Painted Ceiling.... love it or leave it

I've been thinking about ceilings lately and seeing a lot of them being painted an actual colour other than white. 

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I personally love the character a painted ceiling can bring to a room.

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It can be used like an accessory in a room.  It's there. It adds interest, but it is not in your face like it would be if all four walls were painted.

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It allows you to go bold, where you otherwise might not.

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It can be subtle where you almost don't even notice it.

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You can use it outdoors.

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You could even get creative.

It's a great way to introduce colour into a room or you can even wrap a room with colour so that there is no end and no beginning by painting the walls and ceiling the same colour.  This way the eye will not come to a jarring stop when you enter a room and the eye is drawn up to the white ceiling.  I like applying this to powder rooms and bathrooms.

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Do you think you would paint your ceiling?  What colour would you choose? 

For the silver lining to your design dilemma, contact me.

My Colour Skills in Action Part 1

A client recently purchased an investment property and needed it painted desperately.  He wanted to get it on the market ASAP, so he asked me to come see it and choose the new colours.  He really didn't care what was chosen, he just needed it done.  Dream client -doesn't question my choices and gives me full authority. LOVE. THAT. Anyway, he did make one comment and that was when he was talking to a real estate agent about the house he said that the agent told him to pick neutral colours.  I rolled my eyes at that comment and muffled under my breath.... really and what does that mean "pick neutral colours"  in context to what?  Does it mean beige? Well, what beige?  A beige with an undertone of green or maybe it should be yellow or what about red?  Saying that to the untrained person would make them go to the paint store stand in front of the colour chips and cause them to rip their hair out.  Not to mention that the average person wouldn't even probably think that far as to consider undertones... they would just think beige and pick one they liked.  A trained colour expert, like myself, on the other hand would go through the house and look at all the, as Maria would say, "bossy" elements - counters, flooring, fireplace, interior brick, etc. and determine the undertones of those elements and then pick the right colour to create flow and enhance the space and not fight against it.

The previous owner was wild in her colour and decor choices, to say the least.

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Where do you look first, there is so much going on from all the different finishes to all the tchotchkes and art on every inch of wall space.  Look there is even a picture placed under the window.

Photo by SilverLining Designs

 The visual clutter is removed.  Having an empty kitchen is better already. 

Photo by SilverLining Designs

Can you see all the different finishes in the room?  How many can you count?

When deciding on what to do with this room, I really wanted to paint out the natural cherry cabinets, however, the client did not what the extra work, expense and time that went into that, so even though I wanted to paint them I knew they would work the way they were because they related to the floor and colours in the granite and brick wall.  The one cabinet I could get away with painting and knew would made a huge (improved) difference was the cabinet seating between the counters under the window seen in the picture above.

The walls where the cherry cabinets are are wallpapered and under normal circumstances I would always tell you to remove the wallpaper, but since time was an issue and the wallpaper was in good condition - it was on the wall really good with seams quite hard to see and there wasn't a lot of it, we opted to paint over it.

With my new found knowledge I knew Indian Summer would be the perfect choice to relate to the brick and compliment the orange tones and pull the whole room together.

 cc-186 Indian Summer

Can you see how already in the pictures that the colour has pulled the room together and the cabinets are not floating on a stark wall?
When I went to see the room after it was finished, if I didn't know any better I would have never guessed that there was wallpaper under it.  It was quite amazing.

Photo by SilverLining Designs

Look at what a difference it makes to have that cabinet under the window and between the counters painted the same colour. It was painted OC-90 Vanilla Ice Cream and it matches perfectly to the kitchen cabinets.

 

Photo by SilverLining Designs

The only other thing that I would have loved to do was to change the hardware to either a brushed nickel or bronzed copper.

Come back to see the continuation of how the colours were chosen for the other rooms.

Project

I have had this idea in my head for a long time now and I finally got the time to work on it (aaahhhh progress!). I have been working on it all week and finally finished it today.

Here is the before....ugly old frame. I think this frame is older than me. I scored it from my parents basement. It has been hanging down there, exactly as is, for as long as I can remember. For the longest time, I would always see it down there and wondered what I could do with it. When finally the light bulb came on and decided to do this....
A framed corkboard! I am so pleased with how it turned out and even more so because I did the whole project by myself from start to finish. There is something so gratifying in that.

It took many coats of paint to get good coverage. I used a beautiful warm white. I went out first thing this morning to the local hardware store and got another great deal on the cork. There was a large piece on clearance that they were trying to get rid of. So I took it because it ended up being cheaper to buy the larger amount than the smaller amount that I needed. Now I have all this cork, so I am going to have to come up with some good projects to use it with. I also got a piece of hardboard for the back of it. Had the hardware store cut it to size and I was off home to complete it.

Why is it that when you watch these DIY tv shows doing projects it always looks so easy?

So I got home, figured i could pop the hardboard in along with the cork, secure it in place and be done... in what 5-10 minutes?! Not so, when I went to place the hardboard into the frame it didn't fit. The frame was slightly off and the board was too big on one side. So I took it out and had to sand it down. Then sand and sand some more. Finally, it fit. So then I took the roll of cork, placed it on the floor and used the hardboard as a template. Great. Cut that out and I was rare'n to go. Placed the cork in the frame and put the hardboard overtop. Not working. The cork was all curled from being rolled up, so it wouldn't sit right in the frame. What do I do? I didn't want to glue it to the board. I wanted something fast. So what do you do... go to the internet of course. Googled cork frames... got nothing but wine cork frames. So I tried Martha Stewart... she'll know what to do... and sure enough she did. Double sided tape. Perfect! I had some. Went to get it, pulled it out and only had about 5" left. RRRRRRR Nothing is ever fast when you want it. So off to the dollar store. Picked some up, got it on the frame and voila!

I just have to hang it up. I plan to put it in my studio. Now I just have to find some pretty pushpins to use it with.

Have a great weekend!