Hi Guys,
We had company from Iowa visit us this weekend. We took them sightseeing through Lexington and Concord and finished the evening with a wonderful, home cooked lobster dinner which we ate out on our deck. The weather was perfect and so was the company.
My decorating tip for today will give you a little insight into how decorators work. Most decorators have one or two go-to colors. These colors have worked for them in almost all their decorating situations. A friend of mine always uses Benjamin Moore's November Skies, a beautiful lavender.
My go-to colors, besides Benjamin Moore's Super White for the trim, both inside and outside the house, are BM Navajo White. It is very neutral with a slight yellow undertone. It can be used for walls or trim if you don't like the starkness of Super White. Another neutral is China White. It is more white than Navajo White with a grayish undertone and can be used as a wall color or as a trim color. Another favorite is BM Northern Air. I love this color of blue. I use it in bedrooms, living rooms, and it's even on the ceiling of my front porch. While redoing a kitchen last year, I discovered BM Summer Harvest. It is a lovely yellow, not bright, sort of soft and golden. It soon became one of my favorites. If I want to go for something dramatic, I always go to BM Frozen in Time. It is the most beautiful brownish purple. It is the color I used under the chair rail in the dining room in my previous tip (by the way, Navajo White is above the chair rail), and in the kitchen above the window.
Those are my absolute favorites. Some of the other colors I used in my home are BM Spring Valley which is a lovely, soft green with yellow undertones; Colonial Blue (a medium grayish blue), which I used as the accent wall in the family room where the other three walls are painted Valley Green and ties in with the living room which is painted Northern Air. My sewing/craft room is a real girly-girl room painted Lavender Mist (a pale lavender with blue undertones). I used Tucson Red (a dark red with a hint of orange) on the accent wall in the master bedroom. The rest of the room is painted in BM Blond Wood (beige with red undertones, but doesn't look at all pink). I used China White in both upstairs bathrooms. The outside of our house is painted Fun in the Sun Yellow with Bittersweet Chocolate shutters, and, of course, Super White trim.
That's my tip for today,
b
When we moved into this house, a 1968 ranch, the only architectural details were a chair rail in the dining room and trim around the doors and windows. We had just left a beautiful brick front colonial with crown moldings in every room, a chair rail in the dining room and kitchen, a fireplace with a gorgeous mantle, and beautiful pendants hanging outside above the front door. That being said, we decided to accentuate what we had at our new house by painting all the trim Benjamin Moore's Super White to make it really stand out. We painted all the trim the same color so my husband wouldn't have to ask me what color trim goes in which room. No, actually by keeping the trim consistent it made for a better flow between rooms. I'm very happy with the bright white color, and when clients ask what color to use on the trim, I always tell them Super White.
