Current Dilemma
Possible Compromise
You dear friends are such a continual stimulus to my imagination! Thank You! I am so curious by all the responses to the Peach post! I love hearing your thoughts and opinions. Its funny, Im still pondering it, and find it interesting how close on the color wheel Peach is to Pink , yet worlds away in our collective memory!
So here is a little design delimma I am having that I would love to share with you and get your ideas, musings and critique. I am ready to tackle redecorating my living room. We didn't really do anything to it when we moved in and I have pieces left over from my other home (where I had a more ethic vibe going on- with teak wood pieces, and Moroccan lanterns, etc..) This is very much my husband's style. Overall he is quite flexible and doesn't mind floral bedding or pastels and really loves vintage too. (shwoo). But the one thing he has put his foot down on is painting any of the teak wood pieces (shown above). He loves the wood! And I am sooo tired of it. I really want to paint it or pickle it to look like a Gustavian grey (see image 3). Im wanting to lessen the white wall dark furniture look and have something more cohesive. I love aqua and teal and am leaning more toward cool tones now. (Planning on slipcovering the couch in white for Spring). So what would you do with this room?? (ps. the first two images are from my design inspiration file too. - again with the Peach!-lol)images: 1: Piewacket, 2 &3 gap interiors, 4, collage: my home 5. collage: apartment therapy 6.collage: house beautiful 7. marie claire maison
ok so this is how things work in my house ... i've never been a fan of dark wood until we moved to our house here & i now have only dark wood in my bedroom. Paired with white walls, & colour in all my accents. I love it, it's actually my favourite room in the house but with this exception (& a table in the hall way) i prefer light wood. Personally i would go for the cool blues, & greens ... i think they're gorgeous. To my mind the white walls, moroccan feel in the "his" set of photos is too masculin, & i prefer cool, light & airy for my living room. But right now my house is still a mixture of my wonderfully chosen matching furniture & my husbands "we need a couch so i'm buying this one" (& if anyone knows of a place i can buy an L shaped couch cover please let me know).
At the end of the day if my husband decorated our house nothing would match so go with your instincts (& i so should have just written that at the beginning).
Posted by: laura evans | January 30, 2010 at 02:29 PM
thanks laura. this is very helpful. yes. I think painting the walls would give the room a bit more vibrance, even if it is a pale blue or gray. I don't know if i could ever have too masculine in my house, most people accuse me of the opposite problem (well those who left comments on my apt therapy home tour). anyway, thanks. i love hearing your story. i think i mostly just wanted to sit down with a girlfriend, have a cup of tea and talk decorating. so thanks for doing that with me!!! :) I feel honored to have you as such a person!
Posted by: Heather | January 30, 2010 at 03:04 PM
i adore that first image set! peach + red + teal + all the other nutty colors in that room = love. it's like the whole thing is a lovely painting that you get to walk into.
okay, i've now picked myself up of the floor after that swoon...my husband has some pretty different ideas regarding interior design too. we do have our little differences of opinion that we need to address from time to time, but i really found that his inclinations toward a clean lined modern slant has helped me enjoy my flamboyantly girly, rococo bent a bit more because it has something of a contrasting backdrop. we have plenty of design kinks to work out in our space, but i kinda find the challenge of getting our styles to meld a bit romantic. My latest challenge is incorporating his love for black when i have been kinda turned off by the color for a couple years now. so i have a picture file dedicated to examples of black in contexts that i enjoy now for ideas.
So on to YOUR story, since you both really do have great ideas about design, i think I would encourage you to look for aspects of each of your styles that play well together and lead with that...For example, you mentioned y'all's old place having an international vibe with the teak. Well that first picture set that you show with all the lovely colors struck me as being internationally inspired via color (while keeping a somewhat traditionally american take on basic furnishing style..which I think is really fun...it can somehow feel international and vintage american at once). The colors are fresh and interesting, so nothing blatantly screamed one particular culture, but the way the colors come together in such surprising and bold ways just makes me recall so many lovely new adventures to far away places. Soooo, all that to say, I could see your love of beautiful and fresh color combos playing well with his teak. And perhaps in even a bolder way than that last photo. what if you had some sugary colors in the mix? what if the sweet peach wall of the first photo complemented that fabulous contrasty tile beneath the bed and deep teals and corals (or reds!) were brought in as accents....Anyway, worlds of possibilities.
I know you will come up with something enchanting, because you always do!
Posted by: Elizabeth | January 30, 2010 at 04:47 PM
OK lady, step away from the peach paint!!! Hands up in the air, back away slowly...
hee.
Is the debate about the two items in particular that are in the photos (the ladder-like shelf and the large table)?
Painting wood furniture seems to be one of those issues: you either love of it or you're dead set against it. I think it depends on the wood. I probably wouldn't paint furniture made of solid hardwood like teak. Maybe focus on other aspects of the room for now, like wall colors, sofa cover, accent items, etc., and maybe try temporary "masking" solutions like draping fabric over the table.
Once you've made all of the changes that aren't problematic, you can revisit the teak issue.
The "His" pictures look really overbearing because they have a lot of large, dark pieces crammed together, but if you just have the two natural teak pieces in a room with lighter painted pieces (coffee table, chairs, whatever), perhaps they're won't be so overpowering.
Posted by: lisa h. | January 30, 2010 at 05:07 PM
hmmm . . . I would paint the walls a grayish-greenish-blue (more blue than green, to contrast with your sofa)and go creamier on your trim color. I think the dark wood wouldn't contrast as much as it currently does because your walls are so light and trim white. You might like what that does to your wood tones and it would definitely warm things up.
I am still working on getting to the heart of the matter in regards to why men think painting wood is a sin against nature! I've had a client's husband say that he'd rather send the furniture to Goodwill than to paint it! Why the passion? Is this some primal DNA he-man thing???? Anyway, I have found that men have a certain picture in their heads when they think of painted wood - maybe pastel or white or something. If you can convince your hubby to choose his least favorite wood piece in your house (as an experiment)and you paint it a rich, darker color - you may begin to convert him to your way of thinking. After 13 years of marriage, my husband is completely willing to allow me to paint anything I choose - he says "that sounds horrible, but you always make it turn out better than I think you will." haha, how's that for a vote of confidence?
Back to the wall color: you might just should totally throw peach on those walls and kickstart this retro peach revival you've been blogging about!!!!! :)
Good luck! Can't wait to hear what you do!
Posted by: Kristie Barnett | January 31, 2010 at 11:37 AM
Thanks Ladies, You definitely have my wheels turning! Im so excited. I want to go buy paint samples and poster board tomorrow!! I started brainstorming the possiblities of even moving the dark wood pieces somewhere else in the house but I really cant see them going elsewhere now. Plus we have very reddish stained wood floors that I worry about having everything clash with. So I think that is why I was uncertain about introducing allover cool tones. But Im going to experiment with blue grays and peachy tans and then paint the opposite of each on my Wooden Armoire in the room. (which currently has a distressed cream glaze). I will take some pics and let you know what happens. Thanks for your advice and taking this journey with me! I love it!
Posted by: Heather | January 31, 2010 at 09:52 PM
Heather - I'm embarrassed to say I've been thinking about this post since you put it up, and I still haven't come to any sort of conclusion.
Here's my two cents, regardless. I really like a mix of natural wood and painted furniture in a room. My favorite rooms have a few wood pieces generally in the same family. This has a grounding effect for all the other pieces in the room.
Posted by: Brigitte | February 01, 2010 at 11:22 AM