paint - Seeing Design

Published March 28, 2010 by Anne Collins Howard

Apt. Makeover: My Bathroom

Obsessed with wallpaper, I had the perfect plan for the bathroom. I found a fabulous red magnolia print from Graham and Brown to go above the chair rail and I matched one of latte-colored leaves for the paint below. Though, as you can see, this paper is not on the walls.

The day the painters came to take on every room in the house, I asked them to leave one wall in the master bedroom and the top half the bathroom for wallpaper. The day was moving along and I called my mother to tell her my brilliant palette plan. When describing the bathroom, she asked the question, “Is that wallpaper made for bathrooms? You know, can it take a lot of humidity?” I went cold. In all my scheming, this had not crossed my mind.

I stalled the painters and raced to the hardware store in search of a Plan B. In a split decision and with a recent love of deep purples, I picked Nairobi Dusk from Ralph Lauren Paint. It is a bold, stormy color and I had no point of reference to the bathroom when picked it, but it turned out to be the perfect choice. After all the drama, each color–the creamy beige we picked to go with the wallpaper, the purple wild card, and the white chair rail– all came together with success.

Bathroom Before
Though the existing tile, vanity, and toilet were far from my dream selections, I have decided to love them until we save for their replacements. Any element that did not require a contractor or a plumber, on the other hand, was on its way to the curb. This photo is the last that was seen of the swirly wrought-iron towel holder, gold hardware, damask shower curtain, and muted paint.

Bathroom After
Our bathroom is tiny so adding extra storage was essential. The former owner just had a mirror over the sink so I frankly don’t know where she was putting her stuff. We added a basic white medicine cabinet with a lower shelf (a must for daily toiletries) and improved the sink console by swapping out the old shiny gold hardware for a matte silver that matched the faucet. The silver theme continues to our homemade candle-lit sconce. As for the shower curtain, I resisted my propensity for florals and spared Mike with a geometric pattern. It’s from Target but the way it picks up the lower-wall color and the chair rail, it feels made for this bathroom.

I love big art in small spaces. This 1940s photograph of an aerial view of lower Manhattan was actually a raffle prize from a golf tournament (go figure). I originally won four sleeves of balls, but I happily traded them in for this historic photo of our neighbor, New York City. It nearly takes up the entire wall and its purple gray sepia tones seem to seep up from the walls in the best possible way.

The hand towels are from the same line as the shower curtain and the plush Hotel Collection bath sheets are almost an exact match to the Ralph Lauren Paint. For a lighter look, we rotate them with the textured geometric towel set hanging on the door.
Next up in room makeover series . . . the kitchen

Projects

bath our house paint

Published November 5, 2008 by Anne Collins Howard

Finally, Refinished Furniture

two piece Vanity Flash back to three weeks ago and my backyard was a DIY testing ground for nine painted-furniture projects. The paint has since dried, the hardware been screwed back on, the bugs picked out of the air-dried paint, and the furniture has been moved inside. Some of the projects were just paint touch-ups and others, you’ll see, were a decorative overhaul.

(Above) This desk and mirror just needed a fresh coat of white paint. They go so nicely together, I think I’m going to buy a little stool for it and use the setup as a vanity in the master bedroom.

after red mirror This antique beveled mirror was originally a natural wood color, but we painted it poppy red to match the wallpapered accent wall in our guest bedroom.

before yellow table We loved this Macky Blue sideboard’s tin top and exposed tin bread drawers—despite its brutally chipping framework. We bought it knowing that, even with serious sanding, this piece couldn’t be smoothed over. So we vowed to try our best and chalk the remaining rough spots up to “character.”

process purple table horizontal Though the original paint job had a palette like a Greenbay Packer, the two-tone legs were really inspiring. We painted the piece plum but left the feet primer-white to match the tin top.

after purple table I still have dreams of having a tall chinoiserie china cabinet in my kitchen, but for $100 and a fun weekend project, this is a cute placeholder.

process buffet paint stripping anne The greatest lesson I learned from Painted Furniture Weekend Part 1 was: NEVER strip furniture. It was the most disgusting, toxic, arduous yet deceptively easy project I’ve ever attempted for my home. The majority of the paint may gum up and peel off nicely, but the other 40% is a battle to get off the wood.

before buffet After stripping two sides of this piece, I abandoned ship and just went on to sand the front and top.

after buffet — Note: Please ignore heinous boob tube TV on top of sideboard and ugly equipment below.

As you can see, our entertainment center is not ready, but we’d like to ultimately use this sideboard as a media console (when we buy a TV from the 21st century). To do this properly we’d take the top two drawers, cut off the fronts, and reapply them with hinges so they fold down for easy access to the DVD player and fold up to cover unsightly equipment.

Another project added to the list.

Projects

accessories antiques decorative objects DIY furniture paint

Published September 2, 2008 by Anne Collins Howard

Finally, The Paint Palette

Choosing paint is the first step in laying the foundation of home decoration–a basic concept but agonizing to execute. As you may remember from a previous blog, I wanted to take the tangerine color from an Antonia Hutt dining room design and paint my kitchen with it. It was so dramatic and delicious but a few sample pots and hundreds of paint chips later, we realized it would have been completely wrong for our apartment. The layout of our brownstone is a wide railroad style; we have wonderful natural light entering our bedrooms and our living room but our kitchen is at the center of the window sandwich. This makes it the darkest and most central room in the house and maybe not the ideal place to have my fiery color moment. The kitchen had to be inviting, livable, and most of all complement to the adjacent living room. So after some prodding, I decided to stop having my fling with the color of the moment and go back to the colors I know and love.

If there is one color that dominates my wardrobe or one shade that draws me to a boutique shelf, it’s a silvery green. My strawberry-blonde mother is the same way and with her decorating background she knew exactly what paint color that translated to: Restoration Hardware’s Silver Sage. She has always said Restoration Hardware doesn’t have a lot of colors to choose from but whatever they have is good. Mike and I went to their store and chose this cool beautiful gray green for the living room and a very light yellow called Butter Cream for the kitchen and connecting hallway. With pure white trim, the palette is soft, inviting, and perfect for the hub of the house.

So when it came to painting the bathroom, I had to shake things up. It was an impulse decision half way through the day but I took one look at my neutral hub and I went to the hardware store and bought the deepest, richest plum purple I could find (Nairobi Dusk from the Ralph Lauren Paint). We painted the ceiling all the way down to the white chair rail. The dark color overhead broken up a white chair rail and a latte brown below gives this small bath real drama–its’ just the mini-color rebellion I was looking for.

The bedroom colors were taken from my two favorite wallpapers. They are still rolled up in a box so when they go up, we’ll talk pattern and palette.

Projects

decorating our house paint

Published July 15, 2008 by Anne Collins Howard

How to Decorate with Orange Walls?

AntoniaHuttDiningRoom The juicy orange walls of this Antonia Hutt dining room have been on my mind ever since we posted it in Met Home’s story Mad about Saffron. And if a paint can stick in my mind that long, I think I need to buy it by the gallon (I have an email into the designer for the exact paint number; I’ll keep you posted).

Warm hues are said to cater to our social side and in a kitchen or dining room, stimulate appetite and conversation. I am not 100% sure this is true but with an orange this warm, this inviting–it just might be. So I think I am going to give it a whirl on our new kitchen walls. I love it–and I better because a color this strong will undoubtedly resonate throughout the surrounding rooms.

So that brings us to the next question: If our saffron kitchen opens up directly into our living room, do I carry the color through or give the other walls breathing space?

I think the living rooms palette has to at least reference the adjacent kitchen with complimentary colors. This space below by Jonathan Adler may just be the palette I am going for–browns, greens, creams, and few touches of orange in a rug or pillow to connect the space.

But I am also batting around the idea of painting the back wall of the living room a few shades softer, in a color like this Martin Senour Zinnia Orange. It would create a continuous flow between rooms and on just one wall, the color is a surprise rather than an expected matchy-matchy paint job.