Blue Porch Ceilings

We received a wonderfully generous grant to paint the outside of the historic house where I work. When it came time to pick the colours, we all agreed on a pale yellow that would look good with the fieldstone of the house. We also liked it because it wouldn't turn grey with age like white would.

The estate manager then asked what colour to paint the porch and its beadboard ceiling. "Blue", I shouted, "Of course, you'd never paint a porch ceiling any other colour than that." A pale sky blue, with the floor a slightly darker shade than the trim.

Apparently, no one had ever heard of painting a porch ceiling blue. Was this just something that I knew but couldn't explain how I knew it? My family is from the South, so maybe that's where I heard about blue porch ceilings. Luckily, I didn't say Haint Blue, which is what I was thinking.

So I did a little investigating. I think that I'd heard that blue ceilings repel bugs, but apparently that was from the lime in old paints, not the colour. Haint Blue milk paint was mixed in the lime mines and used on old houses. For those who might not know, a haint is a ghost or spirit. Slaves in the American South believed that this colour blue kept the spirits away. Haint blue is a pale blue with a hint of periwinkle. FYI, we're using Duron's Bluebell for the ceiling.

Another explanation is that the blue reflects light into the house and makes it brighter. Additionally, it mimics the sky, keeping the daylight longer. Last summer, NPR did an interesting story on blue porch ceilings. Listen to it here.

My girls, Annie & Jura, from the Washington Post's Home Front also weigh in on the porch ceiling colour in a discussion from earlier this year. They say that the watermen on the Chesapeake Bay paint their cabin tops blue to repel bugs, especially mosquitoes. There's a reference at the top of the discussion, and then about half-way down. Do you know about blue porch ceilings?

Me & Hue

My blogging friend, Rachel, whom I have actually met, is featuring a brochure I designed on her colour consulting website, Hue. Mosey on over there and see what you think. Some of the fonts didn't transfer when I put the brochure into a PDF format for her, but let me know about the colours. This is what the main W should look like and these are the colours, but I've scaled them way back.

Please leave comments on Rachel's site and help me make this brochure look great! And if you happen to link to the embedded website where I work, it's going to be revamped in a couple of months!

Space

This is my house, but you can't really see it! It's 11.5 feet wide.

I've mentioned that I live in a small 11.5-foot wide rowhouse with three rooms down (living room, dining room, kitchen) and three up (bedroom, bathroom, bedroom). I basically use my kitchen as my "office" space, but other than that, I have to dust off the stove before I use it.

I have a guest room that currently has two twin beds, a side table, my barristers bookcase and some lamps in it. During the time I've lived in my house, I have had a sum total of four people stay in the guest room. In a house of less than 800 square feet, I feel like a significant percentage of the space (the guest room) is totally wasted.

This is one of the twin beds and the wash stand.

You might be thinking, well if you move your office to the guest room, won't the kitchen go to waste? One of the reasons, aside from the fact that I don't cook (I can, but choose not to), is that there is virtually NO counter space. My current desk is actually a five-foot long stainless steel commercial prep counter. I am using a barstool as a chair, which after a little while isn't terribly comfortable. So moving the computer, printer and all associated technology will free up the counter space for other things, like prep work and cooking.

Here's the plan: Disassemble one of the twin beds and put it in the (unfinished) basement. I've never had more than one person stay over at a time, so the second bed is just redundant. All of my cashmere sweaters are in the barristers' bookcase, so that will have to stay. The bedside table is actually an old iron wash stand that I found at my parents' house and refinished to make a table. I will have to figure out what to do with that. It may go in the garden (all 12 x 12 feet of it!).

Here's what I will need: A good desk, large enough for a laptop, printer/scanner and other desk-type things; a good chair; book cases for supplies, books, etc. and a design for how this will all fit into this 11.5 x 11.5 room! Any good suggestions?

I've gotten some excellent suggestions. My limitation, as I mentioned to Cote de Texas, is that to get anything upstairs in my house is a major chore and I usually have to hire someone to help. So, for the time-being, I got a top and legs from Ikea. It's a quick fix, so I can get back to having a functional kitchen. As they say, you've got to live in your house for a while and then decide how things should work.

Carleton Varney, Part IX - Mirrored Furnishings

I have been busy at work, designing brochures and other collateral material for the organization where I work, so I am just trying to sneak in a post here... I turned to my old buddy, Carleton Varney for inspiration for this post.

As usual, Carleton didn't let me down. I cracked open the book to the title "Mirrored Furnishings", a perfect topic. Carleton says "Mirrored furnishings can bring a lot of life, colour and drama into your home... Modern furnishings are not restricted to the modern style. There are many smoked-mirror tables that are perfect in French or any other period room."
There are lots of great mirrored pieces available these days at places ranging from JC Penney to ABC Carpet and Home and Horchow Collection. You should be sure to use mirrored furniture sparingly, as an accent. More than one or two pieces and your room will look like like a fun house. Be prepared to clean the mirrors often if it's in a high traffic area, like a hallway.
Visually, mirrored furniture is light and bright. A small side table with a collection on top would be a great accent. A mirrored hall table would add light to a hallway. Mirrored furniture is evocative of a deco look or glamorous 40's Hollywood. If you're not comfortable having a table or chest that's mirrored, start with a Venetian mirror over an existing piece. Also, be careful not to overdo it!

The Golden Age of Couture

I just adore the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and many times when I had to go to London on business, I stayed at a hotel just down the street and stopped by the Museum in the evenings. I am on their e-mail list and today got the announcement of their new show "The Golden Age of Couture in Paris & London, 1947 -1957". The show runs from September 22, 2007 to January 6, 2008.

There are lots of gallery talks, conferences and conversations associated with this exhibit, and many of them are free or rather inexpensive. Ozwald Boateng is speaking and there are screenings of "Funny Face" and "The Devil Wears Prada". The Golden Age of Couture was launched by Christian Dior and celebrated the end of the Second World War.

The clothes of that era are defined by their incredible tailoring, their incredible details and the new look that ushered in a new prosperous life across much of Europe. If you scroll through the pages here, you will find a wealth of information about that bygone age.

Design/Decorating Books

As I've mentioned, the first place I head at the Book Thing, and at most other places that sell books (not just bookstores) is the section with design/decorating books. Before I moved to the UK, I probably had close to 100 design/decorating books that I'd collected over the years. I sold a lot of them on Ebay and at the salvage company I helped found, or gave them to like-minded friends.

On the right side of my blog, I've listed some of the favourite books that I refer to time and time again. Maybe I am thinking of a tabletop arrangement, so I look to Carolyne Roehm's great quartet of seasonal books. Maybe I want to do something creative in the guest room, so I look to Nina Campbell's Decorating Secrets. David Hicks' books are always inspirational for their trendy, yet classic design. I pick up other books as they interest me, and I like a lot of text and descriptions.

I also collect design and decorating reference books, as the information they contain tends not to change too much. Chippendale style is always going to be that. Unless France has another King Louis, that's not going to change, either. A lot of the older reference books have great line drawings.

This weekend, I picked up Homes & Gardens UK's Decorating, Style Advice, Design Options and Practical Know-How. This book starts out with finding a style, whether it be modern, simple, French casual, French classis, English or Scandanavian. It looks at each style and analyzes the elements that make the style special. Then, room by room, it illustrates the points, without overwhelming the reader with information. Case studies are done of rooms with furniture, window and wall treatment and flooring suggestions. Finally, there is a list of resources.

It is clearly a book not written in the US, but in the UK. The general architectural bones of homes there are very different than those in the US, and this comes through in the photographs.

If you're interested in design and decorating books, take a look at the Peak of Chic's Bibliostyle book blog. She's got some great books and reviews there. What are your favourite books? Why do you like specific ones?

Dorothy Draper Auction Catalogue Available

The catalogue for the Dorothy Draper Auction on September 29 at the Potomack Auction rooms is now available on-line. They are accepting on-line bids for the items. Here are some of the pieces that will be available. There are 209 lots in the Draper section.

One of the fascinating items on the block is a pair of screens that were used to hide the doors to the underground bunker at the Greenbrier. This was where Congress and the Cabinet would hide out in case of a nuclear threat during the Cold War.

The estimates seem very reasonable - chairs starting at $30, head and footboards for $100. There is also a lot of artwork in addition to the furniture and furnishings.

I think that there will be a lot of interest in this auction. I am certainly going to try and go!

Pillow Talk

I love pillows. I think that accent pillows are the jewelry in a room... especially if they're done well. I was reading the NY Times "Key" magazine on property this afternoon (it takes all week to read the Sunday edition) and there were four rooms from country singers in Nashville. One of them caught my eye and kept me staring, but in horror, not admiration.
LeAnn Rimes, the singer who had her first hit at age 13, had designed this and maybe other rooms in her house. I applaud her for that undertaking, but I am left to wonder what's up with the pillows! If you look carefully, there are pillows on almost the entire surface of both sofas, with barely room to sit. They're all chopped in the middle, too. And then there are the pillows on the floor. Not big poofy sitting pillows either. I can't imagine just plunking down on those!

This room adjoins the kitchen, so I am sure that it's a sitting room. But when you want to sit on the facing sofas, do you have to throw all of those pillows on the floor with the others? I need someone to explain this to me. Any helpers?

Brocade Bed Heads

I got an e-mail from Brocade Home this morning and it certainly cheered my Monday morning up - not that it was bad, it just got better! There are some incredible beds featured in the at Brocade Home but unfortunately, none of them would fit up the stairs in my tiny rowhouse. The prices are pretty affordable, ranging from $350 to $450 for the Silhouette bedframe above to $1500 for the hand-carved mohogany one in the bottom photo. The petite lace cut headboard below begins at $300.

I love the green bedroom above, but I am having a little bit of trouble with the rope that suspends the chandelier being wrapped around the headboard. Couldn't they just find a nice brass cleat and tie it down there? And if it's hanging from a rope, where's the electrical... or am I just being way too practical?

Paper Source

Around this time last year, I was in Chicago for the wedding of two dear friends of mine. I went with two other dear friends who had lived in Chicago, and so knew I would have a great couple days exploring the city. I was content to let others make the agenda, taking the architectural tour on the river, visiting Millennium Park, and eating at lots of great places. Oh, and the wedding at the Adler Planetarium!

The only thing that I wanted to do was to go shopping at the Paper Source. I love their motto: Do Something Creative Every Day! Somehow, I had gotten onto their e-mail list and with every mailing they showed the yummiest papers, most creative ideas and gorgeous cards, envelopes and wrapping papers. So before the wedding, I left everyone in a bar watching Colorado play football and headed off to Paper Source.

It was like walking into a treasure chest. They have papers from Japan and India, calendars from Italy, incredible book binding and journaling supplies, papers of every colour and size and much more. They also have a comprehensive set of instructions for projects you might want to undertake on your own. They have wonderful letterpress cards and notes.
There is a great colour-scope on-line that explains why you might like one colour over another. I bought a few little Kolo photo albums and gave them to my hosts and the wedding couple as presents. I had taken photos all weekend and assembled them into these mini 2.5 x 2.5 inch books.

Great place...