Thursday, November 19, 2015

CURATED NEST: Dining in Darkness

It's that time of year when the dining room is easily one of the most important rooms in the home. This is where you'll be spending time with family and friends, celebrating the holidays and closing out the year.

So why not make this room special and enjoyable to spend time in? Don't forget, totally stylish! This space above does a great job with the art wall, mixing up frames, and that wall paint is beautiful. The room is so dramatic, yet inviting. The seating is comfortable. And bonus to having a dark area rug... less visible stains!

Get this look...

DESIGN BLUEPRINT:
Pendant / YLighting
Framed Art / ZGallerie
Framed Gold Feather / ZGallerie
Gold Frame / Crate & Barrel
Paint Swatch / Benjamin Moore
Tabletop Pottery / Pier 1
Dining Table / Crate & Barrel
Dining Chair / Dot & Bo
Area Rug / Pottery Barn
Inspiration image: Apartment Therapy

Friday, November 6, 2015

The New House: Exterior Color Palette

I know I've been a little slow to blog about the house we are buying. Some of you who follow me on Pinterest, Instagram or Facebook may be following along with my concepting, but otherwise I've been kind of quiet posting about my plans.  We're closing soon but until then I don't want to get too carried away showing you my ideas.  I guess I just don't want to jinx myself or piss anyone off prior to our closing date. That said, I figured it would be pretty safe to talk a little about exterior paint colors.  The house is currently sort of a greeney yellow with accents of darker green, a rusty red and some blues thrown in.

The current owner was considering painting the house before she decided to sell and had been experimenting with paint choices so there is a bit of a hodge podge going on.  The paint colors are not bad at all and they have a nice historical feel, but I'm thinking that next summer we will probably need to give the house a fresh coat of paint.  That, of course got me thinking about paint colors. I've been cruising around the neighborhoods noting the paint schemes on various Victorian homes and some have come close to something I would do, but none are quite right. I love a house that isn't afraid of color and I love drama. I also want to respect the home's Queen Anne Victorian roots.  Here are some concept images I found on Pinterest that I liked the feel of:
In finding these various concept images a few things became clear to me.  I prefer a more uniform color palette of cool colors versus the contrast of cools and warms.  While I don't like warm / cool contrast, I do like dark / light contrast. I especially love dark window sashes as you can see from some of the images above.  I also really love a sort of green/blue/grey palette.  In keeping with a more Victorian color scheme, I feel like the trim on the house should not be stark white and should either be a cream or a light green. After concepting I did a little a few sample color palettes. Here are two I came up with that I like for now (I'm sure there will be several iterations before it's all said and done):
I then played around with Photoshop to see if I would like the overall idea on the house. I'm not completely sure how I feel and it's a bit tough to get it completely accurate in Photoshop but at least it's a starting point. I don't want the house to look drab but at the same time I don't want it to be juvenile or unsophisticated. It's a delicate balance.

What do you think?  Obviously we need some nice landscaping to complement this.  I'm excited to get everything finalized and start on the inside.  Stay tuned!