A Color Adjustment

It was fun reading all of your comments and suggestions.  I tried not to reply

to any comments that would sway you one way or the other. I don't think

there's any one right or wrong answer but I was surprised  to hear so many

people suggest dark navy or black.  By the time I had done the post...

...I had already gotten a sample pot of Farrow & Ball Down Pipe.

The color is meant to imitate lead and I thought it would give an  industrial feel.

I should also add that I REALLY wanted to use Farrow & Ball.

I had gotten as far as buying a quart of Lamp Room Gray and painted one

of my window casings before deciding it was a little too blue for the cabinets

but I absolutely LOVE the paint!  It's got a beautiful consistency, paints on

smoothly and dries to a beautiful finish.  I'm completely sold on its quality.

In the end it was the perfect gray that I won out.  I didn't feel I was too far

off.  During the day, the old gray was reading a little lavender.  I went back

to the historical colors and found a gray that was a little darker and drabber

and I think it's perfect.  Benjamin Moore Chelsea Gray.  The darker tone really

highlights the marble and the hue give me the historical look I was shooting for. 

"Christmas Gift" amaryllis is late to the party but she's putting on a great show.

You can see the contrast of the two colors on top of the column on the left.

And the entire column on the right has been painted in Chelsea Gray.

Between the dishwasher and refrigerator is a new cabinet

that will have doors made from the old store counter...painted

in the Chelsea Gray.  I love the contrast of this gray with the marble.

The little wine rack next to the refrigerator has shelves made from the

store counter mahogany that I showed in an earlier post.

And you also get a glimpse of another color I've painted in the

small recess next to the refrigerator.  

(Oops, the flowers have moved over to this shot.  That's bad styling.)

Above the counter next to the refrigerator, I've designed a little built-in cabinet

that will house a small microwave, a TV and leave a little extra room for 

cookbooks and some white pottery.  My thinking is that the dark color

(Benjamin Moore Deep Creek) will help disguise the microwave and TV,

highlight the white pottery placed in front of it AND provide balance to the

black armoire that will go over in that right corner where all the crap is.

We'll see how that works out.

The sunshine pours in through the French doors on winter mornings.

While the cats sunbathe, you'll find me here...painting.

Kitchen Ceiling and Cabinet Paint Tests

There hasn't been a lot of progress on the kitchen the last few weeks but

the holidays gave me some time off that I was able to step right in and get

some things done without getting in the way.  The walls are now all primed

and ready for paint but most of my time was spent on the ceiling.

The wood planks took quite a lot of prep work, filling and sanding before a coat of primer went

on.  And then I walked around and marked trouble spots with blue tape.  There were quite a few

rough spots, nail holes and dents that needed to be filled and sanded down before touching up

with a second coat of primer.  If you ever decide to put in a planked ceiling, let me suggest doing

as much of this work before installing the wood.  It's neck- and shoulder-breaking work.

And finally on Sunday I put on the first coat of semi-gloss.  It's Benjamin

Moore Decorator's White in Aura.

It's really brightened up the whole room.  This is one of the things about the

old bakery from my hometown that I loved so much.  It seems so clean.

I really want to lighten these cabinets so paint seems pretty certain.

I've been playing with some paint to see what it might look like on the cabinets.

I bought some rosettes at Home Depot--the little things that would go in the top

corners of door or window casings--to experiment with.

I would put a lot more effort in the final finish but these are good

"sketches," if you will, of layering a few different colors.  

I used colors #2 and #5 from the Farrow & Ball paint samples

I made up which are Lamp Room Gray and Mole's Breath.

This is Lamp Room with a wash-n-wipe of burnt umber

acrylic paint that was thinned down juxtaposed against

the Carrara marble counter in my bathroom.

I think it's a little dirty looking.

This is Lamp Room with a little Mole's Breath

brushed in the recessed and then rubbed down to

almost bare wood in a few spots.

I like this one.

This one is Mole's Breath undercoat with a dry brushing

of Lamp Room over the top.  The effect is just a little

bit darker than the previous one.

I also like it.

I want to try a darker gray glaze on these to really highlight

the details.

Here's the three of them next to the stainless.

Excuse the fingerprints.

This is a little section of the cabinets that's had the finish sanded

off a bit.  Ideally, I'd like some of this grain to show through so it

might take a delicate dance of brushing paint on and caressing it off.

I only get one chance to get it right so I'll do some more samples

and perhaps look for a piece of furniture I can buy and experiment on.

Stay warm!

A Room with Two Views

Design:  Steven Gambrel
Photo:  Eric Piasecki

I love a good vignette and this room in a home designed by Steven Gambrel is a really good one.  I know Camille from The Vintique Object also loves a good vignette.  I first analyze the objects in a vignette to see if they fit a theme, tell a story or share the same "language."  Camille looks first at things like shape, balance, texture and how they're actually photographed.  Both are important, we just start in different places.

I thought I would deconstruct the elements of this vignette one by one to share my thought process for analyzing or even choosing items for a vignette.  And I've invited Camille to do a post with her own take on the same room.  A room with two views.  For some people this might be intuitive, but if you have a vignette or particular element that doesn't work, the sum of our two posts might offer a way of better analyzing your own work.

The reflection in the mirror shows a staircase, so I would bet this room is the foyer and this vignette sets the tone for the entire house.  My first reaction is this vignette feels like an underwater landscape.  It would be perfect for a home on the water.

Cape Light painting by Anne Packard

It has the moodiness of a gray and misty day by the ocean.

I believe there's even a seascape painting on the table.

The color palette that evokes things we associate with the beach and the sea.

Each of the elements seem to have an aged, weathered quality.  The table looks like an antique.  The mirror might be new but it has an aged surface.  The lamp--not sure if it's ceramic or metal--also has a patina.  The large bowl seems slightly off kilter and has a finish that looks dull.

Looking at the individual elements, let's start with the mirror that's like a porthole.

The large bowl of whatever--it almost doesn't matter what it is--feels like a sea anemone or seaweed swaying in the current.

In the cloche there appears to be weathered rope that has strong nautical associations.

In the lamp I see a Viking's helmet.  But I also see wind-filled

sails reaching up to a mast out of view.

And how perfect is the wicker steamer truck that lists to one side like a ship in the swells of a stormy sea?  We know this piece has a history.  A new wicker chest just would have the same feel, the same language.

I'm not sure what's in the black case or tray sitting on the table but I think an antique telescope would be the perfect choice.

Careful thought went in to each of these elements and I think they're all perfect.  But I don't think it's necessary to construct a vignette using elements that fit the same theme or share a similar language.  Some of the connections may be purely personal but that's when things like shape, color, balance and texture become even more important.

To get Camille's view on these things, head over and read her post.

To see more of this amazing house, go here.

A Perfect Gray Floor

Just a quick note to let you know I haven't forgotten about you.

I've just been really, really busy.

 

  I did get a few coats of paint on the bedroom floor and I'm really happy with

how it turned out. I used Allflor paint tinted to Benjamin Moore's Gray Owl.

I had wanted to use oil paint to get a really

high-gloss finish but I didn't want to deal with the smell, the mess

or the few days' drying time so I went with latex.

I have to admit, I love the duller finish.

It's like the patina is built in.

 

You may also notice a new chest. I've always wanted a

Gustavian piece and when I saw one at Darby Road,

I knew it was coming home with me.

 

I have to thank Google for this piece.

I've been saving up my Adsense checks to use for splurges

and this is my first one.  Since I've added this Gustavian piece you

might anticipate which direction the room is going in but I hope you're wrong.

 

I hope to shake it up a little bit by mixing in some modern and some industrial pieces. 

Benjamin Moore Color Capture App, Put to the Test

I've gotten a lot of questions and comments about the two Mexican antiques I have in the house (green cabinet pictured here in the old dining room).  Rene from the wonderful blog Cottage and Vine asked me if I could pick a color that was close to this green cabinet because she might like to paint something this color, the perfect "farmhouse green" she thought.

The difficulty is, as you can see, there's not just one color.  There are at least three different paint colors in addition to the wood, along with their respective variations from years of use and abuse, that all go in to the mix.

The thing that makes the surface so exciting, in my opinion, is an alternation of a warm green (one that's more yellow than blue) and a cool green (more blue than yellow) that create an almost electric vibration of color. 

I started out by shuffling through my Benjamin Moore fan decks to see if I could pick a few warm and cool greens that would come close.  But I was reminded of a post I saw recently on Miss Mustard Seed about a device that will diagnose a color and provide the name of the color in a variety of manufacturer's fan decks.  A cool device but at over $600, a lot of commenters stole her thunder by pointing out that there were FREE iPhone apps that do the same thing.  (I'm talking to you, Amy!)

I don't have an iPhone so I invited some friends over for Labor Day cocktails and Indian takeout knowing that a few of them had iPhones and I'd just ask them to download the Benjamin Moore Color Capture app and give it a test.  Sneaky, right?

We removed a drawer and took it outside so we could get a good close up photo captured the photo in the app.  Here are the results.

Even though there are several colors here, the app allows you to touch the screen to pinpoint an exact spot on the photo where you want the app to interpret the color.  Unfortunately the little bubble disappears when you take your finger off the screen. It would be nice if that stayed on the screen.

Here, the warm green on the right edge of the drawer comes out as Bunker Hill Green or BM 566

The cooler green came out as Scotch Plains Green, BM 587.

Another capture in that same area of came out Stokes Forest Green, BM 2035-40.  (I'm happy that the app gives colors from both BM fan decks.  Our friends in Canada can't get the three- and four-digit colors for some reason.)

And finally, there are a few areas of a color that are even more blue (immediately to the right of the knob) that came out as Summer Basket Green or BM 2040-40.  

This color rang a bell.  I remember someone using this color for a painting project.  I suspected it was Lori from Frugal Farmhouse Design so I did a google search for "frugal farmhouse summer basket green" and I was right.  Here's Lori's post of a table painted using this color.

So let's put the app to the test by comparing the colors it chose to the actual piece.

Here's Bunker Hill Green which was the app's choice for the warm green.

Scotch Plains Green.  This one seems off.  Too saturated.  Northern Lights looks a little better.

Stokes Forest Green.

And Summer Basket Green.

A color capture of the green console in the kitchen came out as Green With Envy, 2036-30.

In the end, I'm quite impressed with the Benjamin Moore Color Capture application.  It's not something you would use every day but I do recall being out in a store, for example, and seeing a great color on a wall or on a piece of furniture and wishing I knew what it was.  This free app is the perfect way to capture the moment...and the color.

**   WARNING **

This app is a little addictive!  You'll find yourself wandering around your house snapping photos of things just to make sure it's still working.  Case in point...

Chicken Tikka Masala is Festive Orange.  Benjamin Moore 2014-10.

And it should NEVER be operated under the influence of alcohol.

Bergamot Martini.  Benjamin Moore Bronze Tone, 2166-30.

(Addendum:  The Bergamot Martini was my own experiment.  It's vodka, cointreau, lemon juice, simple syrup infused with Earl Gray tea and a few dashes of Angostura bitters.  It was pretty good.  I guess you could use regular tea and call it a Arnold Palmertini.)