Messy Stripes: Freehand Painted Striped Walls

"Messy" stripes from Living Etc.

You guys know I really like painted or wallpaper striped walls. It’s a reoccurring them here on the Tudorks blog. I like stripes. They’re visually striking. I came across this gray and white room on Living Etc. I love the gray and white stripes, this is a nice neutral color combo. This office or studio is a bit masculine they way that it is decorated here, but you could pair this with a robin’s egg blue or pink to make it more feminine.

Yeah, gray and white = nice color combo. But, that isn’t what I really love about this little room. It’s the stripes. Love the messy, freehand stripes. This would be so easy to do. I can tell that the white was added over the battleship gray. Stripes don’t have to be perfect. And if you are a DIYer like us, then you probably won’t get perfect even if you tried. So this is “intentional” messiness. All you need to do is to get your spacing right, don’t worry about a crisp edge. I also like it in this Living Etc. room because it seems to be an office or a studio. We see art supplies and these stripes are creative, resembling an artist’s brush strokes.

So, what do you think? Do you think this would look silly and like a 5-year-old did it, if you saw it in person? Or do you think this adds a cute quirkiness to a room? I think it is a nice take on stripes. I won’t be doing it because stripes in general don’t fit with our home.

Today I’m fine cleaning the bathroom. My nostril hairs are singed from bleach. I’m hoping to finish this bathroom someday! And then we have a powder room to complete…I’ve also had a stupid day filled with spiders and smashing my thumb in a 1930’s solid wood door, the same door that broke my toes this time last  year.

-Victoria

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2 Antique Industrial Style Studies That I Like

David and I are trying to take control of our space. We have rooms that we never spend time in. I think we are used to living in a smaller space. Those “other” rooms aren’t really useful. We spend most of our time doing “desk” things from writing, blogging, and inking. I’m thinking of establishing “mini-offices” throughout the house. A mini-office for inking, his and hers laptop mini-office etc. Here are 2 quaint studies that I like. These have an industrial warehouse type of “raw” vibe.

Anthropologie "study"

The first one is a open loft room that I found Anthropologie. This space is nothing like my home. It’s big and open with exposed bricks. Terrible overhead lighting. But I love the look. It’s raw and rough and if I had an urban loft, this is what I would want it to look like. This “study” is obviously not a study, except for a study of the Edison style lighting sold at Anthropologie. But, like I said before I like the feel of this. I’m thinking we could have a little desk like this with an aluminum stool in the studio or something. We could do computer stuff, something like that. I really just want a place to put my industrial lighting and apothecary jars of old knob & tube wiring we have from the house. Why am I such a sucker for industrial rustic look?

This other room or “study” is from Rejuvenation. It’s a bit more functional of a space and it resembles my home more than the Anthropologie loft. The Rejuvenation space has exposed bricks as well, but better lighting (expected from a lighting retailer). This space has the same industrial, antiquarian vibe as the Anthropologie loft. Both of these spaces could be used a study nook or a Tesla-like mad scientist workshop nook. A little off subject, but I love the brass lighting featured here. I didn’t know that I liked pendant styled lighting so much.I knew I loved brass.

Rejuvenation study

I obviously do not have a turn of the century loft to call home. But, I feel I can get this same feel and vibe in my house. I also like the idea of shoving a mini-office in any room. It makes me feel like I’m creating more versatility in my living space. However, I fear that if I put a desk in more than one place that it will get loaded with unsightly papers, bills, etc. They’ll never look as industrial chic as these 😦

-Victoria

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An Office Chest

While I was wasting time looking at cute things on the internet instead of renovating a house, I found this pretty cool “home office” on marthastewart.com. It is a chest turned into an office or really just a nice storage place for your important paperwork. I like it because it is unsuspecting unlike a file cabinet. We all have paperwork we must keep but I find that it is hard to organize. I would love to transform an old steamer trunk into something like this. You could have the paperwork on the bottom of the trunk, hanging, and well organized, have other important stuff on the tray above. For me this would include the random stuff that I keep such as empty MAC cosmetic’s containers for the Back To MAC program or those monogrammed napkins from our wedding reception. The corkboard on top isn’t a bad idea. I just don’t know if I find it necessary for my use. Maybe you could paste important #’s and contacts up there. I don’t know, that’s why I carry a planner.

Anyways, I like this idea and would love to convert a beat up steamer into one someday. I used to love little projects like this but now I have a huge project to consume every last minute of my life…

Oh, and BTW, so happy to have the Internet back despite the holes in the plaster.

-Victoria

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Antiquarian Studies/Offices I Adore

Country Living office

I love old things. I try not to be a collector but it is my nature. I really like this home office in Ohio that was featured in Country Living. It’s not much of an office. No cords, computer, piles of papers that need to be attacked. That’s our problem. We will never have a tidy looking office because we both have things going on, this means we actually use office space.

I love this office’s color. It is a rich zucchini skin that really pops with that white trim. It’s a deep color, a bit of mystery, but neutral enough to not dominate. I would love to use this color but I feared that it would make the rooms appear to be too small, especially in the rooms with coving. I love the furniture and lighting. I can’t say that about every space that I find. Good lighting is hard to come by.  It’s a lovely space, simple and lovely. I doubt it’s actually used for working but it would make a nice writing space or art space. An office for the things that you enjoy doing. I would say that pens and art supplies could be stored in those boxes and baskets. I’d have fancy pens in one and fun stationery in the other.

The other is a desk from Domino (RIP). I just love all the old paper goods. I collect the heck out of that stuff. There is no way that I can display it all even though I should. It gets rotated every so often. It’s hard to make it “work” without having it all in picture frames and strangely, I dislike the look of picture frames, lots and lots of picture frames, especially with plaster walls. I have decided that in the “new” house that I will have a special space filled with my treasures. I want a desk like this to house my old postcards, stereoscope cards, sketches, journals, autographs, vintage perfume ads, and even old Goldman Fristoe articulation cards. I figure if I have enough of my odds and ends mixed with my actual paper mess such as bills then it looks like my mess is purposeful. Is it possible that a mess can make you appear more organized?

Domino desk

-Victoria

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Into The Closet: A Closet Office or Writing Nook

I like this idea: a hidden office or writing nook. When we have lived in a place with a closet this size, it would of been nice to have. However, our closets never had an outlet to plug in electrical things and currently we don’t have a closet shaped this way to run electricity into. If you rent, you really can’t do improvements like that and it would be stupid to run an extension cord into your closet. And many people can’t afford to give up the wonderful real estate of closet space!

I would of used a folding chair so I could hide it in the closet when finished. But, I take it that this little white chair gets pulled up next to the white table. It works and it is a good idea for small space (but I don’t think this beautiful room with its amazing trim is what we would call small space!).

I should have adequate space for a writing nook, but I haven’t decided where to put it. My little paper goods are works of art and my journals are cute so I don’t mind having those out of the “closet”. I do write letters frequently and there is nothing I love much more than having all my pretty papers and fancy pens next to each other. It is one of life’s simple pleasures.

I think I got this photo from Sunset magazine.

-Victoria

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