Category: Uncategorized

There’s a question mark in the title because I think this will become a trend in the U.S., but I don’t think it’s a trend yet. It’s a trend when it rampages across the country into living rooms, bedrooms and dining rooms everywhere. I think right now it is stepping onto the shores, testing the waters, seeing if it will be accepted.

What is it?

layers of global patterns in whites

• Whites in different shades, lighter, darker, clean, dusty, all mixed together
• Patterns inspired by India, Bali, Morocco, Spain and beyond, all mixed together

It looks like this from Restoration Hardware:

The origins of this look are shown in this image that I shared back in 2013, from Maisons du Monde:

I shared this image in a post called Scandinavian White Interiors with an Indian Twist. And this white layered patterns “potential trend” is exactly that — a mix of  global style with Indian, Moroccan, Indonesian, Lamu style and more all in the same room.

The look is created with:

• Carved white-washed wood
• Round turned wood shapes
• Embroidered and printed patterned textiles
• Pierced metal lanterns
• Woven patterns in lampshades, baskets, sisal rugs

For the tension that makes things interesting, mix elegant swirls and florals with thick rustic chunky shapes. White colors tie it all together.

Someone said to me that if you want to know what’s coming soon to the U.S., look at what’s popular in Australia. My Instagram has been full of white layered patterns from many Australian companies, especially in the Byron Bay area which is on the west coast of Australia, between Brisbane and Syndey.

Here’s a few Instagrammers to watch if you want to get schooled on this style …

Bisque Traders imports to Australia from around the world and while they’re introducing more color lately, the roots of their aesthetic is in rustic whites:

Bisque Traders has a website where you can find a full range of products that fit their light, white “with a touch of tribal” aesthetic.

Alabaster Trader has the look, especially with their carved and mirrored white-washed wood consoles and damchiyas from India which you can order online at their shop:

The Ha’veli of Byron Bay is where you can see the look in action, warmed up with some darker browns:

They also have an online shop where you can get the look.

While the Grove at Byron Bay Instagram account is no longer active, it has an archive of photos that show this layered white pattern look, blended with boho macrame and woven reeds:

As shown here at The Grove in Byron Bay, you don’t have to have everything in every room be patterned. Here the background is white, the pots are white, even the rocks in the pots are white, and the glorious enormous mirror brings the patterns:

Seeing these images over the last few years definitely influenced my thinking for our apartment in Chennai, India. As I’ve written about here previously, I’m keeping the apartment mostly white-walled so it’s bright, calm and soothing. But what is India without the searing bright pinks, oranges and blues? I bought pillows and fabrics with those iconic Indian colors. But they didn’t feel like they delivered the soothing feeling that I want. I think those colors will wind up piled on a four-poster canopied daybed in the guest room. The rest of the place will look like this mock-up:

I already have all these pillows, rug and similar table. And here’s the patterned wall and lanterns in the entry area:

We’re on our way to this look in our place in India. There’s a long way to go, though! Here’s my moodboard that guides this entry area as I add new things to it:

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

During my recent One Room Challenge room re-design, I felt like I chose unpopular colors, to be honest. I still chose them, because they are what I love and I want to live with. But I’m not choosing the cool grays, whites and ocean blues that people love so much. I like warmth on the wall, so I like beige. Not greige. Beige.  But is beige uncool? There are many beiges. I have learned from Maria Killam’s color blog all about the very uncool “pink beige.” I now try to analyze undertones and avoid the pink-ish beiges. My house is full of pink beige from the previous owners and our own previous years’ decisions, though.

Anyway, it’s easy in today’s world of online sharing to second guess your color decisions, especially when you are a home decor blogger or Instagrammer. I recently saw a story about people painting their rooms white because white rooms perform well on Instagram. Well, I fill my rooms with beige and various warm orangey and paprika colors. One room has lots of red. Maybe it’s because I’m an Aries, a fire sign?

I checked into color trends for 2018, to see if I am really woefully off track with color tastes. Or, maybe I’ve been ahead of the curve?

Here’s what I found forecasted for Behr paint — lots of warmer colors:

And Benjamin Moore’s 2018 colors. Visit their website for the paint names and codes:

Sherwin Williams gives some background behind inspiration for their color palettes, ranging from minimalism and hygge, to artisanal crafts and indigenous patterns, to California Pop and environmentalism.

Spice. I see many warm spice colors. Colors of cumin, tamarind, cayenne, curry, paprika.

Bohemian. 2018 trends include many of the boho chic colors that are on textiles from South America, Morocco and Asia – popular fabrics right now.

Warm white. The whites are warm. And yes we see beiges there!

Desert. There are desert colors, muted desert ochres and oranges, but I don’t foresee Southwestern style, I see global nomadic desert like the Sahara and the dusty desert cities of Rajasthan. Camel. Sand. Of course, call me very biased about the global nomadic idea, you might be right!

Jungalow. Many greens, from clear greens to muted greens. A whole garden of green. I see dirt colors and leaves. Is that the Jungalow style brought to us by Justina Blakeney?

Blues. Yes we still have the blues. Blues of one kind or another will always be around. In 2018, teal blues will be popular.

So, because of the prominence of spice and desert colors, my favorite paint color preferences — which really come from spice jars with some teal accent — might not be all that out of step right now!

Do you see your favorite colors in the 2018 forecast?

Usually I appreciate textured surfaces, and the occasional chippy paint. I love an “old wall” look. But I don’t love it when my house looks like this:

Twice in the past 10 years, we paid contractors to scrape and paint our cedar-sided house. But they scraped pretty much half-heartedly, kind of just barely. It’s not a fun job, for sure. Now we’re doing the job. On all 3,000 sq ft of siding.

Shave. Sand. Wash. Stain.

Repeat.

Repeat.

Repeat.

For 4 months. This was my Summer of ’17 AND Fall of ’17. Days and evenings!

Why????!!

We HAVE to. Because when you’re up close, it looks like we have the haunted house on the block. And beyond the looks, the siding and house are not protected from the elements. Though we have cedar which is rot-resistant, some areas are starting to rot and rot is spreading.

Some neighbors warned us, don’t do it yourselves!! Replace the siding instead! It’s easier! Yeah and that’s really expensive. And there isn’t much wrong with the cedar. Sure there are a few rotten areas and some woodpecker holes. But they can be easily fixed with epoxy and rot terminator, or replaced with a few new cedar boards. Our house is nearly 50 years old. I think that 50-year-old cedar is better than today’s new cedar?

We talked with several contractors about doing this full job of scraping all wood down to raw wood. Some wouldn’t even do it. Others quoted way more than we can pay for the entire job, I’m talking some quotes were around $18,000! We’ve already paid many thousands — twice — in the last 10 years for re-painting.

So, this time we’re doing it.

Shade Seekers

We live near Chicago, so we’re in a race against the weather. We have to finish before snow flies. But seeing that it’s 95 degrees on September 23 — thus I’m indoors writing a blog post at high noon and not scraping, sanding etc. outdoors — maybe we’ll have more time than we think.

Here’s a video from this morning. We have to organize our days around the sun, so we work as much as possible in the shade. For awhile, the wall over our garage was shaded:

So, this blog has been quiet for a long time because I’ve been very busy. I’ve been busy since spring on this project. It started with researching everything we’re doing, and then actually doing it. I don’t know how bloggers who do serious big-time renovations can do the work AND edit the photos AND write about it. I’ve been physically and mentally exhausted after days of this work! But I will say, this also feels like good healthy work for the body.

This project is also a perfect time for design changes on the exterior of the house. Of course you know I love opportunity for that!

• I’m changing the color on all the trim, windows and doors from white to a warm gray.
• New shutters! Real functional shutter hardware with wood framed board and batten style shutters. And, shutters properly sized for the windows. The real deal.
• It’s hard to see lights in the photo above, but we’re replacing porch and garage lights. From cheap traditional colonial lights, to bigger “modern industrial farmhouse” trendier lights. With motion sensing, so every time deer, raccoon, skunk, fox and coyote walk by at night, I can freak out and think it’s a burglar.
• We’re adding a big walkway from the driveway to the porch. I am pining for bluestone but we’ll likely do pavers with a bluestone look.
• Next spring, more of a garden in the front. We chopped down a row of bland evergreen bushes that ran along the front of the porch. I’ll be researching shrubs with four-season interest.
• I think we’ll run out of time this year, so likely next spring we’ll add stone veneer along the bottom half of the sunroom that’s on the back of the house. And eventually a patio will be added to wrap around the sunroom.

Future Blog Posts

I’ll follow-up later with more posts about this big exterior paint project:

• Product reviews – I’ll do a post about all the products that helped us.
• Paintshaver Pro review. This tool is a dream come true and makes this job possible. You can see my husband using it in the video above. I’ll do a whole post about the tool.
• There are color and design decisions to share — not just a show n’ tell but the reasons and why’s behind the decisions.
• DIY shutters and functional shutter hardware. I still have to make samples of the shutters. There’s more than 30 shutters to make. I am more of a “one & done” DIY’er, not a production person, so I honestly think making all those shutters will be more painful than this exterior paint job!
• Some safety tips. Some people might say we’re going overboard – we’re renting a big boom lift for the highest parts of the house next week, instead of rigging up DIY things to get higher up. I worked in safety for decades, and I’ve worked in a trauma center and seen first-hand what can happen to people. So I’m cautious. Not overly-scared because I’m up there on the roof too, but cautious. So I’ll have some things to say about fall prevention and the importance of investing in safety.

So this was a quick update for now, more later!

 

I’m always dreaming of what to do next in our little apartment in Chennai, India. It’s functional but not “finished.” What finishes it? Layers! Layers of patterns, layers of colors, layers of textures.

Because we have to take things for the apartment in suitcases on an airplane, or try to use our time as efficiently as possible in India, and find things in India, I plan in advance. I do mock-ups in Photoshop to see how it will look. One area I’m playing with is the living room sofa area, and the wall behind the sofa.

I have those five pillows waiting to go to India. So I’m moving toward a color palette of neutral tones with dark browns and black. As I’ve written about here previously, India isn’t easy for me. The heat, the traffic, the loudness — it might be exciting at first but it does wear me down after awhile. So I’m shooting for a soothing atmosphere in our apartment. And to me, that means neutrals.

So how do you punch up the interest with neutral colors? Patterns!

You can see I mixed patterns with the pillows and rug. I really want a large zig zag basket from The Baba Tree Basket Company. The zig zag lines balance out all the curving lines in the other patterns.

I run out of steam for the wall though. I thought about finding a juju hat for texture, stick it on the wall against a painted block of color, and call it a day. Super fast and easy wall decorating. Use the extra time to go to an ayervedic spa.

But I got restless, thinking that isn’t ENOUGH. But what to do? I love arches and India is full of Mughal arches. I’d love to find a set of carved wood arches. Install them on the wall. And paint patterns in the arches, maybe with big Modello stencils like this one, shown in the mock-up below. What you’d get is this:

Ah. That feels right. Regal. Worthy of all the pattern that you can find in India! I may be on the hunt for carved wood arches!

I forget where I found these arches — I “shopped” online and forgot to make note of the source, but it was a single arch that I copied to make three in Photoshop.

If you want some inspiration for mixing lots of prints and patterns, visit my Pinterest board about mixing patterns. I’ve been debating how to give advice on mixing patterns. I put things together until they look pleasing to me (and I know what’s pleasing to me might not work for everyone!), like this patchwork pillow I made for our India apartment:

But I’ve never put the process of how I mix patterns into words or conscious, planful thoughts. It might be interesting to try to get it all out of my mind, onto paper. I’m working on it!