White kitchen inspiration

Abby wrote me with this request: "Congratulations on your amazing kitchen redo! I am about to embark on the same project, and am hoping you can offer some inspiration photos - both to give me ideas and to show my better half what the heck I'm talking about. My kitchen is very dark - no windows - so I'm planning to do white cabinets with white countertops (though I'm also toying with doing the cabinets in the palest shade of grey, still with the white countertops), to keep things luminous. I prefer a modern style, though some Regency details are fine, and like just about everyone I'm fond of Shaker cabinets. Definitely nothing country. I'm sure you looked at a million kitchens when you were planning yours, so I'm hoping you'll have some great thoughts for me!"

A kitchen with no windows?? And there's no way you can put one in? Or a skylight maybe? How sad! Going with white is a great idea because the light will reflect off the surfaces and keep it nice and bright. And I've already told Abby that I highly recommend the quartz I chose for my kitchen because it has all sorts of little grey and mirrored specks in it that sparkle. :) I have many photos of white kitchens, so I've selected some non-country ones for Abby and her better half. Hope this helps and good luck with your reno!

AT Casa	Bolig Magasinet
Dixcot Locations	Coburn Architecture
David Netto	Canadian House & Home
House Beautiful	Canadian House & Home
Verity Welstead	Living Etc.

Urban Spaces

honky

Sköna hem

Sunset Magazine

Sunset Magazine

4Homes

Fox Nahem Design

Kelly McGuill

Coburn Architecture

Ideal Home

Metropolitan Home

Oak Management

Paint question

Laura wrote us an email with the following:

"I was inspired by this entry to ask you a question. There is a lot of discussion about the perfect white paint, but I have yet to come across a discussion about the perfect off white/cream/beige paint. I know people use it because I see it every so often in Domino. One of the things that I love about Domino so much, is that they talk about paint colors. White is discussed a lot. But, I've noticed that if there is a picture of a space with an off white/cream colored wall, the paint is hardly ever mentioned. If the perfect white is so often hotly debated, why not the perfect off white?

I am really looking for the perfect color for a room in my house that I am working on. Just to prepare you for the picture, we had a terrible water pipe leak and as a result we had to tear down most of the left wall and some of the ceiling. You can see in the picture the new dry wall. Also, our windows are very special. They were made from old telephone pole wood. Every window in the house is some variation of this window. I don't plan on painting the wood or the baseboards. I've already painted one bedroom a robin's egg blue that looks beautiful. I plan on painting the master a light gray (right now it is a horrible yellow). But this room I wanted to do in a cream color. Hopefully, this will be a child's room someday and I want a nice neutral background that will be able to take on blue or pink accent colors. As you can see in the picture the color that the previous owner's of the house used is a beige, but it has a lot of yellow in it, which I don't particularly like.

Here is the room. I apologize in advance for the chaos, but I am still working on the drywall:"

What a beautiful window - and a whole house of them?!?! I am very jealous. I explained to Laura that I had absolutely no experience with off-white, while I always stick to pure white or light grey when I'm looking for a neutral paint colour. My suggestion for a non-off-white would be a light grey as I think it would be really pretty with blue or pink. But I thought I'd throw this out to you guys if anyone has any paint colour suggestions for Laura. What's your favourite off-white or beige?

Bathroom lighting dilemma

Ian wrote us last week with a request for some ideas for this bathroom: "I'm trying to get my bathroom lighting sorted and I've decided against harsh overhead lighting with the plan of having the mirror lit either side instead which is a much more flattering light. However, I've looked everywhere and can find barely any ideas! I was thinking of a couple of Glo-balls coming out of the mirror, or recessed lighting, or a pair of Tolomeo lights coming out of the wall etc. Anything other than a horrid downlighter above my head! I wondered if you may be able to help me and post some much needed inspiration on your site?"

I went through my photos of bathrooms and selected some that hopefully give Ian some ideas. I personally think 2 glo-ball-like lights hanging on either side or wall-mounted Tolomeos would look fantastic. (I've got Tolomeos on either side of my range and I LUV them!). Examples of these and others are below.

Cossman_de Bruyn	Ami Mckay
Dolly Howarth	IFI
Location Works	Kate Hume
House Beautiful	mlk studio
Better Homes and Gardens	Jeff Andrews

Elle Deco

Cecconi Simone

Philippe Starck

Kenneth Brown

Lundberg Design

Aero Studios

John Lum Architecture

Napanee Design

Architeam

To paint or not to paint?

Lee-Anne from Toronto wrote us looking for help: "I love your website and thought you might be able to help me with my design dilemma. We recently bought a home that was built in the 40’s that’s a bit of a fixer upper. It has wooden baseboards throughout and lots of wood trim. I am still hanging onto my old furniture but I am sooooo ready to redo this room!! I want to modernise it and add colour and texture!! My dilemma is that in almost all of the design pictures that I see, the baseboards are painted white. My sister has told me in no uncertain terms that I am NOT to paint the wood trim in the house. I am looking for inspiration where people have kept the baseboards a natural colour." Below are some photos Lee-Anne included of her home.

At first I immediately thought "PAINT!!" but if I had such beautiful baseboards and trim, I would be terrified to paint it. So after looking at the photos, I would listen to your sister. But I would get out the paint can for a few things. I would paint out the fireplace (and lose that huge mirror above), the risers on the stairs and maybe the balusters (a photo below shows this). That's it. But keep your walls light and if you were going to get rugs, I'd keep those light too. Or you could go with a warm bright wall colour (see the yellow wall below). So the following are photos of spaces with unpainted trim (except the last one but imagine it's a dark wood).

Better Homes and Gardens	Better Homes and Gardens
Caroline Beaupère	Alexandra Rowley
Todd Oldham	Fox-Nahem
Canadian House & Home	The Selby

James Tse

Cookie Mag

Newsday

House to Home

Jonathan Adler

And to make your decision even harder Lee-Anne, here are some photos of spaces with painted trim, you know, to keep your options open. :)

Gridley + Graves

Thomas Jayne

Design*Sponge

Inspace Locations

Guido Barbagelata

Elle Decor

Nicholas Haslam

Studio Ilse

Inspiration request

We received an email from someone looking for a bit 'o inspiration: "HELP! I need inspiration. I am redoing a guest room and I want it to have that Indian/Moroccan feel to it with out feeling 'themey'." Not a problem. I went through my stash and found some not overly Indian/Moroccan bedrooms that I think would make beautiful guest rooms. But beware - make it too beautiful and your guests will never leave!

House Beautiful	Sköna hem
Heather Cameron	Gaelle Le Boulicaut
Pieter Estersohn	Shoot Factory
Location Works	PointClickHome

Hanne Vind

Kevin Hart

Décormag

Frank Roop

Homes & Gardens

Living Etc.

Marie Claire Maison

Johnny Bouchier