apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Gray's so sexy!

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr.............

love it! i think gray is super sexy, too :)

hot, but could use some nice colorful art on the walls!

Gray, beige, black, white, brown, an excellent, restful color palette. Depending on white is used as the predominant color, it can change the entire room...yet you could use the same colors throughout a home with no two rooms looking the same.

Bonus: Any other color put in the room takes the spotlight. A bowl of red apples would take on importance on the table. Simple apples.

These are the colors of the sea and shore, of sand and driftwood.

Or of the fog and tree trunks. Very calming.

love this...

I love gray, and painted bricks but together they look awfully "institutional" to me. Sort of Shawshank-y. Maybe the addition of colorful art, as suggested above, would warm this up enough for me to love it.

It is gorgeous with their wood, but I could live without that carpet.

what carpet??? that appears to be cement baby... troweled to a sweet smooth surface.

a small bright pink accent on that wall would be awesome. i love pink & gray together.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about, look first at this post:
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/la/look/dark-forest-by-natasha-newton-055066

Then visit her site, go to Gallery, and click on NEXT until you find Dark Forest shown there...notice how it looks VERY different against the gray of her website vs. the deep beige/tan of the walls in the AT dining room post:
http://www.natasha-newton.co.uk/

Most of the paintings there are very stark. But the background color of the wall or website makes a huge difference in how the painting looks.

Zipping over to Etsy, what else could be put in that gray room?

This color would be a fine accent, without being poke-yer-eyeballs-out bright:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=cat2_galley_8&listing_id=12101575

Chick with too much eye liner would be warming too, the flesh tone:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=cat2_galley_13&listing_id=13187296

======

And yes, I do believe it is concrete, because of the shining reflection on the floor under the table.

I love that shade of grey, but it's crying out for some colour!
If the dining chairs weren't grey and maybe a nice rich wood, that would be nice.

I'm not so sure about adding color to this place though. Here's another set of recent images with the same color scheme of black, gray, brown, beige, white:
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/chicago/inspiration/the-olde-bell-inn-traditional-meets-modern-055559

Now, zip over to this post on CB2's fall line:
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/chicago/roundup/roundup-8-items-from-cb2s-fall-catalog-for-199-or-less-055571

Remove the colorful pillow from the top image and THAT is boring. It's three shades of the same color and looks very flat.

Then look at the other colors they are featuring: reddish orange, orange, hot pink, zebra, and that hideous shade of green.

The reddish orange rug and cabinet could work in this thread's home. But not the other colors.

And when those shades and trends end, that's it. It will be an identifiable period, sort of like the harvest gold and avocado green.

I can't help but think of those colors, all those brights in conjunction with carnivals and funhouses:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Lost_City_-_Fun_House,_detail.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Lost_City_-_Fun_House.jpg

And that's the problem with trends. When it's in, it's all you can find. So you have a choice between those brights, or all neutrals.

They are in stores, they are on beds and sofas and pillows and curtains. Clothing and shoes. Summer becomes a visual color assault. And rooms like the above one look like "Neutral Safety Zones" where I can be sure I won't be hit with anything neon.

That reddish-orange is nice, though, isn't it? It's not a 70's rust. It's more saturated. The metal (?) cabinet in reddish orange would look nice in the above home, on the gray wall where the light birch (?) table is.

The rug would look OK, but would be a hazard with those chairs. The chair legs would get totally tangled up in that rug. Not to mention that food falling on a shaggy rug doesn't clean up easy.