Manolo for the Home

Like the post title says, going gray for under $25 is easy. Just click on the pic for more info about any of the ginchy grey gear below!

I’ve had a love affair with gray since my teens when I painted the walls of my bedroom varying shades of gray. As a color, gray is frequently associated with neutrality — being neither white, nor black — and cool self-control. Because of its versatility and ability to harmonize with a variety of other hues, the color gray often serves as a backdrop to other, more vivid colors. But shades of gray can be their own perfect palette instead of highlighting bright yellows or pinks. Used on their own, shades of gray can make for a dramatic and bold or calm and soothing space, depending on how they’re used.

According to Wikipedia: “Most grey pigments have a cool or warm cast to them, as the human eye can detect even a minute amount of saturation. Yellow, orange, and red create a “warm grey”. Green, blue, and violet create a “cool grey”. When there is no cast at all, it is referred to as “neutral grey”, “achromatic grey” or simply “grey”. The color grey is often associated with aging or the passage of time, likely due in part to the decreased pigment-production of hair follicles in time, corresponding to the greying of human hair. In this context, grey is often used synonymously with “elderly”, as in “the grey pound” or “grey power” (when referring to the economic or social influence of the elderly), or as used by groups such as the Gray Panthers.”

You have your choice – go gray on your walls, go gray with accessories, or go gray down to the smallest detail. It’s easy, when there are so many different grays to choose from! Here are some inspiring images to get you started, and tomorrow I’ll show you how you can go gray for less than $25!

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When it comes to plain ceilings (i.e., not tin, decorative plaster, or good-looking wood), you have a limited number of options. You can paint them ivory or cream or eggshell, or whatever incarnation of white looks best with your chosen paint color scheme. You can add embellishments like vinyl wall stickers, though that sort of thing can look a bit juvenile and typically works best in kids’ rooms. Or you can go against the grain and paint your ceilings a color other than white.

People are generally afraid to do this. They’re used to painting walls, so when they think of adding color to a room, their thoughts turn to vertical surfaces. It’s also more difficult to coordinate furnishings with accessories with floor colors with wall colors with ceiling colors, omg, but really, it’s not impossible. It’s even easier when you start with a nice neutral for your walls. One option involves painting all your walls the same color, then varying the color of your ceilings by room. Or you can go all-out and have coordinating wall and ceiling colors that differ entirely from room to room.

The best way to approaching painting ceilings is to look for inspiration (some of which I have thoughtfully provided below) then play with color combos using Paint or Photoshop or The Gimp until you find something that works. You can even paint a small test area on one wall and an adjoining bit of ceiling just like you should do with the wall only so you see how the colors influence each other and the room in different sorts of light. To begin, check these out. And if you’ve painted your ceilings a color other than white, tell us about it!

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Aren’t these prints cute? I know, cute isn’t for everyone, but if you have the right sort of aesthetic already in your home or you aspire to adorableness, then cute could be for *you*. For wall-ready adorableness I’m currently digging on EightHourDay, creators of, among other things, letterpress and screen print art featuring vintage-look designs in bright, eye-catching colors.

Did I mention that they’re cute? Because they are!

Eighthourday is a Minneapolis design boutique and a husband and wife team. You can find selected prints on Etsy, where the price is definitely right (though you’ll have to find your own frames). Their Flickr page is definitely worth a look. Fair warning: It’s not ’stuff for the home’ but rather plain old good design.

As you know, I love purple. I painted my kitchen cabinets a deep, bright purple. Come springtime, I have plans to repaint the trim on my house a sort of eggplant color that will eventually highlight a sort of pumpkin color. Go, Team Purple! So when I came across a beautiful purple chair at a local consignment shop, I was inspired to see what else is out there. Here’s a sampling:

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Nothing new, patchwork furniture is often the purview of crafters with leftover fabric scraps and quilt-happy grannies. But is it chic? Can it ever be? Squint Limited thinks so and churns out colorful bespoke chesterfields, lampshade, and even dressers, all wrapped in a mix of contemporary and vintage fabrics. Oh, and period furniture styles that just pop when upholstered with bright, cheeky prints and bold colors.

Squint Limited’s pieces are made in England and upholstered traditionally, with tied springs and hand stitched seams. Each design is priced individually depending on the final mix of fabrics used, and a selection of sofa shapes can be made as bed settees. In other words, this ain’t your granny’s couch, and you’re going to pay more than she did for one. But, oh, aren’t they divine?

I grew up playing with two reddish-orange wooden horses, painted with colorful stylized tack, but not knowing what they were. A lucky click later, and here I am, remembering with fondness my dala horses. Known also as dalecarlian horses (or dalahäst in Swedish), these very pretty ponies entered into existence as toys for children, then became emblematic of Sweden. Whatever you want to call them, I think they’re absolutely lovely. Here are just a few examples of how your might integrate a dala horse into your family:

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Anyone who has ever been afraid of using color should take a good look at this amazingly colorful villa designed by Giorgio Saporiti for Il Loft to see just how awesome color can be.

Beautiful!

With what seems like a string of blah winters days behind me and who knows how many more blah winter days ahead — since hereabouts, winter can last well into May — I need a little cheering up. Yellow interiors put a smile on my face because they’re like the little bit of sun I can see when I can’t really see the sun. Here’s hoping these awesome yellow interiors, furniture, and accessories give you a lift, too.

Images via: House and Home; Risulinna; Moline; Benita; Supershoppertoo; Jerry Force

With The Beard gone this past week, I finally experienced the horrors of having a walk that desperately needed shoveling and a baby that refused to sleep. Karma must have been on my side, however, because when I finally gave up and decided to leave the baby in her crib (much to everyone’s dismay) a pair of burly teenagers came to the door offering up shovel services in return for a check made out to CASH. Oh, how grateful I was!

To honor all those chilly teens who walk the streets with shovels looking for a little spending money, here are two lovely photos of snow swept houses taken by my friend Qousqous. Perhaps if we all think of how picturesque our homes look when blanketed with snow, the chore of shoveling won’t seem so terrible?

Cute, no? The snow effect works particularly well on cottages and old fashioned rectangular houses with lots of pretty trim around the windows, but no matter what sort of house you have snow can make it look a little cleaner and a little more photogenic… at least until the white stuff gets all slushy and gross.

I did have one question for all my readers who live in snowy climes: Are teenagers with shovels a relatively rare occurrence these days? The pair that saved my tush the other day are the first I’ve seen since moving to the great white north. Mostly we just see construction workers with nothing better to do than roll around with snowblowers overcharging for a driveway blowout.