Happy Monday. I hope you all had a good weekend. Mine was enlivened by an extract of the book in the Mail on Sunday You magazine: New Ways with Grey which was a great thrill – all six pages of it. And I was absurdly chuffed that the first comment said: “Not the 50 Shades I was expecting”, which was sort of the point.
As I say in the intro to the book, I apologise to those readers who were expecting something a little racier on the subject, this isn’t that book, I’m afraid. Although, you might find your heart beats a little faster when you finally find the right shade and have finished applying it to your walls.
I have just finished painting my kitchen cupboards in a very dark shade and I absolutely love it. You can see it soon, I promise but since I got over-excited and put everything back before the paint was fully dry, there has had to a be a small hiatus for touching up.
Lying awake for a couple of hours the other night worrying about some ridiculous thing that really shouldn’t have bothered me, I got to thinking about how I would really like to paint the bedroom ceiling a dark colour. As I lay there in the darkness at 3am, I decided that if the ceiling were painted in a really dark colour it would literally recede away into nothing. It would, I decided, be like sleeping out under the darkest night sky. Without the spiders.
As soon as the alarm went off at 6.30am (by which time I was, naturally, sleeping like a dead person) I asked himself what he thought. Now, the cynical among you might suggest I asked him at a time of lowest resistance. A time when he will be barely listening to what I was saying much less have the energy to disagree with me.
Well I don’t know about that, but let’s just say he wasn’t averse. I mean I haven’t actually bought the paint yet but… what time does the paint shop open anyway?
Talking of unusual paint effects, have a look at this room below. Lots of people ask me about painting their doors black and then panic that it will make the room too dark. Have a look at this house in Sweden where the owners have painted the windows and door frames and skirting boards. It brings real definition to the space without making it dark. One to think about?
Or there’s the classic: dark walls with a pale ceiling. This works really well in this bedroom. I can never quite decide if I want a dark bedroom as it’s for resting and relaxing or a light bedroom so I can get up in the morning. Hence the sort of compromise with the dark ceiling idea.
Another grey room, well it’s the theme of the week isn’t it. Look how this rather cool shade is warmed up by the brown furniture, wooden floors and the rug. If you have used the wrong colour and the room does feel cold then try changing the accessories before you panic. Grey is very easily influenced and will pick up on what is going on around it.
Here, the owners have stuck with white but used lots of grey accessories to create a strong monochrome look. A word about white: if you have a small dark room then white will not make it look bigger and brighter. It will just make it look sad and drab. White needs natural light to reflect off (as there is in abundance in this room) otherwise it can’t do it’s job. If God, the builder and the mortgage broker have given you a small dark room, start looking at shades of grey instead.
I love this kitchen below. I too have white floorboards and lots of Persian rugs with touches of black and dark grey – and don’t forget the natural wood. Am now wondering if I want black chairs too…
If you fancy finding out a bit more about the book then head on over to the Lux Pad where the book begins its blog tour which lasts all week.
from Mad About The House http://ift.tt/1R3NHN1
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