Inspiration: Teal Blue & Pink

It's funny how inspiration develops.

As you know, I recently painted our guest room a very pretty soft blue.  Over the past two weeks, I've been slowly bringing pink things into this room, since I think pink and blue go smashingly well together.  I love pink, but don't own very much, yet small things are slowly migrating to the room: 

Along the way, I began searching for other blue and pink objects online.  In my search, things that are the forgotten-colour teal blue crossed my mind.  I've been fond of teal blue since Grade 7 when I had a teal jacket that looked great on me. 

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So I started looking for teal-coloured pieces and found a few pretty things on Etsy.  Then at Pottery Barn, I came across this teal blue bedside table (maybe not true teal blue, but with the same tone and vibe):

I decided that these little tables would be perfect for my guest room!

So I tried to order them.  But Pottery Barn is weird about what it ships to Canada - the tables were not available in blue.  So I tried to order them from Seattle but shipping costs were too high in the end.  But special thanks to Kenlie and Amanda at the Seattle (University Village) store for all their help figuring out international shipping with me!

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Since I couldn't get the blue, but liked the style (and price), I decided to order the white ones.  They should be here within the week, and I may continue with the fantasy and paint them teal blue when they arrive: 

I keep looking for teal blue and pink for this room and have found some pretty vintage things on Etsy:

Once I get the room organized, I will have a big pink and blue reveal.  Stay tuned!

Christopher Spitzmiller Lamps

I've been meaning to post and tell you all about my birthday week and the fun day we spent at a country auction (yes, I bought something!). But I've been busy every evening and not feeling so great from a new headache med, so I spent the weekend resting and napping. I did manage to vacuum and we took my 26-year old cousin and his girlfriend out for dinner, but otherwise...kaput!

While lying on the sofa yesterday, I flipped through a pile of my House Beautiful magazines. House Beautiful is one of my favorite decorating magazines, combining the traditional rooms I love, but often pared-down and tuned-up with colourful modern elements. They feature a vertitable who's who of professional designers, and have great interviews to get you inside their creative heads! The magazine has a true love and appreciation for colourful palettes, often based on a neutral foundations.

Pottery Barn milk glass lamps

While visiting Pottery Barn recently, I noticed their milk glass gourd-shaped lamps in vibrant spring colours. These retro-look lamps reminded me of Christopher Spitzmiller's designs, that I've seen again and again in House Beautiful the last couple of years. I kept noticing these lamps (or similar) in several issues yesterday. Finally the mass-market retailers are catching on!

Christoper Spitzmiller is a super-successful ceramicist who's translated his craft into a lamp-making empire from his studios in Manhattan. From location alone, you know his work isn't for the budget-conscious. His lamps are divine creations with classical forms, and according to his website "drenched in bold vibrant rich glazes"! Each lamp is fitted in a handmade wood base that may be gilded in yellow or white gold. The following photos are from his website:

I'm positively smitten with the pink double-gourd lamp below:I've hunted in Calgary for a lamp like this but only managed to find gray and black ones so far. Sadly Pottery Barn doesn't carry a pink one. Imagine how pretty a hot pink one would be in my living room, or in a little girl's room?!


Christopher Spitzmiller's lamps are only available at select US retailers. I don't want to ask what they cost. But be prepared to see lots of knock-offs as this bright, cheery lamp trend will be with us a while! And why not? I'd never tire of one of these stunning jewels in my bedroom.

Biscuit *adoring* new Pottery Barn rug

I was so ferociously annoyed with Pottery Barn for selling me a damaged rug (see previous post) that I let Biscuit, my eccentric orange tabby, test-drive it a little while on Friday night.

I don't know why, but he seemed to *adore* the Arts & Craft stylings and vegetable soup colours of the new Adeline rug. Hmmm - do you think he recognizes the camouflage potential - allowing him to conceal his identity for optimal human stalking...? I really hope he adapts to the new mocha rug (on which he will be unable to hide).

Some photos of the damage:

De-feathering the Nest

So...we had intended the nest-feathering (i.e. home decorating) to commence in earnest with acquisition of aforementioned Pottery Barn "Adeline" rug. Regrettably, it did not.

We eagerly arrived at Pottery Barn on Friday night (as eager as possible after a hard week's work) and brought home our brand new rug, bound in seriously heavy duty plastic wrap (which looked rather bedraggled - but I figured, hey! it's a long trip from god knows where to here).

However, as we merrily unpackaged and began to un-roll our amazing new rug, we discovered, to our horror - two large rips in the rug!! The outer packaging had been pierced and the rug scored deeply.

Bloody hell! We were not impressed (particularly not David, who had done all the carrying of said 8ftx10ft rug). Damn.

The phone calls began. I notified PB immediately about the damaged rug (now it's 10 to 9 on Friday night), and they suggested I bring it back (on my nickle and time) and exchange it for a really new (this time) rug. I decided that wouldn't work for me, so I asked them to DELIVER me a brand new rug, like I was supposed to get the first time. This seemed clever as it would save David and I another long drive to the mall and a race to steal one of 6 PB special "pick-up only" parking stalls. Plus, for $1000, I ain't impressed sister, and someone better do something nice for me.

I was informed that at Pottery Barn Canada, we "do not have a special delivery service" (apparently all rich yuppies have a truck on hand for carting home poorly-crafted, over-priced furniture from Pottery Barn) and it would take 10 days for them to get their special hired deliverers to deliver for us. Then they recommended that I photograph the rug, send them the pics, and they would give me a "deep discount" ("like $100 for the rug", I asked," instead of $1000?"). Sounded like a great idea for about a second until I realized I couldn't email pictures until Monday (home computer won't connect to the internet) and I don't want a crappy old busted rug. So I told them to hold me a new rug, I would schlep this one back, and they could give me a discount for my troubles. They agreed to 10% off, or about $100.

Ugh. I left the rug un-rolled in the room on Friday night and discovered another serendipitous fact by Saturday afternoon - we hate the Adeline rug! Okay, it is positively gorgeous, just not the soft and comforting look I wanted for the room.

When we had the 3x5 size, it looked so much more lush and bright - on the small size, the border (dark green) took up a lot of space, while the interior colour (light green) took up very little space. However, on the large 8x10 rug, the interior space was suddenly really large (light green) with this narrow dark green border. The light green was just too washed out - almost like a faded sage green. The rug looked old, a faded version of the original. I was sorely disappointed but we were happy to discover our design flaw, and the fact that we get to do a "no questions asked" return AND get a discount because the rug we didn't even like was damaged!

So on Saturday I called PB again (another explanation to another manager) and we decided to return the rug in exchange for a different one, called "Graham".

But, to our dismay, darling Graham is out of stock for 3-6 weeks. So we are on back-order. We are waiting.

We can't really do much with the bedroom until it arrives. We took down the curtain rods to paint and aren't re-installing rods, etc. until we investigate window coverings (blinds or curtains) which won't be decided until the rug is on the floor and we see what will work best.

Meanwhile, we're sleeping in a spare room, which is small and cozy, while our real bedroom waits, bereft, with no rug, no window coverings, and a lot of things piled in it, including a damaged reject Adeline rug.

At least I'm looking forward to the new colour scheme - which reverts to my original plan- ivory/cream and BLUE! How soothing....eventually.

Feathering the Nest (Part I)

S ince buying the house, we've managed to get sorta-kinda unpacked (all the important stuff is "out" and in its place). There are still plenty of boxes in the basement containing God knows what things we clearly don't need. We haven't done much proper decorating yet - we did hang one painting (and David's antlers - a story for another day) and I organized my bookshelves. Mostly we've just arranged furniture and seem to spend lots of time moving things from one cupboard to another in the kitchen. We've silently decreed that everything needs to be in THE RIGHT SPOT in the kitchen.

Last weekend David's mum came to town and helped us paint our master bedroom and bath. The room was originally hot pink (imagine if you dare - a Victorian boudoir!) and the bathroom featured several feet of flowery pink wallpaper border (which took several gut-wrenching hours to meticulously scrape off).

Since the bedroom faces north and has a giant spruce tree to the northwest, it gets no direct light and seems a little dreary. The floors don't help - they're a medium-dark hardwood - gorgeous but dark! So we decided to paint the room a soft ivory to lighten it up. We chose Benjamin Moore's White Down, which is a slight off-white colour. Now that it's on the walls I love it - so light and creamy - but I now wish I'd gone a little darker. You live and learn. All I knew is I didn't want light beige, which I've lived with too many times.

Now that the walls are painted, we're moving on to the next steps - rugs, curtains, new bedding. I love the planning/pondering process and have been poring over decorating magazines for months trying both to learn "the rules" (if there is such a thing) and to get ideas. I've always had a good eye for style and used to be a fashion victim in my 20's (now recovering), so I am pretty tuned in to what I like and don't like. I know who I am, I know my tastes, and I want to convey that. Luckily David and I have similar tastes. We like eclectic homemade things and refined lovely things - antiques, old clocks and lamps, historical things, Arts & Crafts and Art Deco era things - all quietly refined things that take a lifetime to acquire!

So it will be a slow process. For now, I have the ideas for the bedroom all figured out. The walls are ivory and the bedding will be creams and ivories - all this will lighten the dark floors and low light. Next we decided to choose a rug. Originally I'd planned to do blues and sage greens as accent colours with the ivories and creams, but that idea fell through when I visited Pottery Barn.

I came home from Pottery Barn with five 3x5 rugs on consignment (a brilliant system) so we could lay the rugs down and see them in the room and choose what works best. Four of the five rugs met my colour criteria and had creamy brown-green-blue colour schemes. I sneaked in another rug (my favorite at the store) which didn't exactly meet my colour scheme - sage green, yes, but with yellow and bright ochre/red flowers!

After considerable head scratching, shuffling of rugs, debating, lying on the bed looking at the rugs in different light, turning on different lamps, etc. to see the colours, and considering ease of "decorating around" we finally decided on a rug!

We ended up choosing the brightly-coloured Arts & Crafts-inspired one that's from the same era as my Mission furniture. I didn't plan to have reds and yellows in the room! This rug is energetic and spirited, the exact opposite of the soft, calm mood I wanted to create.

The rug is called Adeline

I can't wait to pick up the 8x10 size later this week and see it, in all its cheerful glory, in the room!

Then we have to start thinking about window coverings. And bedding! And another piece of furniture? And then decorate a complementary master bath? I can see where this is leading. Now I understand how people never stop decorating and re-decorating their houses. A labour of love I am discovering...as we begin to feather the nest.