Let’s Talk!
651.500.7650
MY PAINT MISTAKE
and what I’m contemplating to fix it!
One of my hobbies has been to renovate a farmhouse with my husband. It’s been working out great because we don’t live in it full-time. We can deconstruct spaces and then leave the mess until we come back to it a few weeks later.
It has been a real design challenge for me though! The original part of the house was built in the late 1800s and had very simple pine flooring and trim molding.
The second half of the house was added on about 20 years later. This addition reflected the classic, four-paneled doors and more detailed crown molding.
Around 1960, the ground level was remodeled and those beautiful doors and trim were replaced with flat-faced, hardwood veneer doors and the skinny trim molding. Do you remember those entry doors that had three vertical, windows descending diagonally?
So design challenge number one has been how to make the house feel cohesive. And I think we have finally figured it out. We are replacing all of the 1960s doors and trim molding downstairs to match the four-paneled doors and detailed crown molding upstairs. All trim work and doors will be painted a creamy white throughout the entire house.
In my February blog I wrote about the Perfect Paint Palette system developed by Kristie Barnett, The Decorologist. The four types of paint colors in this system are an Anchor Neutral, a Grounding Basic, Memory Tones, and Accent Shades.
A Grounding Basic is usually a white or off-white for trim, cabinets, and ceilings. My Grounding Basic is Sherwin Williams Creamy (SW 7012).
An Anchor Neutral is the main wall color that is used in the entry, an adjoining room, the hallway and up the stairs. It is typically a light gray or a beige neutral but can also be a white, an off-white, or a muted color with a fairly high value (or lightness). An Anchor Neutral should have the same undertone as the immovable features like flooring, countertops or cabinetry
My Paint Mistake
My current Anchor Neutral (I didn’t know it was called that when I started painting) turned out to be an intense gold that I chose off of some wall art that I wanted to hang in the dining room. I matched it to the dried field corn that some deer were running through.
When we had the kitchen linoleum and carpeting torn out, hardwood floors appeared underneath. They ran throughout the kitchen, dining room and living room so we had them refinished. Those floors should have been my first clue for choosing an Anchor Neutral. How does my intense gold look with the beautiful hardwood floors? Not good. There is no contrast whatsoever and so, de-emphasizes the best feature in the room.
And my second clue but equally important to the first, should have been the kitchen cabinetry and countertop because they too are immovable.
The kitchen cabinets are 1960s flat fronts made out of hardwood veneer and pretty much look orange right now. I knew that they wouldn’t
be staying that way but at the time, I wasn’t thinking of the entire house design as a
cohesive unit. So what color will these kitchen cabinets be? Stay tuned for my April blog. Maybe by then I will have decided and could then choose my new and improved Anchor Neutral.
Let’s Talk!
Roberta Peters
Birch Hill Interiors
651.500.7650
Twin Cities
MY PAINT MISTAKE
and what I’m contemplating to fix it!
One of my hobbies has been to renovate a farmhouse with my husband. It’s been working out great because we don’t live in it full-time. We can deconstruct spaces and then leave the mess until we come back to it a few weeks later.
It has been a real design challenge for me though! The original part of the house was built in the late 1800s and had very simple pine flooring and trim molding.
The second half of the house was added on about 20 years later. This addition reflected the classic, four-paneled doors and more detailed crown molding.
Around 1960, the ground level was remodeled and those beautiful doors and trim were replaced with flat-faced, hardwood veneer doors and the skinny trim molding. Do you remember those entry doors that had three vertical, windows descending diagonally?
So design challenge number one has been how to make the house feel cohesive. And I think we have finally figured it out. We are replacing all of the 1960s doors and trim molding downstairs to match the four-paneled doors and detailed crown molding upstairs. All trim work and doors will be painted a creamy white throughout the entire house.
In my February blog I wrote about the Perfect Paint Palette system developed by Kristie Barnett, The Decorologist. The four types of paint colors in this system are an Anchor Neutral, a Grounding Basic, Memory Tones, and Accent Shades.
A Grounding Basic is usually a white or off-white for trim, cabinets, and ceilings. My Grounding Basic is Sherwin Williams Creamy (SW 7012).
An Anchor Neutral is the main wall color that is used in the entry, an adjoining room, the hallway and up the stairs. It is typically a light gray or a beige neutral but can also be a white, an off-white, or a muted color with a fairly high value (or lightness). An Anchor Neutral should have the same undertone as the immovable features like flooring, countertops or cabinetry
My Paint Mistake
My current Anchor Neutral (I didn’t know it was called that when I started painting) turned out to be an intense gold that I chose off of some wall art that I wanted to hang in the dining room. I matched it to the dried field corn that some deer were running through.
When we had the kitchen linoleum and carpeting torn out, hardwood floors appeared underneath. They ran throughout the kitchen, dining room and living room so we had them refinished. Those floors should have been my first clue for choosing an Anchor Neutral. How does my intense gold look with the beautiful hardwood floors? Not good. There is no contrast whatsoever and so, de-emphasizes the best feature in the room.
And my second clue but equally important to the first, should have been the kitchen cabinetry and countertop because they too are immovable.
The kitchen cabinets are 1960s flat fronts made out of hardwood veneer and pretty much look orange right now. I knew that they wouldn’t
be staying that way but at the time, I wasn’t thinking of the entire house design as a
cohesive unit. So what color will these kitchen cabinets be? Stay tuned for my April blog. Maybe by then I will have decided and could then choose my new and improved Anchor Neutral.
Let’s Talk!
Roberta Peters
Birch Hill Interiors
Twin Cities