Pre-Teen Bedroom Makeover

This cork board from the Pottery Barn Kids catalogue was the inspiration for Hannah’s bedroom renovation. We decided to open up her rather small room by painting wide horizontal stripes all the way around the room in three different tones of blue-green with a white stripe between them. The treatment conjured up, at least in my [...]

Read Full Post »

Traditional Colonial Explodes with Color

Picking a house color is a little tricky for some people. I realize that. And because I cannot bear to show you a photo of the real house I drove by the other day (to protect the innocent), I have pasted in a paint swatch from www.myperfectcolor.com  just to illustrate my point. The color was used on [...]

Read Full Post »

Paint Your Old Golden-Oak Cabinets!

Saddled with old golden oak cabinets? Why not paint them. I did and it was very easy (though time consuming). I started by removing the doors from the cabinet base and unscrewing all the hardware. Then I lightly sanded all the surfaces. A good primer like Zinsser’s Bulls Eye 123 covered easily and provided a [...]

Read Full Post »

Color Your Front Door

The front door is your opportunity to give your house some personality and with very little money. Especially if you have a neutral color scheme everywhere else, like we see in this photo from Country Living Magazine (www.countryliving.com/…/budget-makeover-0206).
This beige and brown ranch style home comes alive at the front entryway with a glossy orange door, [...]

Read Full Post »

Basement “Man Cave”

This basement renovation project started with a request for a palette of brown and purple. Coming from a couple with impeccable taste in furnishings upstairs, I knew this would be a fun challenge. We inserted some green into the mix along with a touch of copper and brushed nickel and ended up with more of [...]

Read Full Post »

Color Your Spirits Bright

For years decorators have ignored an entire section of the paint color fandeck, labeling these colors as garish, for children only, or just simply in bad taste. Not anymore. Now colors like Mellow Yellow (Ben Moore’s 2020-50 that’s hardly mellow) and Bermuda Teal (2044-50) are making a fresh new statement of uplifting optimism in the [...]

Read Full Post »

Color Your Spirits for the Holidays

Remember when the Grinch stole Christmas? All the trees, lights, stockings, and gifts –  the trappings associated with a wonderful holiday celebration– were suddenly gone? They had vanished during the night while everyone down in Whoville slept. What happened next in this wonderful Dr. Seuss tale was even more remarkable for its simplicity. Despite [...]

Read Full Post »

In Times of Trouble, Paint!

If you’re hunkering down to wait until economic conditions improve before making changes to your home, just remember that a gallon of paint costs only about $23 (Valspar from Lowe’s). I’ve moved to Valspar from Benjamin Moore (they don’t pay me so I can do that) because the paint is a better value. I have [...]

Read Full Post »

How Current Events Affect Color and Decorating

For the past several years, post 9-11, we’ve cocooned in our homes painting them rich warm cozy colors like dark chocolate and rich rusty red, colors that evoke warmth and safety and home. Lately, we seem to be moving out of that intense color phase and into a new light phase with wall color being [...]

Read Full Post »

My Old House is Just Not Me

Many of you have a modern aesthetic. You like clean lines, unfussy details, neutral colors, and minimal furnishings. You probably should have moved to a downtown loft space, but you are now part of suburbia. You write in that you’ve decorated the inside of your new home to reflect your taste, but the outside is [...]

Read Full Post »