Wednesday, June 29, 2011

living with color


The last time I was in the store I was talking to a couple of customers about cafe curtains I created from from tea towels made by Oh Little Rabbit. My husband was there, and when the customers left I said "I feel like the shoemaker whose children have no shoes". I have no business giving decorating advice to anyone. My homes have always been a jumble of things I like with little or no planning involved. And lots of color. When we prepared to move to Massachusetts I swore the new house would be cool and calm with lots of white. I ended up painting every room a different, bold color. Kind of like these Bermuda houses.

attribution note: I have none for this picture. If it's yours please let me know so I can credit you. All other pictures were taken by me.

My dining room is hot pink, family room yellow, kitchen peach, den apple green, foyer cerulean blue, bedroom hydrangea blue ... (One day I will show you pictures--I have to figure out how to take pictures of a room.)

The colors in Bermuda were amazing. Tangerine, lime, turquoise, lemon chiffon, mango, watermelon, emerald ..... It was glorious. 




And my New England colonial is decorated in tropical beach house colors.

If color and design interest you, I highly recommend The Way We Live With Color and all the other books in the series. I will be writing more about this, as I am in the process of re-furnishing the great room in our Catskills house. A process in which I forced myself to consider context, setting, and to ask for help. More on that soon.

Do you surround yourself with a favorite color palette?

Jen

7 comments:

  1. Hello Jen:
    We love the colour washed Bermudean houses and to some extent this is reflected here in Budapest where many buildings have brightly painted stucco. In addition, there is a particular street in Brighton in which every house is painted in sugared almond tones and tints of blue, lemon, pink, green and yellow.

    In our Brighton rooms we have used lemon and grey as colour washes for the walls whereas in Budapest, because all the rooms are 'en filade' we have used a chalky antique white throughout.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Fantastic colors of Bermuda! I think you win for best colors in a blog post today. Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think that's awesome that every room is a different color! And the tea towel curtains are adorable!

    ReplyDelete
  4. The curtains are indeed adorable. I really enjoyed your color descriptions, gave me a more vivid mental picture! Color must be one of our few differences in taste, as i have always gone for muted, usually neutral tones. Except that I did paint one of my guest bedrooms a soft periwinkle... that's a stretch for me! But I love the sound of your house. Did you ever see the house in the tv show Dexter? It was in Miami and full of tropical color, you'd love it!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Jen,
    the colors on the Island homes are amazing! As much as I love all the white rooms on the blogs, I can't give up my color either. My colors of choice are browns, red and celery or olive green. I do use white accents in summer to "beach" it up a little. It's so much fun how changing a color can make such a difference!
    Rebecca

    ReplyDelete
  6. I am with you --- I love color. Looking forward to pictures of your home.

    ReplyDelete