Ooh, pick me, pick me!

I just learned that some kind souls have nominated me for a Homie award!

Hosted by Apartment Therapy, it pays homage to shelter blogs. As they say, "It's not so much a competition as a celebration of the richness and awesomeness of shelter bloggers around the world. Join us, share your favorites and check out the ones you don't know."

So if you'd like to vote for me, or other home design blogs out there, please show your appreciation for them and do so now!

Awards Schedule
December 22-29 nominate your favorite
December 30-January 6 vote for top nominees
January 7 winners announced

How to work violet into your interior

With my grape-colored sofas ordered, and on their way any day now, I am chomping at the bit to start decorating my living room. But, I shall refrain until my lovely furniture arrives, as I really want to make sure the rug I find works well with the sofas and the space, now that it will be doing double duty as my dining room, too. I know, I know, rug selections should be first, but how many people in real life start from scratch, anyways? Certainly not me.

With a month to kill before our furniture arrived at our new digs last year, I spent my time repainting every room in the house, sans furniture.  And I'll be damned if I'm going to repaint the living room now. No way.

So, back to my brainstorms about what to do when decorating with purple (actually, the correct terminology is violet). It doesn't have to feel romper-roomesque just because your couches are not brown, beige, taupe, gray, or black. Here are some random images and my musings from my inspiration files:

Starting on the more dramatic side...If designer Jamie Drake can embrace violet, so can I!  Seeing his daring fuchsia settee, I certainly feel less concerned about my subdued grape fabric.

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I love the incorporation of soft blues that carry throughout the space. He certainly isn't afraid of color, you know?

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Here is a simply edible grape sectional, set off by bright pillows and artwork. I personally prefer something other than stark walls, but it sure does look bright and sunny. Ah, the wonders of photography and lighting.

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Hm, scrumptious. Very girly pink and violet, but with such a rich, luscious tone, how can you not love it.

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Sticking withe the darker tones, here's another velvet sofa, with a completely different feeling paired with blue gray wallpaper and black and white rug.

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Another take on violet with shades of gray. Quite elegant

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And here's a slightly more subdued look, with the rich eggplant walls acting like a warm hug. Very cozy.

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Violet as a neutral? How about this lovely lilac wall acting as a foil behind the persimmon fainting sofa.

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My colleague Barbara Jacobs, among other things, designs rugs. Here, she has paired a violet sofa (very similar in hue to those which I ordered, I think) with a lovely warm rug in sand and browns.

And if those were enough, here is a sampling of images suggested by my super generous colleague Kelley from Arte Styling.

I guess there -are- lots of options when it comes to decorating with violet! Once the sofas arrive (hopefully sooner than later!) I'll snap some photos of them in their new space and get your opinions on what you would do.

A new trim trend

While browsing some ezines online, I started noticing a popular trend in trim treatment.

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It's something I had seen Martha Stewart do a while back, but here's more for you. Basically, the approach is to paint out everything the same color, to provide a striking backdrop for feature items to pop against and unify the space.
I've heard traditional trim treatment referred to as a "bright white frame". In a way, it kinda is.
Unifying the trim and wall color does update and modernize more formal architectural features.

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What do you think of this painting approach? It certainly is a change. Do you like it? Hate it?

(Scrambling to get holiday preparations in order, so posts might be a bit light this week- my apologies! -Rachel)

Good reads

Has anyone read this book?

The Anthropology of Turquoise: Reflections on Desert, Sea, Stone, and Sky
by Ellen Meloy

One reader says, "This isn’t so much a historical examination as an artistic, spiritual road-trip...how human being are drawn to the blue of water, the blue of the sky"

If you've read it, let us know what you thought! How many of you read books about color? What specifically are you drawn to?

Palettes to represent a city

Brisbane, Australia has a new logo, and a branding package to go along with.
Think for a moment about how you would brand your city with a color palette. What would you want to capture about it? San Francisco would definitely have some grays for fog, some blues for the bay... a soft muted palette, I would imagine.

Brisbane has the following new identity:In short, Brisbane is "clear blue skies", "bright sunshine", "natural surroundings", and "vibrant, exciting, optimistic" brights.

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Marketers for Brisbane explain, "The colours reflect the optimism, creativity and functionality of Brisbane, it’s people, it’s businesses, it’s spaces underpinned by its sustainable yet progressive environment" (source)

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Hm, any Australian readers out there want to weigh in? Do you think the colors successfully capture the character of their brand promise?

Thanks via source

80's retro flashback: the candy colored world of Miami Vice

The hey day of the 1980's seems to be everywhere around us these days. Skinny jeans, up-collared polo shirts, even wacky crooked haircuts. Let's just cross our fingers and toes mauve doesn't make a comeback. A quintessential icon of the 80's was the television series Miami Vice.

You might not remember much about Miami Vice other than Don Johnson's sexy stubble and slip-on sockless loafers, but you'd be hard-pressed to forget the pastel candy colors the show captured in it's visuals of Miami. Flamingo pink, lime green, Caribbean blue. Executive producer of the show, Michael Mann, had a distinct vision that was more movie than tv for his times. Taking inspiration from the ocean and bounty of art deco buildings in the area, Mann decided this was his palette, and stuck to it stringently. No earthy colors. Ever. That included all actors clothing, the cars on the road, even random buildings that had to be repainted.

A director of the show remembers, "There are certain colors you are not allowed to shoot, such as red and brown. If the script says 'A Mercedes pulls up here,' the car people will show you three or four different Mercedes. One will be white, one will be black, one will be silver. You will not get a red or brown one. Michael knows how things are going to look on camera."(source)

Always at the height of fashion, the two main character had five to eight wardrobe changes each episode, always in shades of pink, blue, green, peach, fuchsia and the show's other "approved" colors. Favorite designers included Vittorio Ricci, Gianni Versace and Hugo Boss.

And just for a chuckle, a few more stills from the show, to appreciate quality 80's aesthetics.

Wallpaper is back in style these days. How about this one?Gotta have the neon pink light above the bed in a hospital room, right? yikes...

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Oh, yes, now we're talking. Your typical hotel room. Gotta love it.

Have you seen any 80's flashback design out and about? Anything worth holding onto?

San Francisco color consultant asks: Can you have too much color?

All I have to say is, "whoa."This rooftop house additional is like nothing I have seen before. And no, that's not photoshop work! Designed by Winy Maas for a friend's family residence in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, it's fondly referred to as the Didden Village.

The NYT says, "Maas’s deliberate childlike house shapes combined with the dazzling blank blue planes create the impression that you are living inside a CAD drawing rather than a real house; it’s as if the house is still in a constant process of being imagined."

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The bright blue rooftop complex consists of three bedrooms separated by a “Main Street.”

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"By finishing all elements with a blue poly-urethane coating a new “heaven” appears. It creates a crown on top of the monument."(source)

But what do you think? Is it successful? Innovative, or just quirky? I certainly appreciate the concept of urban density and designs that address those issues. And why not bring in some eye-popping cerulean blue while you're at it! But -everything- in blue? What's that like to live with?
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Dripping with color

Psst, check this out!Artist: Spencer Finch
Installation: 366 (Emily Dickinson's Miraculous Year)

Where: Postmasters Gallery, NYC (closed November 28th, alas) What: This work is based on the year 1862 during which Emily Dickinson wrote an amazing 366 poems in 365 days. It is a real-time memorial to that year, which burns for exactly one year.

The sculpture is comprised of 366 individual candles arranged in linear sequence, each of which burns for 24 hours.

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The color of each candle matches a color mentioned in the corresponding poem; poems in which no color is mentioned are made out of natural paraffin.

What the artist says about color:

"[Finch] knows that color lies at the boundary of what we see and what we remember. Despite the thick red line of humor that runs through his work, Finch’s projects are always laced with the acute pathos of someone disappointed by both perception and language and by their mutual exclusivity and incompatibility... Color is less a trope of indeterminacy than a way to re-create an almost visceral experience of our impossible desire to name our perceptions."(source)

What do you think of his theory?

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Beer wars: blue versus green

In part, to battle against green giants like Heineken beer, Netherlands-based Bavaria has re-branded their beer logo and packaging with a new brilliant blue color scheme.

Logos- old to new

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Crates, old to new
For the past 15 years, they've already established themselves as the "blue beer", but now have gotten rid of even the slightest traces of green. Around since the early 1700s, it has lost its nostalgic slant in pursuit of bigger fish.But is it enough to compete with other blue-branded beers out there like Bud Light, Miller Light, Michelob, or Corona?images source

Everything has their trademark blue, including uniforms, trucks, even delivery crates. Now that's cohesion for you.

Head over to Brand New for the full story.

Color commitment can be scary

I just did something I generally counsel clients -not- to do.

Remember how I told you my husband was probably my most challenging client ever? (scroll down to bottom of guest room saga). Can you guess where this is headed? ;-)

The challenge: we're in the market for new sofas.

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After testing out about twelve zillion different sofas over the course of multiple shopping excursions, my husband and I had finally settled on a model. Not the slickest looking sofa ever, but I really wanted something comfy for naps and watching movies. (We're actually just getting two sofas, not a sectional.) So, there we were at the furniture store, faced with the final decision: choosing a fabric for our new sofas. Here's how it went down:

Me: I think we should stick with a neutral color so we're not locked into one color forever. This is a pretty big purchase that we'll have for at least 15 years, you know?

Husband: But that's so -boring-! What about something like this? (holding up terracotta and oranges) They're yummy.

Me: Ug, that's a lot of orange to live with. A strong color will really limit our options if we want to change things up in the future. What if our tastes change? (pushing a chocolate brown and a creamy beige swatch his direction)

Husband: Too dull!

(this continues for the next half hour...)

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Me: Okay, okay, okay. Maybe something deep like brown, but with more color. What about this? (pulling out a deep rich purple swatch aptly named "grape")

Husband: Yeah, I like it.

Me: Great! -Now- can we wrap this up and go home?

So, we now have two purple sofas headed our way in about 4-6 weeks. I loved the color, but for a large purchase like a sofa, I think neutral would have been a safer choice. I'm a bit freaked out about this big commitment! Is this a "go big or go home" moment, or just a huge mistake?