Olive Obsession (and a Bathroom Sneak Peek!)

Sometimes I get really excited about a color or a fabric or a style of furniture mostly because it feels really fresh, or at least not too played out. I've been really drawn to shades of olive lately because they look new again to me! And I'm especially loving olive paired with pale blues. 

I have a post coming up where I'll share all the details on the millwork we added to the bathroom here, but I wanted to put up a few peeks now of the finished guest bathroom. I am SO happy with the room and the fresh color on the walls!

I think it's so important to find a good color temperature balance in a space. The light in this bathroom is very cool - approaching blue. The tile I chose for the floors was also pretty cool, so I knew we could go very warm on the walls and it wouldn't feel off balance.

The brass fixtures also help to add back some warmth in the sink and tub areas. Oh, you guys - the sink turned out so well! I can't wait to share this with you soon! We are getting a new wide angle lens since the shot is almost impossible to get without one. Such a tight space!

The wall color is Farrow & Ball's Olive and the ceiling is Pale Powder, a barely there blue, and I love the combo together! The blue is so subtle, and the olive color has plenty of gray in it, so it's not too Army green and not too dark, which I was a little worried about. I was able to round up some inspiration images beforehand that helped me feel better about just going for it. This one, from the (seriously great) book French Accents, really sealed the deal for me though. I love that all the moulding floor to ceiling is the same color! So striking!

And remember this total classic from Domino? So good.

And further proof that soft blue and olive are BFF:

 source




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And remember this amazing Harlem home? Gah! So, so pretty, warm and inviting!

The great thing about paint is it's a pretty inexpensive commitment. So if I tire of the olive at any time it would be easy to switch it out. But for now, I love it even more than I thought I would! :)

Kitchen Inspiration: Shelving Units on the Counter

Today has been a crazy shoot day for Domino and I am tired, but excited about how the projects turned out. :) I am heading back up to my parents house tonight to close out our Spring Break week with a bang. We're going on a really cool hike that I haven't done since I was a kid, and I know my girls will love it.

I'm back to thinking about the shelving in our kitchen again. I took down some of the upper cabinets to make room for a symmetrical set of shelves, but I've not been able to find brackets that make me excited. Then I saw this pretty cute wall shelving unit at IKEA a while back and I realized I'd love a shelving unit rather than separate shelves. The IKEA one wasn't the right look or size for my kitchen, and I want shelves that sit on the actual countertop, but they got me thinking for sure. Then Lauren Liess' kitchen in the current issue of Domino seriously, seriously sealed the deal. Her custom ironwork shelves are TDF.

I've got some project ideas in the works (I found some brass parts that could work really well), but one of my friends told me brass is lame now. I don't agree with her (I think pretty much any real metal material is going to be a forever classic), but I sort of get what she is saying. I think I will always have brass in my home, but do I want a full set of brass shelves forever in my kitchen? I think if I used another metal too (like Lauren did), the mix will help keep things fresh.

What do you think? I kind of thought copper was going to make a bigger comeback last/this year, but it hasn't quite hit the stride that brass did four or five years ago, has it?

Photos by Helen Norman, via Lauren Liess

New (Old) Library Ladder

Two pieces of good and related news to share: 1) I found a library ladder on Craigslist and 2) very soon I will be taking the ladder for a roll in front of our new bookshelves, leg out, Belle style.

I just have to nail down the style of the shelves, which is turning out to be the hard part. I thought the tricky part was going to be finding the ladder, which actually was a breeze!

I found a couple of options on eBay, but every ladder was like $800 or more and I just felt like that was a silly place to spend a grand, so I held out for the deal I knew would eventually come my way. I had 'library ladder' on my Craigslist List (don't you have one?) for a while and I'd been checking every week or so for anything new. I was surprised at how often the rolling ladders came up for sale here! None of them were quite tall enough though (most were around eight feet), but finally this 11' vintage oak beauty came up for the shockingly fair price of $250.

I called and the seller was home and ready to show me the ladder and before I had time to even really think through how I was going to get such a long thing home, I was on my way over to buy it. Luckily ladders hook over front seats easily and the seller didn't live all that far away from me. :)

We want to have some cabinet storage in the bottom of the shelving and I've been thinking something wide and simple would fit the dimensions best. Something sort of, kind of like this Robsjohn-Gibbings credenza:

images via 1st Dibs

I threw this very rough sketch together and now I'm letting the ideas sort of sit. The rod for the ladder is two shelves down and the rectangles at the top are lamps.

I want the side walls of each column of shelves to be thick and lightly framed out with flat trim, sort of like these inspiration images.

Parish-Hadley

Victoria Hagen

Elle Decor

House Beautiful

I sort of really love the sconces on the front here, but I think the long bar lamps are going to be the cleanest look.

Elle Decor

The plan is to have the top of the shelves meet at about the bottom of the pitch of the ceiling, which is about 15' up! Crazy high.

I'm so excited to get this project underway. We had giant bookshelves in Brooklyn that I loved and I miss, but this time with the new ladder, we'll be able to get the books up at the very top (and not to mention getting to dust said books!) without any problem. :)

Instagram Inspiration: Angela from The Painted House

If you're looking for someone seriously fabulous to follow on Instagram, Angela from The Painted House is your girl. She has a phenomenal artistic eye. She is in the process of finishing a new house and I am so, so inspired by all of her choices. Angela is an amazing decorator, but it's been so great to see what she decides to do with the bones of her home. I love how she puts an edge on classic design details.

Here are some of my recent favorite instagrams:

I love the clean and modern look she did in her kitchen. And what a great color! 

Gah! That stair rail is SO cool!

This paneling is perfection.

As is the moulding on this ceiling.

With the perfect light fixture!!

Speaking of light fixtures. Look at this giant chandelier!!

Angela spray painted it white herself. Such a statement against her dark walls!

And I can't even handle how perfect her fireplace surround is in every single way. I have dreams of that amazing marble.

So happy to be insta-stalking you, Angela. Your house is stunning!

Why Don't You: Make a Fancy Credenza

I've been working on the design of our library wall bookshelves the past week or two. We're wanting to do a credenza-type storage piece all along the bottom of the shelving units so I've been digging up photos of vintage credenzas I've taken at antique stores over the years, and I've been doing lots of research on Pinterest and in my pre-Pinterest file folders. I don't think it's the right fit for our library space, but I really love this antique credenza from the 30s.

I found it at Horseman Antiques on Atlantic Ave. in Brooklyn, which was not too far from the school my girls used to go to. The store is huge and most of the pieces are not especially affordable, but it does feel like a treasure trove. I loved to pop in often after school drop off to get inspired and every now and then I'd buy something for myself or for a client.

I didn't buy this mirrored glass piece, but I think it would be such an easy IKEA hack! Just a Besta unit and some mirror custom cut to fit and some glass and mirror glue and you'd be good to go! This is basically what I did for the doors of my IKEA Pax units and the mirror wasn't all that expensive and could not have been easier to install.

The concept sort of reminds me of this IKEA hack from the Aestate.

I LOVE the chunky, edgy texture the layered pieces of wood on the doors give the whole look. So easy and inexpensive for such a huge visual impact! Her concept post is here and here's the project reveal photo.