2 Dramatic Blue Gray Dining Nooks with Orange Accents & LPs!

Blue & orange. If you know a thing or two about the color wheel then you know the BAM! that this complementary color scheme has to offer. Blue and orange are definitely a color trend now in film, video, media. Think CSI Miami! Anyways, here are 2 young but not juvenile dining spaces with deep navy walls the perfect accents of orange. This rooms also have something else in common: records! Being a vinyl hoarder, I love to see records used in design.

Celerie Kemble dining nook

The first room is from designer Celerie Kemble’s portfolio. This is a cool space. It’s a little more modern than what I do, but it has vintage. OK, so the room isn’t “navy” but it is a bit of squid ink paint shade, so there is some blue in that gray. This gray appears more “blue” with the touches of orange. I love dark gray walls. It is a bit of a “modern” shade and it can come across as very masculine, but it packs drama. You want to transform a room in a weekend, paint it this color. Everything you own will look completely different. Whites will pop and blacks will shine. Anyways, I love the record storage in this nook! It is so clever to have it under the seating in a small space. I got to tell David. He need to build us one of these.  Anyways, this is a cozy space, very hip. I want to listen to records and lounge around drinking beer and eating guacamole and chips in this nook. *Oh, I love the textiles in here because it keeps this color combo and space from being too masculine. It’s a nice balance.

The other dining room or nook is from Rejuvenation’s website. It is a really cool space as well and totally reminds me of the early 1910-1940’s Craftsman homes in the Seattle area being fixed up by young adults like ourselves. (Rejuvenation is based in the PNW). This dining room is the kind of dining room you’d see in our neighborhood while your taking the dog out for an evening stroll. It’s classic but it has a special type of vintage lust seen in the under 40 crowd. I guess what I’m saying is that I love the look of vintage mid-modern pieces shoved into a Craftsman. The cool thing about this space is that you remove the furniture and the accessories and you have a classic Craftsman home that appeals to everyone. You didn’t do anything to ruin the vibe or the bones of the house. You worked with the house and added your tastes without destroying the authenticity of the home. I’m all about that.

Rejuvenation dining room

Anyways, I love this room. Once again, it is a “squid ink” shade that looks awesome against that white mill work. The orange accents are brilliant in this room. The lighting isn’t very typical of old homes but it has a nice vibe, a young vibe. I love the records on the ledge (recognize a few from our own collection). And one can never go wrong with a Saarinen table.

I guess we are going to try to finish the upstairs bathroom this weekend. I have to admit that I’d rather do something else, you know, like something fun. Oh, well. This house isn’t going to renovate itself. Bummer.

-Victoria

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Sage Green “Library” Living Rooms I Like

Robert Smith in a library looking living room.

I have decided to do the living room a little bit “stuffy” and the rest like a library. I still need for this to be a functional room. The built-ins will hold all of our books, surprisingly we have shed ourselves of many during this move. On the back wall I hope to put our 2 large Ikea Expedit bookshelves on the back wall to house records. This will be our “library”. Our place to relax in front of the fireplace, listening to exotica records and reading Pacific Northwest mushroom guides. I want it to be a cozy/functional but still very formal and put together space. I have found 2 sage green rooms that seem to pull this off. The first room is mainly a picture of Robert Smith. You could put anything in this room and it would look good (even Robert Smith) with all of that woodwork and trim. I do like the green color and it works nicely with the warm wood floors. I suck at arranging furniture in a room. This is my weakness mainly because I haven’t lived in a place long enough to acquire all the furniture needed for a room. The needs have been so different for each space we’ve rented. I kind of like the chair in front of the books like this. You just reach over and grab one and look through it. It is a cozy reading nook.

What is there not to love about this formal green living room/library. I’ve learned many valuable lessons on my path to first time home ownership. Many things have been stupid mistakes like “this mortgage broker is a d-bag and can’t do his job” or “maybe you shouldn’t purchase a home that is packed to the brim with some guy’s crap”. I have also learned much about design as a sort through pages and pages of decorating blogs. I have learned that rooms with 15 foot ceilings look awesome no matter what. Such as this room. If could have anything in it and look awesome with all of those amazing structural details. I just really like this room. This green looks very nice with the dark accents and high contrast zebra rug. It’s a formal room but it is still really, really functional. There is a computer in there, a desk. They even have clutter out with a coffee mug and it still looks polished and elegant. It’s just a matter of having everything where you need it. Oh, and having a totally awesome house with tall ceilings and awesome trim. The house we are getting has simple, wide trim. It’s typically of the 30’s and I’m excited about it even if it isn’t as embellished as these rooms. I can make it that way. Millwork is not dead. You just don’t see it too much in modern hastily made cookie cutter homes. I know the addition of millwork isn’t a priority with a rehab home but I hope that one day we’ll at least finish one room with fancy trim like this.

-Victoria

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