullard, 4. unknown, probably House & Garden, 5. The New York Times Magazine, March 17, 1996, photo credit: Antoine Bootz, 6. Architectural Digest, date unknown, 7. House & Garden, November 1999, 8. unknown, probably British House & Garden, 9. Elle Decor, date unknown, 10. designed by Fox-Nahem, publication unknown, 11. Domino, February 2008, photo credit: Miguel Flores-Vianna, 12. unknown, probably House & Garden, 13. House & Garden, date unknown, 14. Architectural Digest, January 1995, photo credit: Derry Moore.

Jan 20, 2011 By tokyojinja in Color, Gardens, Interior Design Tags: Carolina Herrera, color, Contessa Brandolini d'Adda, Fox-Nahem, green rooms, Gregga Jordan Smieszny, Iksel, Martyn Lawrence-Bullard, Pierre Berge, Renzo Mongiardino, Robert Kime, Rosemary James, Suzanne Slesin