Name: Sarah
Location: Swampscott, MA
Type of Home: one bedroom apartment with office
What inspired you to use color? I believe a home should be comforting and invigorating at the same time. Color should be used to unify the space, to make the eye flow from one part of a room to another; it should never be jarring. When I decided to paint, I wanted the wall colors I chose to compliment my favorite things: a vintage barkcloth pillow, a found seascape painting, a green ceramic lamp. I also wanted to modernize the space without clashing with the original mid-century pieces...
...I just finished painting last week and I couldn’t be happier with the result. It’s cozy and fun at the same time and no one says it looks like their grandma’s house anymore! Kitchen: Inspired by the hospital in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Living room: Inspired Julianne Moore’s makeover in Domino, as featured on Apartment Therapy. Bedroom: Inspired by my deep and abiding love of yellow.
Color Tip: When deciding how to decorate with color, pay attention to the colors of things you already own. Those are likely the colors you really love and you will be happy to live with. Also, the colors you are naturally drawn to are the ones which will best represent you.
Colors Used: Livingroom: Glidden Evermore, Tears of Joy Bedroom: Behr, California Dreaming Kitchen: Glidden Evermore, Country Cottage
Fall Colors Introduction -------------------------------
Welcome, everyone, to our Fourth Annual Fall Colors Sharing & Contest. We're looking for the most beautiful & colorful home in the world and sharing all of the great ideas we get with our readers. This year we're amping things up and hoping to do things better than ever. There are two basic phases, the Sharing Phase and the Voting Phase...
1. Sharing Phase - you comment, judges decide
The 40 best, completed entries will be posted on a daily basis for three weeks. You can view them all at anytime via our new, improved contest pages under ALL ENTRIES. During this time your comments are VERY IMPORTANT as our six judges will be choosing 16 finalists from each region based on comments and their own colorful opinion.
2. Voting Phase - you vote till you drop
Starting October 20th, finalist voting will begin on a daily basis through our new bracketed voting system, which will pit our 16 finalists against one another until only one remains. Sound exciting? We hope so.
Best, Maxwell
LOVE all the vintage furniture (esp. the not one but TWO credenzas ((ridiculous)) and the sofa).
And I like how you chose a really vibrant yellow but kept it from overwhelming the room by just painting a stripe of it.
view thirddegree's profile
I love the colors and the way they're used. You did a good job of doing exactly what you said, and the results are terrific. As for the Keep Calm poster, I recommend rematting it with a mat that's more proportionate to the print and the frame. This Ikea thing really bugs me; I love their cheap, simple frames, but the mat that comes with this size looks so silly in its frame! It's a pet peeve of mine.
view visualingual's profile
Love your bedroom and kitchen colors!
view racheloncegentry's profile
The position of that television is making me twitch. It's a cute pad otherwise.
view Kimber's profile
Sarah:
Your place is so cute! I love the colors you used. You've really got an eye for that.
I love the amount of color you used, too. A whole wall of brightness would have been overwhelming.
view jilldiamond's profile
great place.
view carlac's profile
I love the sunburst mirror and the stripe of yellow in the bedroom. There's a really nice relationship with that, your bed and the niche. I like that the technique is echoed in the kitchen. The bright colors are a wonderful touch without being overwhelming.
view Spacesha's profile
it looks like she raided the urban outfitters home department, not in a good way
view okgoodanswer's profile
You've solved my problem of whether or not a lilac-gray living room would be a disaster and too girlie. It looks soothing and sophisticated. I am curious about how you managed to get the lines so straight in the bedroom-professional painters? I think you did a great job of editing the use of color.
view fleababe's profile
thank you to everyone for your comments! i agree with the criticisms of the keep calm poster (matting is on my to do list!) and the tv (it's a necessary evil). i know at'ers are pretty particular so i think i got off light considering. :)
fleababe: the gray is tricky! i didn't want something that would make the room too dreary. i didn't even realize there was a lilac tinge to it until i painted the bathroom the same gray; with different light, the pinkishness really comes out. if you're considering painting a gray, definitely bring paint chips home and see how they work in the room in different lights.
as for the straight lines in the bedroom, i used a ruler, a level, and masking tape. it took a little time but it was pretty easy!
view open_skies's profile
nice touch. good colors
view Tangerine's profile
Open_skies, you could just take the mat to Michaels or other and have recut your current mat a bit so it fits better.....or you could buy the mat knife and do it yourself!
view megashad's profile