Random photos from readers

I have received several photos from readers the past couple of days that I want to share. I'll start with Nina's photos of her living and dining rooms. She wanted to share the gorgeous wall colour she chose for these spaces. "The colour is called Loyalist Green and it's made by Homestead Paints. I used it on parts of the main floor in my house about 2 years ago and it went on really well and only took a coat or two to cover the wall (this was just before teal/turquoise became all the rage.) Also it's milk based so didn't stink to high heaven." It is a great pale turquoise, and looks amazing with her decor. Thanks Nina!

Claudia of Adeeni Design Group enjoyed my teal post and sent some great photos of a dining space she designed for Elle Décor's Dining by Design last November with iridescent teal ostrich walls and floor by Valtekz. So elegant and the teal is stunning! Thank you Claudia!

Jennifer Ramos sent the following photo of her adorable boxer Darla, who just so happened to be standing next to a poster that is available in her shop. ;) Thanks Jen!

Well, while I'm posting random photos, here's one of some fabric I won on eBay this afternoon. I think it will be perfect for curtains in my soon-to-be-teal room.

Love me some teal

Domino

Teal is such a gorgeous colour. I love the combination of greens and blues to form such a rich, lively colour. It's jewel-like and looks absolutely amazing with red. My second bedroom that I use for a dressing room is going to be perfect painted teal. I just need to find the right shade. So to get me moving on this little project, I thought I'd amass some photos of teal rooms. It was a bit of a difficult task because I found alot were too blue. I don't love blue, so I prefer a teal/aqua/turquoise leaning more towards green. Hopefully this post will light a little fire under my butt the room will be painted by the end of the weekend. (P.S. I think I might go for the wall colour in the photo above, Bella Blue by Benjamin Moore).

Pierce Allen	Domino
Hans Zeegers	Paul Massey
Chris Everard	Domino
Domino	Apartment Therapy
PointClickHome	Jonny Valiant
Lucas Allen	Trend Designs
Beckers	Elle
Adrienne LaBelle	Kendall Wilkinson
Kathy McKinnon	Andrea Garuti
Living Etc.	Marie Claire Maison

My ugly kitchen reborn

Note: Due to my painting escapades over the last 3 days, I am behind in my blog posts so this post is not about an architect or designer but about me. I should have my act together this afternoon.

I have a really ugly kitchen. Really. Ugly. And not only is it ugly but the layout is terrible and it's driving me nuts. I am not sure when I'll get around to renovating it so I realized when I was planning to paint the living room that I should just slap some crazy paint on the cabinets to make being in the kitchen a little more tolerable. Turns out I slapped some paint on the cabinets, the island and the backsplash. Not sure how feasible it was to paint tile but I guess I'll just have to be less messy when I cook. I've always wanted pink cabinets and since I now live alone, I figured what the hell. Except I realized Benjamin Moore doesn't make great pinks. I ended up with bubblegum pink. (It's actually called Springtime Bloom). I think I got the effect I was after anyway - a girly kitchen that brings a smile to my face when I see it. So hopefully it's obvious that the first group of photos includes a before on the left and an after on the right. (Note: I had nothing planned to decorate the new pink kitchen with so I ran around the house looking for "props", such as the piece of scrap fabric hanging on the stove as a tea towel, and the curtains are a piece of fabric folded over and clipped.)

Kim's place - some painting going on there too

I have been having a busy weekend too. Like Jo, there was some painting going on here too. I was getting totally sick of the putrid yellow that most of this house is painted and took off to my local Benjamin Moore store yesterday afternoon with a list of white paint and my latest Style at Home mag, where a gorgeous photo of a kitchen painted in Farrow & Ball's Blackened had got me thinking about grey. In the end, grey won out (Misty Gray for walls and Distant Gray for trim). I painted the living room yesterday, except the wall behind the tv that leads upstairs - that's getting painted today (and the upstairs hallway). Some photos are below. (The one with my little teak dresser shows the putrid yellow on the wall in behind.) I've also included one of the baseboards. NONE of the baseboards in this house are painted. So they required 3 coats. And OMG what a difference. The room still needs alot of work...new chairs, coffee table, curtains, pillows, rug etc. etc. but I think it's off to a good start.

I also bought some paint for my kitchen cabinets. That will be a job for my day off tomorrow. Wait until you see what colour I chose. The kitchen is going to be trashed as soon as I get my act together and get renovating, so I thought something a little crazy would help me not hate it so much.

Your favourite white paint

Bolig Magasinet

This post is a request for help. I think I want to paint the main floor of my new house all white (and one day hopefully the icky hardwood floors). Colours I will save for the bedrooms and bathrooms. But the living room, kitchen and office I think I'd like to keep white (and maybe the stairwell and upstairs hallway). My problem is I have never found a white I love. In my last house I used Ultra Pure White or whatever the base is for Behr paints. That was a tad too bright. Then I repainted my living room in Benjamin Moore's Cloud White, and I thought that was a bit too off-white. So if anyone out there has a white paint they swear by, please leave the name and brand in the comments. And if there's anyone who wants to come by and help paint.....