a thing for blue

I really don't want to dwell on the unpacked pile of boxes today, so why don't I show you what we've managed to paint, instead?

Initially, we weren't going to paint much of the house — of course we would have to paint anything that got new drywall, and we both liked the idea of a dark, dramatic accent wall on the first floor, but aside from that we were willing to keep everything reasonably as-is.

Then we walked in on a day with bright sunlight, after all of the previous owner's pictures, etc., had been removed, and realized that a) she had been a smoker, and therefore b) everything would have to be redone. Everything.

The kitchen.

The master bedroom, with a new ceiling (previously used as a sitting room).
I know it's immensely boring, but guys, listen: if nicotine can do this do my walls, imagine what it's doing to your lungs.

Anyway, back to the story. I am generally a neutrals kind of girl (for at least five years, I wore nothing but black), but what I like (generally) is white furniture set off against coloured walls. And I do mean colour: while, again, I prefer neutral, soft colours, I harbour a deep hatred of taupe. My mother's entire apartment and house is in taupe, and I hate, hate, hate it with a deep abiding passion. So these are the colours I chose:


A deep, dramatic blue-grey ("Dark Pewter") for the accent wall. In bright, cool daylight it's a beautiful pure grey, and in dark, warm light it is a deep bluish grey. I love it. (Also, doesn't the white fireplace set it off nicely?) I kept the other walls a crisp white ("Powdered Snow") for contrast.


Master bedroom, "Cumberland Fog." A silvery light blue that is much bluer in the mornings. Here's another view to contrast with the scary nicotine-stained one above.


The fireplace is kind of unfortunate, but when they painted it they added some weird textured swirl to it, and I really haven't had time to sand it off. It's not great, but we're going to hide it with the bed and hopefully the yellow weirdness won't be so noticeable. We took off the mantle in order to paint the wall; you can see it in the original nicotine picture.


In the second-floor hallway, a rich, medium blue-grey from Behr's "vintage" collection, called Ozone. It was much too dark for either the bedroom or the bathroom, but I think it's my favourite out of all the colours I chose. It's what happens when baby blue grows up and stops being annoyingly infantile.

The second bedroom and the den are (surprise!) a sedate green ("Spring Hill"), which you can see from the hallway picture — not too minty, not too dusky.

And the bathroom is going to a much lighter, icy blue called "Cool Sky." No pictures yet because we haven't primed the bathroom, never mind painted it — we still have to grout and seal the floor and subway tiles.

Anyway, my point is, while I had made sure all of the colours worked together, I didn't realize that I had a thing for blue until someone asked me about the colours and I found myself using the words "grey" and "blue" in every sentence. I am not very bright sometimes. But at least the house now has an (inadvertent) colour scheme.

(The kitchen is white. I was originally thinking yellow, but Pierre raised an eyebrow and we compromised on a creamy white.)