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In this Discussion
- 000 June 2013
- Cherry_Pie June 2013
- curt June 2013
- flossy_log_lady December 2013
- joey June 2013
- kdawg March 2014
- Leland June 2013
- MirandaJuly June 2013
- swamp_knobbler_mahan December 2013
- the_owls June 2013
- ThickeningAgent June 2013
- YoursTruly June 2013
Painting & decorating
I like how in 2013 this board is evolving into a place where basic adult life-matters get discussed.
I am lucky to live in a beautiful smallish home. It would be a row house, except that they fucked up when they moved it across town and put it facing directly north instead of parallel to the street. The net effect is that we have a yard while no one else on the block does.
It currently has some of the "colonial" style detailing that you would expect in the mid-atlantic region. Not my vibe.
I have 2 questions.
One: I want to paint some rooms of this house. How does one even start thinking about this? There are so many colors.
Is it okay if I nudge things away from the colonial direction one piece at a time. Like, if I got a new door for the bedroom, and I got one that looks different from the other doors in the house, is that really weird? I told Hugh I thought about putting a curtain up in one room and he was like "but none of the other windows in the house have curtains!" I was surprised that this is really a thing. Is it really a thing?
I am lucky to live in a beautiful smallish home. It would be a row house, except that they fucked up when they moved it across town and put it facing directly north instead of parallel to the street. The net effect is that we have a yard while no one else on the block does.
It currently has some of the "colonial" style detailing that you would expect in the mid-atlantic region. Not my vibe.
I have 2 questions.
One: I want to paint some rooms of this house. How does one even start thinking about this? There are so many colors.
Is it okay if I nudge things away from the colonial direction one piece at a time. Like, if I got a new door for the bedroom, and I got one that looks different from the other doors in the house, is that really weird? I told Hugh I thought about putting a curtain up in one room and he was like "but none of the other windows in the house have curtains!" I was surprised that this is really a thing. Is it really a thing?
Comments
Be careful when selecting a color. We thought this green color was good, but 6 years later we're dying to just have plain white and currently working on repainting it all.
If you do colors, tend further toward the muted than you might think. Actually, subtlety is good generally in interior colors, even whites. Our bathroom is an hideous mint color endearingly chosen by the landlords' 19 year old daughter. I'm sure it was a nice idea, but it's so intense.
The act of painting is fun! I painted apartments in my early 20s and have painted whole houses for friends. I painted the entire interior of SBaird's current house, the real estate agent lots of UHX people have worked with... she has great color taste and I have a list of her favorite whites and greys if you want.
I say follow your gut. Redecorate however works for you! If you find a cool door you like, stick it in there! Don't worry about matchy-matching everything all at once, what are you, Martha Stewart (a millionaire with too much time on your hands)? I think the piecemeal redecorating if probably more satisfying than doing it all at once, because it's like you're giving yourself a fun new surprise over and over again instead of one overwhelming huge surprise all at once. Stick curtains up if you feel like it! You aren't competing for Yard-of-the-Week, who gives a shit
But definitely get paint samples and try them out, because colors do look SO different in a room than they do on paper/in the can.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/curt/357820853/in/set-72157600869131471/
and
http://www.flickr.com/photos/curt/357820235/in/set-72157600869131471/
"just like with oral sex"
"who are you, Martha Stewart?"
thread is a goldmine
But the old ones are really the best. I want one, bad.
Am I crazy? Grey is nice, right?
Subtle walls, crazy rugs and plants.
I was shocked by the white I was using on the dining nook. It's in the rest of the house and it looks really clean and white, maybe a little warm, but when I started painting it over the primer yesterday it looked straight yellow. Like butter. But once the wall was covered it just looked like white again.
I never thought I'd like such an antique white, but it looks good!
COLOR IS DIFFICULT.
Pratt and Lambert - seed pearl (this is one I've done and I loved it so much, clean and bright but not stark somehow)
Benjamin Moore - cotton ball and white chocolate
Cotton ball looks nice to me.
so much of the color comes from the kind of light that is hitting it. daylight will make your whites look blue, light bulbs will make your whites look orange. and the other colors around it will have a huge impact as well (just like with oral sex).
BE CAREFUL OUT THERE!!!
terrifying
I'd say I prefer "true, bold colors" to pales ones in general. A lot of pale yellows, beiges, and pale greens remind me too much of Martha Stewart. Her color palette hasn't changed much since 2001. It gets boring to see it in houses all the time.
When we moved into the Cap Sante house we were annoyed at the pale blue in the bedroom, so pale, so afraid of color. But then it grew on us so much that we painted the bedroom in our new house the same blue. It's like waking up in an iceberg.
My studio has a wood floor, and wood on two walls. When we moved in it was dark pink, we painted it white and now it's the best room to work in in the house.
Colors also affect the way you feel. Purple depresses people. Red makes them hungry. Orange helps digestion.
My dad painted his kitchen shiny yellow and now I want to paint a wall in my house yellow, to make it feel warmer to be in, and also out of nostalgia.
I say stay away from pale greys, I say use "warm grey" on a wall and then white on the others.
Will let report back with pics etc.
My decorating plans have been complicated by hugh's sister buying us a turkish rug while on vacation in Istanbul. It is super sweet but i think the cat will tear it up which means we have to hang it on a wall. I have a hard time imagining a universe where this does not look silly/hippy-dippy.
We may have to make the cat wear the funny (painless) silicon claw covers.
It looks nice at night with a lamp, looks nice when it's grey out and especially amazing when it's sunny. In addition to the walls being that color we have a door that is just a little darker shade of blue.
There is a good chance your cat wouldn't scratch your rug. My cat (wherever she is right now, in a coyote's dump by now probably) never scratched rugs. She had a door mat she liked to claw at and I just let her use that. Maybe just make sure your cat has a proper place to scratch and stretch and she'll leave your fancy rug alone.
Don't put the rug on the wall.
Rugs on walls make me feel like the floor is about to fall on top of me (unless the ceiling is really really high).
This was from Wednesday! Redacted.
Here is a question.
We can afford paint but not replacing our blinds. Our blinds are kind of a beigy offwhite color, would this look horrible with gray walls?
Same deal in the bathroom which has a beigy offwhite tile floor.
Now I am trying to choose a new bifold door for our furnace room.
How do you choose a door? All I know is it needs to be cheapish and solid core http://www.jeld-wen.com/catalog/interior-doors/molded/wood-composite.