First, we moved all of Simon’s things over to let them get use to sharing a room before tranferring Oscar from a crib to a bed. Here is what the room looked like at that point:

As you can see, the room was a minty green color. It wasn’t a bad color, but not exactly one we would have chosen ourselves. So it was time for a change. After a few weeks, we went in with paint brushes in hand and changed the feel of the room completely. We are very happy with the end result.

Entering the room:

 
Light but bright blue:

 

 
Glow-in-the-dark stars:

 
Dressers:

 
Art desk:

There are still some small adjustments to be made and things to add, but we couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. The boys especially like the dark blue area with glow-in-the-dark stars. Originally that was a closet, but at some point it was changed to make the room a little bigger. Almost everything in the room was purchased at Ikea, including the bunk bed. I am a huge fan of Ikea for a kid’s room.

While doing this room, we also painted Simon’s old room (now the guest room). No more primary blue!! We haven’t done much else at this point, but I’ll post pictures as soon as we get it closer to where we want it.
 
 

Canadian House and Home blue bathroom

I can’t wait for our bathrooms to be finished. I’m no longer looking for design inspiration for these rooms, just looking for time and money to finish them, but I can still take the time out to appreciate nice vintage designed bathrooms. Both of the baths featured in this post have a vintage, old home feel paired with serene powder blue paint. I love an “old” feeling bathroom.

This first powder blue bathroom was featured in Canadian House and Home. This bath has a very traditional feel with the crisp white tiles and nice woodwork. I love the robin’s egg blue shade used. It looks very clean against the white. The black metal lighting and black mirror add a needed contrast to the room. The black adds elegance. It’s all very simple and it all works. I also like the vanity. I dislike bulky vanities. I don’t see the entire bathroom in this picture making it difficult to comprehend the size of the space. But, I think it is a smaller bath and I know it has lower ceilings. Look at how high the mirror is. This space appears to have a lower/normal height ceiling. I do hate the recessed lighting, but that’s me. Could this be a finished basement bathroom? I don’t know. That’s what I always think when I see recessed lighting: finished basement.

The other powder blue bath was featured in House Beautiful. It has the same feel. It’s classic and traditional and feels tranquil with light blue. It also has lovely tile floors. I love any black/white tile floors. This room is the same color combo as the 1st bath featured but reversed. Check out that subway tile. I love this look in a bathroom. This is a nice and simple bathroom too. It has all the timeless elements, nothing too trendy. The chrome fixtures work nicely. If this was my bathroom I’d have to get rid of the decoration on the toilet. I always find that weird. And the bottle beside the toilet is really strange to me. I don’t know why it is there. It makes me think of, well to put it nicely, camping or a long road trip. Really gross, sorry to mention it.

House Beautiful vintage feeling blue bathroom

Both baths have the same feel and the same colors. They have bright white and tranquil powder blue with black accents and a more saturated blue thrown in (waste basket in the 1st and strange toilet decor in the 2nd).These baths are simple and despite their “old” feel they seem to go with many styles. I feel that lots of money can be spent on bathroom remodeling, so try to keep it looking classic so it doesn’t feel too dated, if that makes sense

-Victoria

Guest bedroom found at Design * Sponge

The first one is from Design Sponge. I came across this picture a long time ago. This is the direction I wanted my house to go. I still love it. It is very dreamy. There is nothing I would change about this room. That’s rare for me. They even made me want to go to Ikea and purchase that pendant lamp (again, had it in my 1st apartment)* But, I think this lamp is the real deal, I’d settle for the Ikea. I love all of the elements here from the modern lighting  to the farmhouse prints. It’s all looks amazing against those powder blue walls. The white trim pops, the dark frames pop, and the natural wood tone of the beds is delicious. The light blue paint changes the feel of this otherwise ho-hum country styled room. (Well, that and the lighting). I love the mixing going on in this room. This room makes me want to completely re-do our bedroom.

The other room I found on Martha Stewart’s website. It is another guest bedroom painted in a light as clouds light blue. This entire room is much “fluffier” than the other. I love the white accents. It’s all so dreamy. Of course the room appears light and airy because of the awesome natural lighting. The windows are stunning, especially when draped in barely there white curtains letting the light in. I would change the textiles to something younger and funkier. I don’t want it to look too traditional. Oh, and don’t you love those hydrangeas in that robin’s egg blue porcelain vase? I need to get one of those. I love hydrangeas.

We didn’t get much done around the house this long weekend (well, we did paint the bathroom and get the studio mostly in order, we did work). We are enamored by seasonal produce and spent most of the time at various markets.

Martha Stewart Living powder blue guest bedroom

This took me to Williams Sonoma and Sur La Table where I didn’t see anything I needed. (I’m waiting for my food processor in the mail, so stoked!) We went to a  few antique shops and didn’t see anything worth buying. We had lots of great food, that’s why I love Seattle! I think all we needed was time off and a little sunshine. Hope everyone had a great weekend and a 4th of July! I’m now planning for Bastille Day…

-Victoria

Living room from Elle Decor

I love robin’s egg blue and chartreuse both as accents but I have came across 2 rooms that use both of these colors as more than just accent colors.

This first room is from Elle Decor magazine. I love the powder blue walls with monochromatic trim. This comes across as a very 60′s Regency look to me. It looks like something that would have been in a swank 60′s hotel in a tropical locale like the Philippines . I love the “classic” accessories such as the lighting and mirrors. I also love any space that displays underwater finds such as coral. The chairs really make the room. OK, so they aren’t quite chartreuse, more acid yellow, but they really add a fun and quirky touch to this otherwise stuffy room. It’s the only “real” color in the room and I like it.

This other room was featured in Cottage Living magazine. Once again this is a “formal” living room that is made fun by the choice of color: robin’s egg blue and chartreuse.

Cottage Living living room

This room also has the addition of a vintage golden orange. This room also puts off a 60′s Regency vibe. I love these colors together. They are bold without being obnoxious.

I really love “icy” shades paired with bold ones. I love a combo of powder blue and chartreuse, pale lilac and grapefruit, mint sorbet and fire engine red. These are those great retro color combinations that I feel many of us “young moderns” overlook.

-Victoria

Laundry room featured in Country Living

I love things to be organized. I’m not very good at it but I can spend hours on-line browsing silly storage and organizing ideas. The key to organizing and storing is to not have a lot of stuff. We all know that, but we still have a lot of stuff  in our daily living. I have rolls and rolls of paper towels, bottles of every variety of cleaner ever, and tons of other stuff that I need to run a clean household. I love for things to be organized in a “unique” and salvaged ways. I hate plastic totes! I spend hours drooling over well-organized basements and laundry rooms. The house is coming together but that basement is still as scary as ever. This is where I have to do laundry. It’s gross and I don’t know how much more of it I can take. I haven’t hand washed a cashmere sweater down there…ever. Just imagine the pics of this hoarder house before we got involved. Do you think the basement was clean if their was 20 toupees worth of hair around the stove? Nope. So, I’m spending time planning my laundry room/project room.

I came across this charming but somewhat terrifying laundry room in Country Living. I do like it despite my mixed feelings. It’s organized and better finished than my house, but it is still creepy like my dark, dusty, and scary seaside basement. (What’s up with creepy slasher film showers in old seaside basement homes?) The dollhouse used for storage makes this a bit of a horror flick. I’ve always been a little scared of dollhouses. They are interesting and they do take some skill to complete, but they are featured in many horror films. This has ruined their rep. I’ve passed up many antique dollhouses in my day. I find them too creepy. I find anything doll related creepy. Especially antique doll stuff. Now I wish I hadn’t of left huge handmade dollhouses in the dumpster. I kind of like this dollhouse used as storage/furniture. It’s creepy and novel. Two words that I would love to have describe my house. I want it to be contrived creepy not actually creepy like my current basement. We sure know how to grow spiders here in the Northwest…perhaps they could set up house in the dollhouse.

-Victoria

So, lets go!

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Additional color info for PANTONE 726X: RGB = (233, 206, 187) CMYK= (7, 18, 24, 0).

If you go to the original post (click virtual color swatch above) you can see the ceiling is also painted. There is no exact PANTONE code for this color, here is the color mix info for that one as well:

RGB = (141, 114, 103) CMYK = (42, 52, 55, 13).

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Additional color info on PANTONE 5455C: RGB = (204, 214, 224) CMYK = (19, 10, 7,0)

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Additional color info on PANTONE 5215C: RGB = (177, 148, 166) CMYK = (32, 43, 23, 0)

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Click virtual color swatch to read the original post where the room is taken from.

WARNING: The colors on your screen will appear very different from what you might find on a color swatch if you haven’t color calibrated your computer screen. If you decide on using a color code from this site, you are advised to double check the color on a swatch in your paint store.

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Domino (RIP) dining room

This first one is from Domino. It’s formal but a bit fun. The powder blue looks so sophisticated and fresh. It works so nicely with that pure, true white trim. Of course that trim would work with anything; it’s wonderful. I like this dining room because it has a bit of that “French” style with attainable accessories. That crystal ship light fixture is available at Z Gallerie. It goes for under $800 and really adds so much to the room. You can find a table very similar to this at a junk store and paint it white and distress it. You could do the same with the chairs and you could use a metallic finish paint to fake a galvanized look. Portraits like that are available on Jayson Home & Garden website for under $1000. I’m sure you could go antiquing and find something you like for cheaper. I love the hobnail glasswear.All of these things can be found but it does take time. I don’t have enough of that. Since we are in this new house, we have no furniture that works. I know exactly what I want and since I refuse to purcahse anything not well made, it will take some time. Until then, we are living out of boxes and sitting on painfully uncomfortable chairs that I have refinished.

This other dining room is courtesy of Martha Stewart. I am in love with most of the colors that she uses.

Martha Stewart dining room

You can take any color and mix it with some rustic, rugged wood and I’m pleased. Oh, and brass doesn’t hurt. I want that light fixture badly. This is another powder blue room with amazing millwork and large, light plank wood floors. This color appears so light and airy with the pairing of bleached out wood, crisp white, and taupes. But, I feel it could also look amazing paired with darker woods and fabrics.

I do love this color. I used to be scared of it because I thought it was too childish. Obviously this is not so. It is very regal, formal, and classy.

-Victoria

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Click images for more info, all pics are borrowed from House to Home!!

A perfect living room

Anyways, enough of my whining over a miserable heatwave here in the Pacific Northwest. I’m from the Southeast. I’ve seen these temps before but never without the modern marvel of a/c. So, while I sweat out pounds and pounds of liquid, I would like to share a room that makes me happy. I love this vintage modern living room. When I think of all of the hard work that I am doing now and all of the misery of the renovation ahead of me, I think about how it will all be worth it in the end. (Geez, I hope so. Talk to me in 6 months and still see if I say this stuff.) I like this simple room. I love the architectural details, the robin’s egg blue walls, the not so frou-frou chandelier, the wide planked wood floors. This room would be lovely in the nude, but it really looks great with help of the mid-century modern furniture. The lines are simple, the colors muted. And it looks like what we already have in our possession. It’s a nice way to make our 40′s-60′s furniture work with our mid-30′s house. I really can’t wait until we get to transform the place. Rumor has it we close tomorrow, but we’ve heard this before so it is hard for me to trust anyone. Until then I’ll be working hard, working on developing the ugliest heat rash ever, and working on keeping it all together. We still don’t know officially where we will be living. That being said. If you don’t hear from us in a while we are either homeless sleeping on the park benches by the ferry terminal, hiding in a remote cabin around Mt. Baker, or in our new house working hard and waiting for it to be internet ready.

-Victoria