Name: Black Ink 2127-20
Brand: Benjamin Moore

This might be one of my kookier experiments ever—what do you do when you’re on a deadline for a different column and still don’t have your press photos from the Met? Start Photoshopping! I’ve wanted to write a column forever called “Black is Beautiful.”...

Fate has forced my hand this week to dig through my stockpile of old images, but all I have of this room is a pre move-in photo I shot as I was running out the door. The wall is real, as are the tulip chair and glass table. But the picture looked so empty that I thought this was my chance to play virtual decorator.

Mixing styles is smart, so to Mid-Century Modern I added a Baroque over-door painting and sculpture, one of my own drawings and a few salt shakers. If we added a tufted Georgian fainting couch and a few other tchotchkes, I’d be in heaven.

The wall itself is the bedroom of a big new loft, and we’re standing in the doorway. The color isn’t pure black, but it might as well be. If anyone wants to know what I’m pushing this season it’s this: blue black (with turquoise accents). Think of Payne’s Grey, or the kind of English wool that still has the chalking on it.

I have a few other black rooms in the works, including a dining room. But until then, please post links to your own black rooms, preferably residential. And don’t forget to send a few photoshopped flowers…

- Mark Chamberlain, interior and decorative painter