25 July 2008

Color palettes.

I cannot live without color. I love a neutral with a bright punch of saturated yellow or red or green or pink to liven it up. Decorating my home is like painting strokes on a blank canvas - it is my artistic expression and a way to welcome others into my world...and hopefully, to make them feel comfortable here.

So, after much online-fabric-browsing, dreaming, and tearing-out of magazine pages, I'd like to share my color palette for the guest room. I like to think of it as natural.cheery.joyful.serene.asian.bohemian.

(Click the image to see it larger)


Ahhhhh. Just looking at it makes me smile. In fact, I'm thinking of moving into the guest room permanently. With the new, FREE King size bed that our friend's Granny gave us (to which I added a fluffy white comforter and white sheets), it's even more tempting! I'm not sure which paint color to choose, as I love them both equally. The fabric is all from Anna Maria Horner's new line, Garden Party. The fabric on the right is going to be perfect as a headboard, which is so easy to make on your own! Top it all off with paper lanterns from Luna Bazaar and white branch curtains from IKEA. Now, I just need to put it all into action!

The other room in progress is my office - where I spend the majority of my days. I just painted it "Rain Washed" by Behr a few weeks ago, and now it's the perfect oceany calming blue, so that's one step in the right direction. Now, I need to add some more splashes of color! My inspiration began with this photo I took in India...

(Click the image to see it larger)
Here's how "Rain Washed" looks currently on the walls...


It's amazing how my tastes have changed over the last 10 years. My freshman year of college, everything was about sunflowers. I had the sunflower comforter, matching sheets, throw blanket, picture frames, photo albums, and even posters of sunflower fields on the wall - you know, the ones you buy at the campus bookstore. And all my accessories that weren't sunflower were either hunter green or royal blue. Oh, the horror. Then, after college, I wanted my entire house to look like the beach, so I replaced everything with natural wood and seafoam green. Getting warmer...

Now, I'm into bright flowers and vintage/bohemian patterns, and I think I'm here to stay. Thank God my husband lets me decorate how I want to. When we moved into this house 2 years ago, he wisely designated the inside of the house as my domain and the outside as his domain, and oh, how I love him for that! Men, we realize you have to remove 150 decorative pillows from the bed before you can go to sleep each night, but please, if you know what's good for you, let it lie. Just...let it...lie.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

i love your color choices, and i'm happy to see that the window pane found a home in the new place. so fun!

Andrea said...

Will you come decorate my house next? I envy your artistic style!

Robyn Jones Clark said...

You are so cute... and I love your choices!! How exciting... I'm itching to make over a room. I'm thinking of just changing some furniture in the sunroom though:) I think i'll keep my paint the same... It would help if i would just paint some new artwork!

A California girl... said...

Your first sentence made me want to stand up at my desk and say,

"ME EITHER! Let's paint something!"

(I'm renting a room in "the beige house" right now)

Susan said...

i can't wait to stay in your guest room someday soon. love all the choices. and love the way you ended the blog. quoting just never gets old. :-)

jenni said...

Lovely! I wanna see all this in person next month, please.
:)

Shawna said...

loving the Rain Washed color. loving your creativity. loving your joy just talking about it.

Madi said...

oh what fun! Your comment about how the picture from India created some inspiration reminded me of how victoria got inspiration from a beautiful dress she bought. Morgan has already promised me full say so in our future home, which is amazing and much appreciated considering his taste (or lack of) in any thing home interior.

Farrah said...

Stine! I love your choices. My favorite is the far-right print on the "Guest Room" palette. I added that link to the DIY headboards to my "favorites" for future reference. Thanks for the inspiration!

FS