Exterior Paint colors finalized

Hi Everyone!  Jess D here. It's spring and our house is being painted this week! Well, rather, they are starting the stripping, priming and then the painting which is going to be a multi-week process. But I'm excited to document it for you. That said, I realized I never gave an update on the finalized paint scheme. There had been several options. I even entertained the idea of adding some pinky peach in there and hemmed and hawwed over painting the window sashes and storms. But I think I've come to a final decision.  Here is what I'm thinking.

I realize that the dark blue/green/grey looks almost black on some of your computer screens, but don't fret, I've sampled it in person.  I also did a couple of new mock ups on some closer in areas of the house to get an idea of how it would look. It's a bit tough to photoshop the areas in shadow but I'm generally happy with the overall idea.

Ignore the plywood panelson the stained glass windows that are being repaired.  And stay tuned as we peel back the layers and put this lady back together!

Narrowing down our exterior color

Hi Everyone. A while back I posted about our exterior color scheme. Well spring is coming and it's time to narrow things down. I had mostly decided upon a dark blue/green and have been looking at some swatches on the house.  This was what I had kind of narrowed it down to.

And here are some of the swatches (leaning toward the middle right).

Then Scott and I went up to the Berkshires last weekend. There are lots of Victorian homes up there and I saw one that was this pinky peach color and thought to myself, that could be so fun. Here is a photo of it on a drive by (cloudy skies made the color read more yellow in the photo).

I've always been drawn to houses that are painted that sort of salmon color. Especially in conjunction with dark green. I think it's a very southern combination. Here are some concept photos.

The problem is our house doesn't have shutters. And as you can see in these photos, dark window sashes help to contrast against the light house color and light trim.  But we've already talked about how I can't paint my sashes dark because we have light colored storm windows I can't paint.  Doh!  It always comes back to that. Plus, most of these houses have a 3-4 color scheme going on. And I think our house needs at least five colors. Which made me realize that I think I need another more bold accent color anyways. We have the dark blue/green on the house, white on the trim, a minty green on the paneled area, rust on some of the other cutout trim, but there are some other small trim areas that need yet another color. Enter the peachy pink. Sort of a lighter version of the rust.  Here is the new palette I'm thinking (btw, every time I formatted the below image the mint green turned into a hi-lighter green - ack!).

And how it might look executed on the house.

What do you think?  Too crazy?  Too much going on?

Re-thinking the kitchen

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season. It was a fun one for us - lots of family, lots of good meals and quality time. But I have to admit that I'm ready to get back to our routine and as with years past, I am so ready to take down the holiday decorations and get our house back to normal.  While spring and outside projects (painting! gardening!) are right around the corner, we still have a couple months of cold to trudge through. Aside from getting quotes on said outside projects, I am also focusing on a few interior projects over the next few months.  My big project is giving our kitchen a face lift.  If you follow me on social media you may have seen photos of my kitchen and thoughts on both cabinet paint color and hardware.  As a bit of a refresher, here is what the kitchen looked like before we moved in.

Here is what it looked like after we painted.

My main objective is to make the kitchen more useable and aesthetically interesting on a tight budget until I can do a larger scale renovation (including opening up the kitchen to the family room) 5-10 years down the line.  I have already added a farmhouse style island table that has made the kitchen way more useable.

Next steps are to paint the cabinets, replace the hardware, lighting and faucet and do a fun stencil on the floors.  Originally my thoughts veered in this direction.

But then I got sort of tired of the idea of white cabinets (which we had in our old house).  I had entertained a dark charcoal grey for the cabinets but realized that it was really competing with the black/brown speckled granite counters (not my favorites). Here is a photo of the test paint color and me testing some hardware options on a cabinet panel.

I then went back to the idea of white but still wasn't too happy with it.  That is when I came upon this concept image from Jenny Komenda.

I love the sage green. It feels modern yet classic. And I think the green counterbalances the red in the granite (sort of like how you use green concealer on a pimple).  I'm hoping it will make the counters appear more black than speckled brown.  I am going to do the uppers in white still and use some new hardware from my collection.  I also found these great barn lights that I think will spread the light out better toward the corners of the kitchen and plan to use a blackened metal finish on the hardware.

Its so funny - I went through so many iterations of kitchen cabinet colors and concepts but none of them feltquite right.  This one feels fresh and in keeping with the house.  It's nice to finally have a cohesive vistion. I can't wait to go paint shopping on Friday and get started on the project next week. Wish me luck!!!

More thoughts on Exterior Paint Color

As we enter the height of winter, that means one thing.... spring is around the corner! I know, it's hard to imagine as forecasts of snow are now on the horizon. But now is when you have to start planning your big spring projects. And here at Chez Davis our big spring project is going to be painting the exterior of our house.  Just as a reminder here is what the outside of the house looks like now (sans the new picket fence).

In a previous post I'd explored the idea of a more historic color scheme including painting the window sashes dark.

While I love a dark window sash, it just won't work with our existing storm windows. I next thought about a grey palette.

I like the direction but it seems a little bland.

There is a sort of peacock blue house around the corner that I love so I thought this might be fun.

But then circled back to an even darker grey with a few more colored accents.

I'm totally on the fence. I think I need to experiment with actual swatches when the weather warms up.  What do you think?

Bed Basics with Leesa

One of my favorite things about Lucy's room is her new bed.  I love the Jenny Lind bed from Land of Nod but what I really like is how comfortable the entire bed due in large part to her new Leesa Mattress.  There are several companies out there that offer a foam mattress that ships to your door and that you can try for 100 days. Leesa's mattress is definitely the best of these options.  Here is the Leesa Mattress when it was delivered.

We  got the mattress a little before the bed. Having it shipped compressed into the box made it so much easier to store until the bed arrived. If you recall, Lucy was very surprised when the bed was delivered and assembled.

But once we put the mattress on and she got to roll around all over it she was sold!

Dressed with linens from West Elm and Ikea, the bed is casual and comfy. 

Lucy's still stuck in the crib for as long as we can pull that off, but she is becoming more and more eager to try out her big girl bed.  And for now it is a great spot for naps, and bedtime stories.

Thanks to Leesa for such a great product and for making Lucy's room so comfortable and inviting.

Mirror Madness - Zuo Modern

Many of you commented on the mirror we selected for Lucy's room. It has such a cool deco vibe and really opens up the room and adds a level of sophistication.  I wanted to share a little with you on the sourcing for the mirror. I had a really hard time finding something unique and cool. Here are some images of the mirror installed.

We got the mirror from Zuo Modern and couldn't have been more happy with their product and customer service.  Zuo is based out of Canada, so may be unfamiliar to some of you.  I thought I'd round up some of my favorite finds from their site. They have such a wide range of offerings. They are consistently modern in style but often have a fun nod to the past and traditional detailing that adds a unique spin.  Here are my picks!

Chandelier / Mirror / Side Table / Coffee Table / Lounge Chair / Bar Cart / Dining Chair.

Thanks Zuo for such a great addition to Luyc's room.  I'm excited to keep checking back as we work through the other rooms in the house!

Upholstering with Crypton

Hey there everyone! How is the Thanksgiving planning going?  Last week I gave you some details on the paint selection and painting process for Lucy's One Room Challenge bedroom.  Today, I wanted to tell you a bit more about upholstering her love seat.  I immediately fell in love with the lines of her little love seat when I found in on Craigslist.  It was such a great find at just $50.  

Really amazing quality and the 80's upholstery was in great condition - despite the fact that it reminded me of an elementary school photo backdrop.  

We lived with the loveseat for quite some time but when it came time to actually design Lucy's room I knew I had to suck it up and do something different.  I wanted to accentuate the lines of the love seat and also use something extremely durable and toddler proof.  I selected a Crypton called Graceland (color Sorrel) from Calico that I love and complemented it with a rust colored linen on the welting to bring out the lines. I worked in hotel design for many years and know Crypton as a very durable tough-as-nails fabric finish that we used on casino chairs, hotel lobby sofas and the like. It is super stain resistant and repels almost anything.  Often it had a sort of hard / rough finish.  But Crypton has come so far from those days. The fabric I selected is like a chenille. So soft and a beautiful neutral color that I never would have chosen in a standard solid linen or cotton which would have stained immediately. The rust colored linen welting adds a different texture and given it's dark and so sparsely used I wasn't worried about it staining.  

Thus far the sofa has held up super well. I can't wait to revisit in 6 months after a winter of toddler hands to see how well it's faring. I'm sure it will be amazing. Thanks to Crypton for making such a great product that we will love for years to come.

Painting Lucy's room with Benjamin Moore

Hi All. Well, the One Room Challenge is officially complete and I'm so excited to take a little breather.  That said, there is still lots of info to share on the selections we made, so here is the first of those posts.  When I was concepting Lucy's room I went back and forth about what to do with the walls.  Originally I really wanted to do a wallpaper but I soon realized that was out of the budget.  Once I found her rug, I figured that I had the opportunity to do something more dramatic on the walls. The rug, while patterned, is fairly subtle in coloration. Though I love an airy white room, I was getting pretty tired of how washed out her room was looking.  Benjamin Moore has one of the widest color ranges and such a nice palette of in-between colors that aren't too saturated and aren't too grey so I knew I wanted to work with their swatch book when it came to selecting colors. I ordered some larger color swatches and in the end chose Dartsmouth Green which is a beautiful green that really walks that line between saturation and subtlety. And of course it didn't hurt that Scott went to Dartmouth so I liked the little tongue-in-cheek reference.

Though the room had been painted white it really only took a couple of coats of Ben Moore's Aura paint to get the room looking good. The color saturation and coverage was unparalleled and I love that it is a paint and primer in one.  Anything that helps me skip a step is very much appreciated.  I also love that the paint has no VOC's.

We took precautions and kept Lucy in our room for a couple nights while her walls were being prepped and then painted but the smell dissipated very very quickly. Since this is a toddler room, I'm especially excited that the paint is so easily cleanable and easy to touch up.  The final product is so beautiful.

Can't wait to figure out what room to take on next! I will definitely be using Aura for whatever projects come my way.  Stay tuned for more paint related ideas about what we plan to do on the outside of the house! And a big thank you to Ben Moore for providing such a great easy-to-use product.