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 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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Liking Lichen Green Living Rooms

Maire Claire Maison great room

I love a foresty lichen green. Perhaps because I like fungi? Could be it, but these two rooms are tops. This first rooms is from Maire Claire Maison. It was a cool article that took an unbelievably beautiful space to begin with and gave it 3 makeovers. I like the lichen green one for many reasons. Like I said, this was a great room to begin with. It has dark wood floors in immaculate condition. The ceilings are tall and the natural lighting is breathtaking. And there are great features such as millwork, the fireplace, the door hardware. I love the lichen green walls with the milk chocolate brown trim color. This is unexpected and a bit “moody”. The red accents make the green color pop. I like the room because it has a  cozy feel. Open shelves make books accessible and the large ottoman acts as table. And I’m a fan or antlers/horns. You put those in a room and I’m in love. This room has a very “exotic” feel to it because of the color combination and the mix of objects and textiles.

The other room, a foyer, was featured in Coastal Living. I love this room because the color combination is unexpected and I love this earthy green with wood tones. I also like this room because it is a coastal house that isn’t all light and white. I have been totally inspired by this room. I love the salmon door. I would love to see the exterior of this home. But, it looks awesome against the lichen green. I know what that color combo dominating some portion of my house. Lichen green walls and salmon painted thrift furniture or

Coastal Living lichen green foyer

salmon walls with lichen green fabrics…But, all of the colors work in here from the green to salmon to chartreuse to sky blue to sea pebble gray. I love it. Plus, the space isn’t too shabby with the all of the hardwoods. I also like steps playing bookshelf and the cool collection of pictures and how they line the stairs. And I love ship art. Especially ship art in a seaside home.

So, yeah. I’m liking lichen green rooms.

-Victoria

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The Misunderstood World Of Mistints

“Ooops” paint. Recycled paint. Mistints. We have painted over 75% of the house, 2500 square feet, in mistints. Mistints are wonderful. They are paint that is at least a 50% reduction in price. If you look enough, you will find what you need in the finish that need. That being said. It’s became a little bit of an obsession. We frequently visited all the home improvement stores in town at least bi-weekly during our painting phase. I have used mistints to paint the kitchen and studio a perfect 50’s aqua, the great room a deep gray, the dining nook a cool gray, a strange mushroomy shade for the bedroom and media room, a girly pink for the boudoir, and a boring buttery taupe for the foyers. Along the way, I have collected lots of putties, whites, and pale blues to paint furniture in. This is our Wonderful Wall of Mistints, you should see the Wonderful World of 5 Gallons in the garage.

Mistints are awesome because:

– They are cheap. They are 50%-75% cheaper than retail.A gallon ranges from $5 to $10, 5 gallons from $25-$50, and the smaller sizes from $1-$2.50. Usually all brands are priced the same. This means that you could get the high-end or designer paint for $5, even the specialty metallic finishes.

– They are resourceful. Mistints are really “green”. Where do you think this stuff goes if it isn’t sold? Into our landfills. Why create more waste when you have new paint already mixed? Most paint is no or low VOC these days, but this doesn’t mean that they will be environmentally friendly if we put them in landfills! This is why some trendy people like to call mistints “recycled” paints.

– They are exciting. OK, this is a stretch. But, it is so much fun to find what you were looking for. It is a bit of rush. If you are thrifter then you know what I’m talking about.

–They aren’t just for walls. Artists and crafters, house paint is acrylic paint. You can get a gallon of paint for $5! You can mix colors and put them in smaller bottles. Buy mistints for your art. Buy mistints to paint your flea market furniture and picture frames. You can also find stains with the “ooops” paints.

I find that our culture has a strange relationship with color. Many Americans can’t see the difference between a cool tone red or a warm tone red, but they get so picky when it comes to paint. They fret and worry about paint. It’s nuts. When I worked in the makeup biz, I learned about this strange obsession. They believed, like a prince in shining armor that offered true love, that there was only one shade that would work with their skin. Any makeup artist will tell you that it is like a Bell curve, making a minimal of 6 shades that will work under any lighting or circumstance. Paints are the same. Anyways, wasn’t I talking about home stuff and paint?  I find new mistints every time I go to the store. Many times I think the colors are wickedly ugly such as  LED light blues. Nasty.  Those mistints prove that the person getting them mixed was tasteless. But, tasteless or not, they left them. They were smacked out of their color delusion. Most of the time I find decent shades. I think these are the freaky people. The people that geek because the color doesn’t match the zig-zag stripe in their living room curtains. These are the matchy-matchy people. I am not one of these people. They terrify me.I’m the bird of prey that swoops in, picking up on their mistints and profiting from their type A personalty. I see colors in a spectrum and like cosmetic colors, colors used in decorating have some “bend” to them. There is not just one “perfect” color, but a “perfect” family of colors. But, this being said, I don’t see things as matchy-matchy and I don’t go to big ass “art” sales at the hotel to purchase “couch-sized hand-painted oil paintings”. I don’t take the Rooms to Go approach to decorating. It’s just not me.

Tips for Buying Mistints:

– Start searching early. Check for mistints months before you actually start painting. This gives you more time to get what you want.

– Shop for mistints in the spring-summer. I have found, at least in our area, that more mistints show up in these seasons because more people are doing home renovation projects and are most likely moving in the summer.

– Have guidelines. For example, if you did not want a glossy finish and you found a perfect robin’s egg blue in a gloss but you wanted flat. Don’t buy it. You won’t be happy. Also, have some idea of what color you are looking for either be “blues” or “sorbet pales”. It makes life easier and if you have an idea of what you want, you’ll be happier. Plus, you need to buy the right paint for you space. No flats in the bathroom.

– Be flexible. Have guidelines that keep you from bringing home any ole’ tub of paint, but be flexible. For example, there isn’t that big of difference between a satin or an egg-shell. Most people won’t notice that your mint is cooler than the what you had wanted. In the end when you have all of your furniture and decor in, your space will look great. Any new color or a fresh coat of paint makes a space look polished, even if it is mintier than the mint you wanted 🙂

– Mix it and stir it! I have found that mistints are usually the “tricky” colors. They look like one color when they are wet and completely change when they dry. Mix them thoroughly to get the pigments evenly distributed. Be a little compulsive about it, stirring during the painting process or before you pour new paint into your tray. (Really you should do this with all paint).

– Keep a color sample of the paint. If for some reason you miscalculated and need more paint, they can mix it. Keep a color sample or the can. Cans usually have bar codes on them that hold the “secrets” of the mixture.

More advice and learning by renovating: Exterior paints in the interior won’t make the place self destruct, but it takes a long time to dry. We used an exterior in the interior in the great room. It went on fine and even; it was better than most of the interior formulas. We didn’t hang pictures for about a week. Paint is paint and you can’t tell the difference. People go, “Oh, you’ll have to prime that when you want to change colors”. Yeah, I will. From my experience you have to prime everything, especially a dark liver gray on lath and plaster walls. Today’s paints require and expect that you’ll prime.

-Victoria

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Chartreuse Garden Shed

"salvage" garden shed featured in Sunset

Since the weather is much nicer and we have had enough of winter, we’ve been thinking about our exterior and gardening way too much. I saved this pic of this “salvage” shed from Sunset magazine sometime ago, before we even purchased our home. I loved the fun chartreuse shade of this garden shed hidden in a PNW jungle. It is so striking and sooo West Coast. And this shed is in Port Orchard, WA,  our neighbors across the inlet. The article contained interesting info and listed the plants in this garden. They seem to thrive in our environment. Since I am a transplant, I’ve had to study what works here. Sunset magazine has been very helpful for that.

Anyways, I’ve revisited this article (here) over and over again because this really, really resembles our exterior colors. Our house turned out this green, not what we expected, but we will live with it and like it. Our trim is a chocolate brown just like this shed. The difference is that our house is much larger and taller than this quaint, cute shed and we have no landscaping. Our lawn is naked and neglected. The chartreuse shade of our house can be seen miles away, I think, or so the neighbors tell each other. No lovely hydrangeas are breaking up the green from the curb. When I look at this picture, I realize that our colors didn’t turn out too bad. We will work with it. It’s unexpected and chartreuse is my favorite shade of green and green is my favorite color. This article/feature makes me want to go out and dig, plant, and turn crazy things into planters. It also makes me feel good about our unexpected color choice. I liked it when it was featured in a magazine, why wouldn’t I like it for myself?

-Victoria

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2 Dramatic Dark Living Rooms with a Pop of Fuschia

I used to think that dark rooms only existed because they photograph well. I thought that “real” people didn’t have dark rooms because they didn’t look good in “real” life. I’ve painted a few rooms in our home dark. They look just as good in my working home as they do in pictures. Dark colors have so much impact and drama. This is why I’m attracted to the two featured here.

Design Sponge living room

This first room was featured on Design Sponge. I love the slap in the face of hot pink. It is stunning. Not much more to say. This is about the color of our living room, or at least the color that it appears in pictures. We have a bust of Napoleon painted that shade of pink on the built-ins. Napoleon really adds something. I am all about contrast anyways. That’s why I like black and white floors, zebra prints, and wild trim colors.

Anyways, I love this room. The colors are amazing. It is sophisticated but still very “young” feeling without being too perky. It has a certain moodiness. Oh, and great lighting too. The thing about dark rooms is that you need many, many different light sources: overhead lighting, windows, floor lamps, table lamps, sconces, candles, anything that gives off light. Different light sources transform the room and makes so many different “moods”. This room also uses texture nicely. You have a glossy hot pink coffee table, painted floors with a sheen, fuzzy maize throw pillow, mysterious silky purple throw pillows, and matte walls. It all works so nicely together and adds so much interest.

The other living room was featured in Homes and Gardens. It has the same feel of the Design Sponge room. It’s dark with these shocking bold colors and diverse textures. I assume that this room is hand painted but it may be wallpaper.

Homes and Garden living room

I don’t recall. This room is all about the walls. Of of the colors are taken from the design on the walls. I love chocolate brown and chartreuse together. The fuchsia adds so much too. The textures are so luxurious but the colors are a bit unexpected. Somehow this room has crushed purple velvet chairs but it doesn’t look like a blaxploitation pimp decorated the room . (Actually the room would probably be much more fabulous if it was decorated by a pimp character actor). Anyways, I love this room because it takes so many “me-maw” elements such as throw pillows, “wallpaper”, glassware, “slipcover” upholstery, and this formal living room still looks “young”.

These dark rooms do have something else in common: they are both large with tall ceilings. I think this is another reason why these rooms don’t feel claustrophobic.

-Victoria

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2 Fun, Bold Azure Rooms

Bold blues aren’t colors that I am attracted to for my own living space. I prefer aquas, teals, cyan. I find bold blues hard to work with but I do appreciate them except when they include a black silhouette of a nude past girlfriend, oh, my house. Or what used to be of this house.

House Beautiful bedroom

Here are 2 azure rooms that I do appreciate.

The first is a fun bedroom found in House Beautiful. I love the quirkiness and youth in this room, two adjectives rarely used to describe my living space. This is one of those colorful, fun, “thrift sore finds” rooms. It has luxe textiles, shine from the lamps and bed finish, and lots of fun colors: magenta, fuchsia, chartreuse, violet, not to mention the azure room color. This is one bold but not obnoxious bedroom. I do like the deer but I’m creepy enough to choose a real one…Anyways, I like this room. It’s the kind of room that comes across as bold. If you get sick of that, just change the chair and pillows/textiles and you have a new room. And I love it that such bold colors were used in a small room in a cozy way.

The other room I found on House to Home. I love me some wallpaper but since I spent most of hot August removing wallpaper with the help of a steamer, I doubt I’ll ever do it to my home. So…I like to admire from a distance. This living room is very bold. It has bold blue, prints, and a punch of cerise. I am not a fan of the blue shag rug. It reminds me too much of the blue furry stuff used to cover our kitchen cabinets. I will never ever be able to look at shag the same way again. This also means that I’ll never be able to see blue shag without cringing and puking in my mouth a little.

Actually, the house that we are renovating was all about the color blue. The cabinets were covered in blue faux fur,

House to Home living room

the 2 largest rooms were painted shades of blue, there was a blue faux fur waterbed, and there were plans to even have denim curtains. This is what happens to a space when testosterone only decorates. Trust me, it is not a beautiful site/sight. Homes are like anything else, they need balance or they just fall down.

-Victoria

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Paintbrush Storage

This is a “duh” idea that I found on marthastewart.com after I have finished most of the painting in the house. Finding a place for brushes to dry is always difficult for us. With these magnetic strips, the brushes can hang down so that the water doesn’t cause the metal to rust and loosen any adhesive. It’s simple and I will have to add one of these down in the basement. It should be very easy to do since magnetic strips are self-adhesive and cheap. It had me thinking of a few other things…such as doing this for cosmetic brush storage or even pencils. I don’t think I will do the last 2 mentioned but it is a thought.

-Victoria

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Tudorks Painting The Dining Nook

As usual, Frink is overseeing the renovation.

We finally removed every trace of the layers and layers and layers of retro-fabulous wallpaper from the dining nook! We may have resorted to an electric sander with a buffer pad and diluted Mrs. Meyers cleaning products, but we did it. Since then we’ve had the windows replaced being that the ones that were there had some homemade mess of glass that was caulked together. We painted the room a dove gray mistint that I love (less lilac than the picture). I am going for a swank early 60’s Hong Kong hotel, think the decor of the hotels featured in the series I Spy. I got my wish and it will be fantastic. I didn’t realize that most of the things we own fits in the “swank early 60’s Asian hotel” category.  I’ve started decorating this space. I’m not finished. Does one ever stop decorating their space? I’ll show those pics when I get there. I desperately need a sputnik!!!

I just wanted to share this little accomplishment. I can now eat dinner at a table. I haven’t had that in 7 months.

-Victoria

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2 Yellow Ochre Rooms That I Like

I love mustardy yellow ochre shades but I have never “played” with it when it comes to decorating. It really doesn’t work well with the colors that we have used in the interior. But, man I love it. I like any color that reminds me of decaying leaves on the forest floor.

Southern Accents Ochre Library

This first room is a library from Southern Accents (RIP). This is one detailed room. I really do wish that the trim and some of the millwork was painted in a contrasting color such as white or espresso to really make it pop. I have no idea why they are trying to understate its magnificence. We pedestrian people would about do anything for a room with this much architectural strength. But, anyways. This ochre works so well with the rich patina of all of the wood tones. It really creates a luxe color palette. I also love the pops of vermilion and teal. This keeps the ochre from being too “stuffy”. I also love these ornate built-ins and the touch of the chicken wire is nice. It’s a great room. It really has an old world charm that the ochre helps to bring out.

This other room is really trying to sell the McCoy lighting fixture from Rejuvenation. This is a tiny dining space/kitchen that I love. I love the lighting and if I had a space that would work with pendant lighting, I would have to use some of this antique industrial inspired lighting. (I am considering the boudoir but I am fearful that I would bump head). This ochre color room, with the perfect lighting, looks great with wood tones too.

kitchen featured in Rejuvenation

The room is a bit plain since it only exists to sell us the lighting fixture. The fixture is the only work of art allowed. But, throw a early modernism painting on that wall and this room is complete. I also love how both of the rooms play with warm tones metals. Ochre is just meant for those.

I know I say that I am not ready for yellow. But, I think I may be if it is ochre. It is growing on me. And like other “cheery” shades, it must be mixed with woods and warm metals to keep it from looking too gingham country cottage or shabby chic.

-Victoria

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