If Loving It Is Wrong, I Don't Want To Be Right

Silver Dollar

When we moved last summer into a house we love, I decided to paint the guest room - one of three rooms upstairs - a beautiful Benjamin Moore color called Silver Dollar. I paired it with accents of deep yellow with hints of orange. Then I painted the room next door which is my office (the third room is a bathroom) Henderson Buff and paired it with - you guessed it - gray accents.
And I LOVE it. Silver Dollar looks absolutely gorgeous - and totally different -- in all shades of light and at all different times of day. And when I'm in my office, I feel like I'm inside a warm, light-filled cocoon. And the transition from one to the other is fabulous.

Henderson Buff

And then I read an article by an industry "expert" who said gray is now out and beach-y (read pastels) are now in. Really? Now what do I do?

I do exactly what I tell my clients to do. If you love it, buy it, use it, find a place for it, live with it. Because nothing makes us happier than being surrounded by things we love. And nobody else has to tell me - or any of us - what those are.

Of course there may be appropriate ways to use the things we love. We want to make sure there is a connection, a way to pull everything together so that it feels like it belongs. In my case making the smallish rooms in a smallish space flow together makes the space feel connected and larger. For you, it might be fitting in that beautiful antique piece you had to have, despite the fact that your home is mid-century modern. Of course it will work! Just make sure there is something to tie your special piece with the rest of the room. That could be a color, a texture, a shape - something that makes the room feel tied together despite the disparity.

So if you love it, it's yours. And don't let anyone else tell you differently. And to see ideas and ways to make disparate pieces and styles work together, check out my new board on Pinterest.

Spring......Really?

It's  hard to believe spring is really just around the corner. Despite the birds singing and chasing each other, there's still a LOT of white outside. Even when it feels a little warm, there's no place to sit as everything is still covered with snow. But a quick trip into Target past the towel aisle reminded me of the gorgeous colors that will soon be coming our way. Seriously, it was the towel aisle at Target that got my juices flowing.

And now I really must have some color around me. Yes, it still has to be inside. And no, I don't want it to clash with my decor. And no, I'm not talking pastel Easter eggs. I want COLOR!

So I started with some tulips, mostly yellow. I'm a sucker for yellow and gray, so I think they are lovely in the guest room, despite the winter photo in the background. 

But this is the guest room......what about the rooms I see all the time? Maybe a little forsythia. That says spring. Of course I can't find mine under the snow, but Pier 1 has lovely fake stems. And I'm that desperate.

There seems to be a yellow theme going on.......but yellow is a neutral, isn't it? And it's so warm! But it needs to be very vibrant or it does border on pastel. So I'm thinking some brighter colors. Colors that really jump out at me. Colors that remind me of those beautiful towels in Target. In a room where I spend a lot of my time.  And then I realize how easy this is. I can surround myself with every color of the rainbow - deep greens, blues, purples, yellows. Spring colors that ignore the white out my window. Colors that make me smile. File folders!

Okay, so I'm easy to please. But those file folders will make me smile every day! Looking for a little inspiration to make you smile? Something perhaps a little more exciting than file folders? Check out my latest board on Pinterest.