Color Palettes

Luxury With Color: Black Bathroom Ideas

Black is a luxurious color choice for a bathroom. But you do need to be careful to make sure that you don’t end up with a dark and gloomy space. The black bathroom ideas in this post will help you create a well designed and balanced space.

If you want to create a more balanced black and white bathroom design, then have a look at my post here: The Classic Look: Black and White Bathroom Decor Ideas.

Adding Style To Black Walls

If you want to go with black walls for your bathroom, then here are some ways you can avoid having flat boring walls:

Add wainscoting. This can be another color (white, grey), or paint it black. This will add depth and layers to your walls
Add some texture to your black walls. You can either do this through paint, like using a sponge to create a faux marble look or a brush to create a linen effect (Textured Wall Painting Ideas: From Faux Wood To Linen Effects). Or use tiles that have a subtle texture or pattern just like the bathroom in picture (4).

Creating Balance By Adding Another Color

If you take a look at the pictures in the mood board above, you can see that even though the bathrooms are black you have a lot of features that are another color. This helps create a balanced and a well designed space. You only need to choose a few pieces that are another color.

Stick to neutral shades when you add another color to your black bathroom.

Shades such as white, wooden or metal tones, or stone. This means making use of natural materials.

Wood: Wooden features – some ideas here include using a wooden counter, wooden framing, or even a wooden door just like the bathrooms in pictures (5) and (6).

Stone: Stone such as marble can be used as a backsplash or countertops, just like the marble counter and backsplash in the bathroom in picture (2).

Metals: Metals such as brushed stainless steel, copper, or the classic choice of brass, would work well in a black bathroom. Metal pieces will really stand out against the black background. Have a look at the brass and copper vanity, faucet and sink in picture (1). You could also use metal/brass handles on your black cabinets.

Adding Greenery: How about adding some shades of green into the space by having some plants in the space

More Lighting

Since you are going for a dark and luxurious color palette for your bathroom, you’ll need to make sure that you have enough lighting to light up the dark space.

Recessed ceiling lights are the way to go for a modern and luxurious look. You’ll want enough to light up all of the areas in the bathroom, including in the shower, and around your black bathroom vanity.

For a more classic look, go with brass light fittings – and brass light switch plates.

To really control the level of lighting in your bathroom, go from relaxing low lighting to bright task lighting, hook up your lights to a dimmer switch.

Here are some other posts to get more bathroom ideas:

image credits: 1/2/3/4/5/6

April 9, 2016 in Bathroom, Color Palettes

Work in Style: Grey Home Office Ideas

When it comes to grey home offices, you can either 1) paint all of the walls grey, or 2) paint all of the walls white. In this post I go over how to design your space using those two options, and go over specific decor, furniture, and other grey home office ideas.

The Overall Look of the Home Office

Painting all of the walls grey is one way to go. You just need to ask yourself, what shade of grey do you want to use? Dark grey walls will make the home office feel luxurious and secluded. While a light grey home office will feel spacious, large, and open.

Option 2 is to paint all of the walls white. From here you have a blank canvas of a space to decorate with grey pieces. I go over a list of ideas on how to add grey accent pieces to a home office below.

You can always add in another color into the color scheme. You just want to make sure that all the pieces in the room align with the color scheme. Stick with 1-2 other colors. Any more than that, and you take away from the overall grey color scheme. Some good color combinations include:

Grey and green
Light or dark grey with light yellow
Grey and light blue
Grey and gold

Creating a Stylish Workspace: Modern Home Office Ideas

Ways of Adding Grey

Here are some ways to add grey into a home office design:f

Use a grey desk
Or a grey office chair
A grey lamp, or lampshade
Grey curtains
Repaint any cabinet or closet doors you have in the home office grey (DIY Challenge: Give Your Closet Doors A Makeover – Ideas and Design Tips)
Spray paint a corkboard bulletin board grey
Use a grey area rug
Hang up a large painting or photo in a grey frame
Add plants to your home office in grey planters

Here are some other home office posts to get more ideas from:

image credits: 1/2/3/4/5/6

April 9, 2016 in Color Palettes, Home Office

Makeover Guide: Blue Living Room Ideas

When styling a living room in blue, the question you need to ask is “how much blue?”. Do you want to go all out and have every wall (and ceiling blue)? Or would you want a white base and style the space with pops of blue? In this post I’ll go over the blue living room ideas that will help you transform your space.

How Much Blue?

So if you want to have a lot of blue in the living room, then paint all of the walls blue – just like the living room in picture (1). You could even paint the ceiling blue. Now this might seem a bit much, but there are ways to break up all of these solid blue surfaces (like using crown molding), which I will go over below.

Another option is to paint only 1 wall blue, and have all of the other walls painted a neutral color like white, cream, or light grey. This 1 blue wall will be a feature wall, and will stand out in the room.

The 3^rd option is to paint all of the walls a neutral color, and then decorate the space with pops of blue (blue couch pillows, etc.) – like the blue and white living room in picture (2). And I go over all of the ideas and design tips on how to do this below.

The Right Shade

The shade of blue that you choose to decorate your living room will depend on the kind of feeling that you want to create. A dark navy blue paint color for the walls will create a cozy, intimate feeling living room. While a light blue, like the living room wall color in picture (3), will create a more airy, spacious, and bright feeling space.

And don’t forget to try and take away any colored pieces that are in the living room. If you want to create a strong design, then you don’t want a green trash can, a yellow candle stand, or a red stool in the space.

Adding Another Color

A blue and white living room would be the easiest and most straightforward way to style the room. But you could always add in another color into the design palette. You just need to make sure that you stick to it. This means taking out pieces in the room that don’t align with the color palette you’ve chosen.

Some good color combinations include:

Blue and green
Blue and brown
Gray and blue
And light yellow and blue

Breaking Up A Blue Wall

Some people would like to have their whole walls blue. While others might feel it is a little too much. So here are some ideas on how you can break up solid blue surfaces:

Half of the wall can be covered in wainscoting, just like the living room in picture (4). Traditionally you would have white wainscoting and then a blue wall above it. But you could always have both the wainscoting and the wall the same blue color – this adds depth and style to the room (5). Or how about using two different shades of blue. A dark blue painted over the wainscoting, and a lighter blue for the walls
Neutral colored curtains can also help break up a solid blue wall
And how about hanging up some picture frames, or create a gallery wall (6) with black and white photos

How to Style a Neutral Blue Living Room

To create a tamed down blue living room, go with a neutral base color. This means having white painted walls (or light grey, cream).

Get rid of any colored pieces in the room.

And the you can style the space with a few pops of blue, and they will really stand out. These pops of blue could be:

A blue lampshade
How about repainting the media cabinet doors blue
Hang up some blue art pieces or photographs
Or just paint a large frame blue and hang up a black and white design
You can easily color a living room blue with a blue area rug
See if you can get blue storage containers
And if you have open shelving, you could paint the backs and insides of the shelves blue
Most living rooms the focal point will be the seating area. Now you don’t have to have a blue couch to style the living room blue. A neutral colored one will do. And you can add blue to it by: using blue pillow cases, or throw a blue blanket over the back of the couch

The same can be said about the coffee table. You could go with a blue coffee table. But a more toned down way of styling this area would be to have a neutral colored coffee table, with a blue tray on it to group items together.

Here are some other living room posts to get ideas from:

1/2/3/4/5/6

April 8, 2016 in Color Palettes, Living Room

Makeover Guide: Blue Bathroom Ideas

When changing your bathroom’s color scheme, you can either go the simple and easy route or there is the more remodeling option. I have divided the blue bathroom ideas below into these two sections.

1. Simple and Easy Makeover Changes

Take a look around the bathroom, and see what takes up a lot of visual space.

For example, the shower curtain doesn’t take up much physical space, but it does visually. So the color of it will really set the tone and style of the room.

What are some other items in the bathroom that can be repaint or replaced to help you create the blue color palette?

How about:

The window curtain
A frame around the mirror
The bathroom door
Painting the cabinet doors to create a blue bathroom vanity
A rug
Even the towels hanging up can add to the color scheme of the space

These types of items can easily be changed to style and add to the color palette of the bathroom.

2. Blue Bathroom Remodeling Ideas

Here are some other features that are a little bit harder to redo but can also help style the bathroom blue:

The paint on the walls (even the ceiling)
The flooring
Any backsplashes and tiled areas you might have

The Shade of Blue

If you want to create a spacious and bright feeling space, then a white and light blue bathroom is the way to go. Whereas if you wanted to create a more secluded, romantic, and relaxing bathroom – then go with a dark blue wall paint color (along with dark navy blue furniture, decor, accessories and feature pieces).

Here are some more mood board posts to get ideas and inspiration from:

1/2/3/4/5/6