department of the interior: home decor

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

it’s a dark pinkish-brown that my wife has started calling “musty labia” and I’ve been calling “bleached anus”.

lol

we've had white or beige walls in every place we've lived in and landlords never let us paint so we had to do something different w/ our first home

I live in a rental so painting bright colors is out, although in previous room under a different landlord I did paint everything silver-grey with white trim and white ceiling. Now I'm forbidden (lol).

Would love to be able to use color in a future home although I think one key is ownership, or at least knowing you're going to be somewhere for a while. A set color scheme means getting furniture & accessories that coordinate, or at least don't clash, and that means purposefully buying things for that space, which means stability.

After 20+ years of impermanent housing situations, it would be really nice to say "I'm painting the book room navy and adding some mustard upholstery" like literally that's what I'd choose.

But also having more than one or two rooms probably helps, so you don't always have to look at navy--different spaces can reflect different uses or times of day or moods. Also not a thing you can really do in city apartments.

In our first house - where I lived for seven years - we repainted the bedroom three times before getting a color that didn't look awful. Samples looked good and all but in a room-sized space colors ended up being too dark, or too much of an undertone that wasn't obvious at first.

I'm all for painting hallways, bathrooms, porches, and guest rooms unusual or interesting colors but I've gotten burned enough that I don't want to gamble on having to repaint a bedroom or living room more than once, especially since it's possible that I could be in this house until I die.

A set color scheme means getting furniture & accessories that coordinate, or at least don't clash

ya this was tough and we certainly have things that either clash or blend in too much - having to find wall space large enough to suit our largest artworks and tapestries and not pre-planning some of that means that we have, for example, a red master bedroom with a reddish-orange tapestry bc that was the only wall that fit it!

i don't know if i will do it but i really want to paint our all-white trim some other color or colors than white. white's okay i guess, but when we were looking at houses i was always more drawn to natural wood trim. if we had stained wood trim i'd never paint it but since some previous owner already painted it white, why not try another color?

White trim always shows dirt, scuffs too much (assuming you are talking about baseboards and molding). I also prefer wood

I used to paint walls very strong colors and even did a wall once with blue on blue racing stripes w/ a couple of thin silver lines thrown in. Now I am pretty much white walls only although I could be swayed into grey every so often. I just have too many belongings (art, quilts/pillows that I make) that are primary colors that I feel less restrained when I just have a neutral background. And my newish place has a crazy glass? shiny weird wall in the middle that houses what used to be a fireplace. I've always been confused by it. But the red glass kind of requires things around it to be more muted.

assuming you are talking about baseboards and molding)

yea

someday i want to own a house with wood trim

also i need plants. i have no plants. i want plants in every room.

I love plants but it becomes an issue when going away on vacation. Usually I can put them in the tub with water halfway up and they've done well. This time around due to different apt and plants I am trying the upside down wine bottles in some. We'll see how they are after 3 weeks.

Does it have to be a good wine or will they be OK on the cheap stuff?

They like a little sparkler.

i need to buy a new couch and it's stressing me out!

the couch i have right now is great - we've had it probably 6-7 yrs, got it used from friends, it's stain-resistant, husky-having-a-tantrum-and scratching-furiously resistant, doesn't hold onto dog fur, it's pretty comfy. but it's fucking HUGE. it's too big for our small house and it's an ugly dark olivey-green.

the thing is, i spend a lot of time of the couch. and these are the things i want:
- comfy (not too firm, not too squishy)
- high-ish back
- on legs (i don't like the blocky look of couches that hit the floor - it takes over the room)
- simple design (i already have a lot going on, decor wise)
- must handle dogs well
- slim profile (no big rolled arms)
- not too shallow
- spacious two-seater, or smaller 3-seater

i've looked at Article and Joybird, but it's so hard to tell what's gonna feel comfortable - they offer returns but what a fucking hassle. i also looked at Burrow, but the fabric sounds weird and seems like it doesn't look anywhere near as good in person. i went to ikea tonight, but i didn't really like anything they had, except maaaaybe the Vimle.

does anyone have recommendations? my budget is probably around $1200. i would probably stretch to $1500 if it was The One.

also: i am pretty set on a medium-gray sort of color.

The Ikea Nockeby is very nice and very comfortable. it also has removable/washable covers and you can buy extra covers if you need to. it comes as a two or 3 seat couch or as a three seat with a chaise extension thingy.

thanks jed! but i don't like those really big/wide arm rests - that's one of the problems with our current couch.

I love so many of the article couches but I can see how impractical they would be with pets in the house.

Have you looked at Macy's? They have a lot of fabric sofas with a mid century/danish vibe going on for under $1000. I can't find the exact one I used to have in a light grey tweedy fabric but it was similar to the tufted back ones with scandinavian legs. They are fine comfort wise. I eventually gave it to a neighbor (we both had large dogs too) because I wanted a huge ass chesterfield

Oh man, now I am really lusting after this blush pink velvety sofa on Article.

I got a new sofa and matching love seat from Macy's last summer when we moved into a new place. First time I ever bought furniture that I hadn't sat on first but they were super cheap due to some sort of sale so both together were less than $1100 or so.

They're totally fine; definitely not family heirloom sturdiness so I have doubts about their longevity but they're comfortable, look good, and were cheap.

Yep^^^ it has a good price point for people with large dogs, like, you didn't really stress over ruining it. I think everyone is having a Mem day sale too (US).