I know I’m a few days early, but these tulips inspired me!
{photo Country Living}
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Hi All! Sorry I’ve been MIA but I’ve been busy with clients and the Dream House. It’s a good kind of busy but trying to juggle it all can be diffifult!
These past couple of weeks I have been developing the color palette for the Dream House. Paint color selection is a challenge for most people - it’s my #1 requested service. No one wants to make a mistake including yours truly!
Over the years I have become good friends with Benjamin Moore and Sherwin Williams. Here in NE Ohio where Sherwin Williams in headquartered, it seems like every painter uses SW. I like their paint but feel that Benjamin Moore offers more color selections so I end up using both in my work.
Since I’ve been knee deep in selecting paint colors, I thought I’d share a few of my favorite spring colors.
From Sherwin Williams
SW 6134 Netsuke – the perfect neutral beige. It has a yellow green undertone, perfect for spring.
SW 6204 Sea Salt – I fell in love this this color four years ago when I used it in an in-law suite. A soft blue green that looks like sea glass. I’ll be paining our living room this color in a few weeks.
SW6267 – Sensitive Tint – a beautiful soothing, sophisticated violet.
SW 6414 Rice Paddy – this yellow green is on the walls of my office which I have designed to feel like a perpetual spring/summer. When the winter weather gets me down, my office palette picks me up!
Benjamin Moore
HC-4 Hawthorne Yellow
HC-5 Weston Flax
If you are looking for the “perfect yellows” check these two colors from BMP’s historical
paint collection. They are amazing. Yellow is one of the most difficult colors to pick out. Most of the time they come out way too bright and neon. Hawthorne yellow is a more saturated yellow while Weston Flax is softer. Both are perfect!
052 Conch Shell – this soft peachy pink does look like the beautiful soft color inside a conch sell!
631 Aberdeen Green – a wonderful robin’s egg blue green that reminds me of spring.
920 Honey Harbour - a soft creamy yellow beige – another perfect neutral and a great alternative to beige.
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Next week is St. Patty’s day and everyone will be wearing green and drinking green . . . and that gets me to thinking about how green can also be a powerful force in decorating our homes.
I’m not talking green as in money {although it can’t hurt}, I’m talking plants! They are one of the most important elements in decorating but are often forgotten. Plants are the finishing touches in decorating.
Here are a few tips regarding “faux” or silk plants that will have your house looking fabulous and your friends green with envy!
#1 Palms are IN Ficus Trees are OUT!
I know, I know. You can get a ficus on sale at the craft stores for $10.00. Well I’m here to tell you that the ficus tree is passé, out of date, gone with the wind. Palms {like the one shown here} are in and designers have been using them on the coasts for years. That means they probably won’t get popular here in Ohio for another couple years!
Palms are gracious and have beautiful depth and dimension. It’s gotten to be a joke about me not liking ficus trees. It’s nothing personal, mind you, but most of them look cheap and that’s how they make your house look. Pop a palm in the dark corner of a room and illuminate it with a canned light and voila! Instant elegance.
#2 Variegated it OUT
What’s variegated you ask?? The spider plants and other silks you have in your house that have two colors sometimes three. They are out because, again, they look cheap. Solid color leaves on your plants please! (And the ficus trees that have the burgundy under their leaves – they are the worst offenders!)
#3 Nature Rulz
Only buy silk plants in the colors that nature makes them. Oh, those hideous blue flowers -Mother Nature is having a fit! When you go to the craft stores to buy your silk flowers, only select the ones that look like they do in nature. In real life, the good Lord does not make bright blue daisies, so please don’t pick those daisies when you’re at the craft store. They look cheap and really do nothing for your house – I promise!
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If you want some cheap but chic ideas for giving a room in your house an update, hop on over to this link in our local newspaper today. They interviewed me for their Progress Series of articles.
The reporter who interviewed me, Jean Bonchak, was super terrific to talk with and we had fun discussing the latest trends for keeping our homes on trend. Hopefully readers will find a nuggest or two that will help them spruce their nest up for spring!
I’m so happy that they were able to include a small list of some of my favorite design/decorating blog friends! {www.susieharrisblog.com, www.thenester.com, www.livingwithlindsay.com and www.theletteredcottage.net.}
It’s the house that everyone seems to love. The Hampton’s beach house from the movie, Something’s Gotta Give.
The fabulous kitchen and dining room. The must-have living room. This house/set design was the reason I bought the movie on DVD!
If you love great movie homes, you must go visit the ladies of The Skirted Roundtable and listen to their interview with Beth Rubino, the Set Decorator for Something’s Gotta Give.
Beth talks about the process of creating these beautiful sets and you’ll be kinda shocked to hear how they created the iconic rug in the living room {above}.
The Something’s Gotta Give house is going to be the inspiration for the 2010 YMCA Dream House. This year’s house is a lake house – our first ever! {For those of you not familiar with Lake Erie, it looks like an ocean – you can’t see land across or from side to side.} So the Something’s Gotta Give house is a perfect inspiration for our designers.
I’m excited to announce that I have been asked to be the design coordinator for this year’s house! I’m very honored and a bit overwhelmed – it means I help determine the color palette and other major aspects of the house. I have also been asked to design the kitchen, eat-in area and the living room. Wow! I’m going to be pretty busy these next few months but that’s a good thing!
I hope you enjoy the interview with Beth – so interesting! Thanks ladies of The Skirted Round Table!
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