Is Your Room Feeling Tired and Old?

Is your room feeling tired and old?

It might just be the color combinations you are using.

There are certain colors that can make a room look old, and tired if not combined with the right accent colors, or elements.

I am not sure why, maybe it is because it was a big color in the early 70's when I became a wife, and homemaker, but this color has always felt old and dated to me. 

Of course this is just my opinion and not anything that is stamped in a book in the design world but this color is.......

 

BROWN

Brown can look drab, and heavy in a room, so how does one make it look fresh and current?

You will notice that everything is BROWN except the walls, and they are a gold that just adds to the dreariness of this room. 

It is not that the room is horribly decorated, it is neat and tidy the proportions seem right,(except the lamp.) It just feels sort of Blah!!

If you look at this color wheel you will notice that the brown family falls under the heading of yellows/golds so by painting your walls gold, you have basically just added more brown to your room.

So what do you do if you love BROWN?

Take a look at colors that are directly across from the brown family, and use those as accents to give some life to your room. If you choose a color that is directly across from another color on the color board, it is a compliment to that color.

Try adding some fresh colors to your color scheme…..

Dark floors, charcoal and cream rug, gray/blue walls and accents in coral make this sofa almost disappear, and the room feels fresh, fun and current.

Here is a color scheme taken from nature using brown, blues and grays. Keeping Brown as a secondary or accent color keeps the room from feeling too BROWN, dated or heavy.

This is such a fresh take using brown with bright, playful colors. This would make any room feel light and happy.

The brown sofa is smiling with new life, thanks to happy pillows.

Adding new fun pillows in happy colors will help make a brown sofa feel new and fresh in a room…

Using one patterned pillow as a jumping off point will help establish your new color scheme.

(Found on Etsy, made by Wilma Long)

 

OR

 OR

VIA HERE

Painting your walls in a cooler hue will also make the room feel a bit more current. By keeping everything in the brown family it will only tend to age your room.

Brown, Pink, and Gray!

A brown sofa with brown walls?!! Wow! Lots of brown, even the floors are brown. 

So why does this work?

 

The pieces of furniture are classic with a touch of modern. Lots of white molding is used. The entire fireplace is white, and the hints of pink are a muddy, or a grayed pink, in a very pale value. 

Notice the pink is in the pillows, the back wall of the bookcases and in the flowers. Subtle? YES, but still pink.

The operative word here is SUBTLE uses of pink.

Also notice that the soft pink is a blue based pink/blush. This is a cooler accent than an orange based pink such as coral.

So next time you look at your room that has too much brown in it, or for that matter, too much of any color, try shaking things up a bit by adding a cooler hue as a backdrop, and use bright, happy accents in pillows, lamps and artwork.

Pinterest, Husbands, and Romance

 

I have always been a collector of ideas, and beautiful images.

It was one of  the ways I gathered information for my business as a design consultant.

I could never seem to get my fill of images of beautiful rooms. 

Pinterest is fulfilling my need to collect images of not only beautiful décor, but also others aspects of interest in my life. I now have a place to put this collection in an organized manner.

We all have to face the fact that pinning is here to stay, and has probably become a bigger part of our life than we would have ever imagined, or ever wanted it to be.

With anything that takes time away from, family, husbands, and homes there can be pitfalls.

They even have some funny little sayings about the subject of the amount of time spent on Pinterest.

One of my favorites is this one…….

Source: someecards.com via Kathy Sue on Pinterest

Then there is this one……….

Source: facebook.com via Kathy Sue on Pinterest

If only in our dreams, right?

I have my own personal story about my husband, and pinterest that I would like to share with you all………

 

…..Once in awhile he will send me an email from work. 

Here is the email I got from him the other morning about Pinterest……….

.........Spent some time on your

Pinterest boards tonight and really

enjoyed it! I especially enjoyed

reading the pins on your “Sayings”

board. What you pinned really shows

what a wonderful, fun, happy, loving

and devoted person you are!!

I love you very much and also wanted

you to know that

“You Are My Happy”

too!!

Can you believe how sweet this is? I love that he took the time to see, “ME!” in the things I pinned.

Men need to realize that it is not always the overtly romantic gestures that we find romantic, but it is the small heartfelt things they say, or do that will melt our hearts.

Source: Uploaded by user via Kathy Sue on Pinterest

This is the wonderful man that I am blessed to be married too.

I just had to share this with my fellow bloggers and Pinners!!

Just Click HERE to go to my sayings board.

I will continue to Enjoy the Process of:

“Pinning!”

More Decisions Made For The Guest Room

We have the bed, the bedding, and a piece of art! 

What’s next?

Navy and white are the base colors, and the art gave me the jumping off point for the use of some accent colors.

One of my readers asked if I was going to paint the walls turquoise?

YES I AM!!

I plan on using a color with just a hint of blue green for the walls.  

The paint color has not been chosen yet, but I know the direction I am going, very soft, and pale for a soothing look.

Now is the time I need to make a list of the other elements I want in the room.

One of the main pieces in the room besides the  twin beds is the nightstand.

There will be one nightstand in between the two white beds backed with a pale blue green wall.

I played around with a few looks that I think will work……

I like the contrast this would give in the room. It is a dark teal which pulls from the blue/green family. 

It is appealing to me because it does not match anything in particular in the room. 

This helps make the room look less contrived. With the glass doors and shelves I can put baskets to hold items for my guest. The baskets will also add  texture to the room.

Next I looked at a navy and white option……

I would have to buy a piece with plans on painting it like the above image. 

The only problem with this combination is the white on the dresser might be hard to match the beds paint color, which is actually a soft off white.

This is a top contender and would be easy to replicate!

I think all of the above will be easy to paint if I find a small dresser that will fit between the beds. 

The first option is actually at Target, but they are sold out online, and I have not checked my local store to see if it still available.

I am not worried since I can purchase this small dresser from Ikea and paint it to my liking…..

I did jump the gun a bit, and purchased something else in yellow as accents. As I said in my previous post, yellow is such a vibrant color it needs to be used sparingly in this room.…..

I found these darling book ends online at CB2.

I always check their website for fun, colorful elements when I am doing a room with color. 

I only ordered one because I have plans for the other side of the books. This will sit on top of the night stand. I just might paint the spines of some books as well. Love this fun, whimsical look.

Remember this room is being done mainly for my Grandchildren that are all becoming young adults, so it has to have some fun, and life to it.

Let me share one other piece I got to display on the wall……

(Found on Etsy, HERE!)

I want all of my guest to know that they are special to me, and having them in my home makes my home that much more special.

Since I do have out of state guest from time to time, I thought a map of California would be appreciated by them. This also continues the touch of whimsy I am going for in the room.

If any of you are interested in a print like this the seller offers many options of other states. HERE!

You will begin to notice that none of my yellows match perfectly.

I like the different shades of yellow in the room. Often times if we match things too perfectly the room begins to look contrived.

Decorating TIP!:

Making things a bit off helps prevent that SMATCHY (matchy-matchy) look.

I use the word SMATCHY because it SMACKS you right in the face that everything matches, toooooo perfectly. Not the look I am going for!

NEXT!

SHEETS

ACCENT PILLOWS

LIGHTING

FRAMING FOR PICTURES

This will be an ongoing process so stay tuned for my next post on……

THE GUESTROOM!

 

 

 

Some NEW This and That's

   

I have found a few fun things lately that  I thought you all might enjoy as well. 

They vary from, home, beauty, clothing. Just some This and That's for a Monday.

First let me start with something I am in love with for my home…..

This mist smells heavenly!! I use it on my pillow cases and the leading edge of my top sheet. I love this stuff so much I ordered one for each bedroom.

You can find it on sale right now at Wallgreens.com for only $3.99. It is a small bottle so I got some back-ups.

The other thing I did was to take some WD-40 (best sticky label remover around), to remove the label so I have a pretty little cobalt bottle to sit in the bedrooms. 

I would like to make my own label that says something catchy on it. I will let you know if I figure out how to do that.

In The Wardrobe Department........

Next is a cute little Spring/Summer dress. This dress is knit so it will travel well and I think it can be a dress-up, dress-down outfit…..

The dress actually hits in the middle of my knee, and fits like a glove. It is very figure flattering, and I  know I will get a lot of wear out of this dress.

You can find it here, On SALE for only $39.99. At that price I bought it in cobalt blue too!!!

Some Southern Comfort!

Next a little something to keep you cool in the summer heat………

When we went to South Carolina  I fell in love with sweet tea. We shouldn’t have the sugar so I was on the hunt for something that tasted like the tea we had in South Carolina. I think I have found a winner!!

This tea is sooooo good and it is sweetened with splenda, which is already in the tea bag.

I found it on Amazon HERE! They also have a website that tells you what stores you can buy it at, but we do not have any of the stores listed, here in California.

Now for the beauty department……

I have been using PaulaChoice moisturizer with spf 25 for awhile now, and I must say I still love it.

Recently I needed to order more so I went on her website, and perused a bit, and found another product that I am loving……


I use this under my sunscreen, and I am loving the way my skin is retaining the moisture. I have extremely dry skin so I am always thrilled to find a product at a reasonable price point that is working for me. You can find it HERE!

That is my post of THIS and That’s!!

Let me know if any of you try any of my newest suggestions.

 

 

The Next Step In Designing The Guest Room

Now that the twin beds, and bedding have been chosen it is time to move on to the next step...... 

Moving right along in the planning stages of the guest room is fun. If you missed the first post you can read about the white twin beds we chose and why we chose twin beds, HERE!!

The bedding was our first choice. I chose a navy and white rugby striped bedding……

The color scheme base is navy and white so what color will the walls be?

Right now the walls are painted  Martha Stewarts Lemon Grass….

It is a really pretty sage green that mixes beautifully with the navy and white. 

I actually could have kept this color, but I am going to use something a bit different in this go around.

So what is determining my color scheme?

Since my base colors are pretty neutral, navy and white. I needed to find something that would dictate more color, and give me a jumping off point to complete the color scheme. 

A piece of artwork would give me colors and maybe even a bit of theme.

I happened to see a piece of artwork that I fell in love with on Abby’s blog post HERE!!

Abby M. Interiors

 

If you are not familiar with interior designer, Abby M's work be sure, and visit her blog. She does some stunning rooms, and design boards. She always inspires me with her young, fresh, and yet glamorous take on interiors.

THE ARTWORK

The colors, and the beach theme really caught my eye. 

The artist is a local artist in Charleston, Teil Duncan, and since that is one of my favorite towns as of late, it felt right.

One of the colors that really popped out to me was the YELLOW in the striped umbrella.

I began to play around with some yellow accents, and I was beginning to like the color scheme that was emerging.

If you are patient, and start looking for elements that you are attracted to, you will start to see a color scheme emerge.

I don’t make any purchases until I see all the puzzle pieces start coming together.

I think where most people get into trouble when decorating a room is they jump the gun, and make a purchase too soon without seeing how one piece will relate to another.

I continued my looking, and sourcing, and after visiting the site where the umbrella picture was found I actually found a couple more  pictures that would work in my room.......

AND

This was beyond perfect! I have three grandchildren, two boys, and a girl just like you see in the picture. 

I knew this was the picture for my room!

 

All the colors are there, and the bright yellow flag is helping to bring out some yellow accents for the room.

Yellow is a pretty strong color so I have to be careful just how much of that color I use in the room. I have more to show you as we continue planning our guest room so stay tuned.

CHANGE IN PLANS AND A BIT OF A DELAY!

Plans have changed a bit due to the recent health issue of my sweet husband, but I love the planning stages, and sourcing so I will continue posting about my findings. 

I am not sure when we will get to the re-doing of the room, but trust me, I don’t mind the wait at all. I am just happy to have my husband back home with me.

You can read about what happened HERE if you have not been able to follow along lately. Be sure to read to the end of the post.

Thank you to all of you who have emailed me with well wishes and prayers. WE both felt your prayers and love through this unexpected turn in our lives.

We are getting back to normal and all things seem to be going onward and upward.

LIFE IS GOOD!!!