department of the interior: home decor

I'm not actually painting NOW, I'm not doing that until our lease is signed, so in a few weeks. But I need CURTAINS and I can't buy them until I know what color the walls will be!

just hang up a sheet in the meantime
(or hang up a sheet and leave it up there for as long as you live there, like i did)

Haha.

Does anyone have a UK bookcase recommendation? If all goes well with the new house i'd probably aim to turn one of the bedrooms into a library so i'd be looking for about 3m of continuous bookcases along one wall and maybe 2m along another. A modular system like the Ikea Billy one might be a good idea but it looks a little flimsy for heavier books. The cheap Argos one i have at the moment has stood up to a certain a amount of abuse (for example)

http://i.imgur.com/QY4OtzT.jpg?1

but it would be good to get something better, and maybe taller, if possible. Custom-built is likely to be excessively expensive.

http://smg.photobucket.com/user/j_bdules/media/Picture004.jpg.html

we had 2 Ikea Billy bookcases at my old place--they were fine. my roommate bought both used on craigslist several years prior. (one's the LH bookcase, other not pictured, but was similarly loaded)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v616/j_bdules/Picture004.jpg

i use billy bookcases with the extra shelves on top and the corner wedge bookcase thing, all bolted together. the shape gives it more stability (i hope) and it looks kinda classy.

ikea sells a set of little v-shaped brackets that you use to keep it together

Excellent. Thanks both.

Does anyone have any positive / negative experience of Colortrend, Zoffany or Little Greene paints?

no negative. i recently put up a image of Binoche in Bleu and a white print of forest snow side by side, square. i like them. in my living room.

<3 that Binoche poster. I used to have all three of the colours in my room at university.

I am trying one of the "premium Giclee prints" from Art.com for the first time. If the quality is good I might get more.

http://i.imgur.com/hvAuNKf.jpg

yeah i like that site. that's pretty. i cropped the Binoche so it's just her head, it's square. i'm p proud of it. that and my framed shot of Britney shaving her head are my babies.

A+++ for Judith and Holofernes!

I've always had a bit of a crush on that Judith, which probably is something a therapist would like to hear more about

http://www.anothermag.com/design-living/7696/the-conversation-pit

big fan of the conversation pit
my dad owned well-thumbed copy of terence conran's the house book from the 70s
which for some reason i was fascinated with as a child, one of the picture books i'd pore over, over & over
prob permanently imprinted my interior design aesthetic

(or imprinted something or other)

also a big fan of the pit

i am moving into a new place in a few weeks, thinkin baout interior design

I've been in one of those conversation pits. It's in this Dublin hotel (although I don't think it was a hotel when it was designed)

http://www.number31.ie/gallery/

Houee I grew up in had a conversation pit, though nowhere near as nice as the ones in the above links. Also it had a railing around the seating areas which spoiled the effect some and made it look more like a mere sunken living room. I still loved everything about it except the scant headroom in the room below. Would really like one in the home I live in now.

I so love The House Book.

I've always had a bit of a crush on that Judith, which probably is something a therapist would like to hear more about

iirc, Holofernes is a self-portrait of Cristofano Allori, Judith is his mistress and her servant is his mother - which is probably something a therapist would have been interested in discussing with him as well.

Going with this ludicrous wallpaper, I think. In moderation, though.

http://i.imgur.com/idc6I90.jpg

is that the Cole & Sons? I think I posted somewhere I wanted to cover bookcases (with doors) in that. Never did it. Still might! It'd go in a grey room.

It is! Yes, the rest of the room is going to be painted grey and I'm going to try to have alcoves with book shelves in that paper.

that's exactly what we planned, but with the bookcases papered rather than the alcoves! Ha. I need to find TALLLL bookcases though, or work out some way of doing it with shelving without it being too jarring.

I was thinking of papering the shelves as well or trying to pick out individual colours and match them with washi but am getting ahead of myself.

that wallpaper is incredible - i'd definitely put that up as a statement wall

Here's where I posted before, I forgot we had a 'home' board
is anyone "home"?

Might make sense to move this thread to the home board.

I have this wallpaper in my new bedroom:

http://i.imgur.com/sZjmRLT.png

<3 hummingbirds.

lush!
I love wallpaper but find it impossible to use interesting ones in high-ceilinged rooms. We had the 'Woods' wallpaper over two stories in our previous flat, and here we have this in our dining room (it's more greeny than this looks)
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/1f/53/87/1f53876dc1ce0da00a791387f0a1e1e5.jpg

That's nice!

Woods was on my shortlist too.

I love wallpaper but find it impossible to use interesting ones in high-ceilinged rooms.

My usual solution for this is to install a horizontal molding across the wall about 8 feet high, with wallpaper beneath it and light-colored paint (often matching the ceiling color) on the wall above it. I can't quickly find a photo online that's done up exactly this way, but this and this both come close - just imagine your wallpaper below the molding. Or this room which uses darker paint above the molding and on the ceiling.

Yeah, it's an early Victorian house, there's already a rail and twirly mouldings (white above the rail, same as ceiling). I like the dark ceiling idea. We're finished decorating now anyway so don't need to see any cool wallpapers to lust after!

I put my stiletto heel through a knot in the wooden floorboard last night :( dread to think what's under there...

Do we have an interior design inspiration thread? Because

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6BH9Ba81k2E/VS60CYkn2nI/AAAAAAAActI/2oU2YCqZpfg/s1600/IMG_0005.jpg

otm

Managed to wallpaper my alcoves in the end:

http://i.imgur.com/GG3Omf3.jpg?1

Got a four and a half foot Uccello for the study today:

http://i.imgur.com/8sf0ti1.jpg?1

Sweet. You guys have lots of books! I'm envious.

Too many! They're still piled up everywhere and i've run out of room to put them.

nice.

been doing a major redecor on my room lately, new desk, new shelves, lamp, few pics on the wall. will try document here. i find it incredibly hard to get nice furniture. it took about a year of looking before i found someone on etsy who made a desk and bookshelf for me.

now looking for a chair i can work at but that isn't modern or like an "office chair" - been checking mid-century "armchairs" that are p much suited to being a desk chair, but it's hard to get the right mix. a lot of crazily priced vintage stuff out there.

I like captains chairs, in general, at least the less pubby, less upholstered ones. But the basic design with arms and a low back is great for me.

yeah they are cool - a lot of them are quite expensive when i looked on ebay.

we have a chimney breast like Sharivari's and finally ordered a big mirror to hang on it, going from mantelpiece nearly to ceiling. got professional picture hangers to come and hang it with some "hilarity" (no one thought to discuss orientation before drilling holes) then when it was finally up it became painfully clear how wonky the ceiling/coving is. like the top of the frame forms a triangle shape with the ceiling.
our last flat was so wonky all over you needed planks under any furniture and trying to hang a curtain rail between ceiling and window almost broke my head. but hasn't realised the new place was so bad...

when we moved into our new house we painted our living room this color: https://www.sherwin-williams.com/homeowners/color/find-and-explore-colors/paint-colors-by-family/SW0013-majolica-green#/0013/?s=coordinatingColors&p=PS0

a cool, relaxing green, it was really nice in the summer, but now it is getting cold and the color feels too cool for a living room. i like the color and painting again would obviously be a pain in the ass, so what could i do to make the room a little warmer? right now there are white linen curtains on the windows (left from the previous owner) - i'm thinking those would be the most obvious thing to change. what's a good color to replace those that would make the room a little cozier?

some things we have in there already - lots of artwork, a large woven tapestry that is dark brown and red, a gold rug.

Hmm. It basically is a very cool color but I would, uncharacteristically, recommend a very pale blush pink or dusty rose-type color to warm it up. The dark red/burgundy/jeweltone is liable to feel heavy without adding a lot of snuggly warmth, but a barely noticeable pale pink is both of this current moment and kind of a revelation. I'll try to find an example.

http://makingitlovely.com/house-tour-the-victorian/#entry

http://makingitlovely.com/house-tour-the-victorian/#library

In both of those rooms, the pink is used as a wall color, so you'd have to find some other way to introduce it. But you need the green-red contrast without looking like it's Christmas all year long, and the very pale blush gives you about the same intensity (or lack of intensity, actually) of the grey-green.

oh i like the idea of a dusty rose color! and yea i was wondering about red but i don't want it to be christmas all the time

that victorian is amazing btw. the woodwork is stunning. i get an anxious yearning when i see unpainted woodwork bc all my trim and molding was already painted white :/ i fantasize about stripping it but i know it would be incredibly labor-intensive

Switch out lightbulbs for a warmer color can make a huge difference.

honestly, paint the walls white, maybe eggshell, and use curtains, rugs, maybe couch covers or throws for cozy. Granted, any wall paint color other than white ends up bugging me relatively quickly, and will become unfashionable probably sooner than you would like.

We didn’t have a chance to paint before we moved into our new place but man I wish we did. The bedroom could probably be referred to as “dusty rose” but it’s a dark pinkish-brown that my wife has started calling “musty labia” and I’ve been calling “bleached anus”. The living room is yellow which isn’t terrible in natural light but at night looks really ugly, obnoxiously yellow, like someone was smoking in it 24 hours a day for decades.

Both are going to be light, neutral gray as soon as we have a chance to do so. I’ve pained and quickly repainted enough rooms that no primary living space will ever be anything but white or gray.

Switch out lightbulbs for a warmer color can make a huge difference.

― mom tossed in kimchee (quincie), Wednesday, November 22, 2017 4:08 AM (ten hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ugh yea the whole house has horrible lightbulbs that i am too cheap to remove so i'm waiting for them to burn out before i replace them

living room tho is actually the only room in the house without any overhead lights - we've just been using some cool lamps and that helps