Green..Green..The Grass Is Home

I was looking through Elle Decor online and flipped through the pages of an article on The Kips Bay Showhouse.  It has been, traditionally, one of the markers in the design business.  So...if those decorators have the good tarot cards, we're in for more green.  Shades and shades of green.  We begin with this one by Charlotte Moss.  That wall is supposed to replicate a boxwood hedge.  The framed art is photo murals of gardens.  It's a master bedroom.  If you're interested in following Moss, she has a blog.  http://www.charlottemoss.com

                                                         
                                                                More shades of green...

Colors are simply listed as lime and aqua.  Nothing more specific except that the wallpaper is grasscloth and the sofa is listed as from a new colorway by Scalamandre.   The design is by Scott Sanders who felt the house needed a cabana and this room was off the pool area. 

Different shades of green....

Not so strong with color is Jamie Drake's library above.  The art seems a bit overpowering to my eye.  According to the text there are emerald green bookshelves and there is a wall sized mirror.  No explanation for that silvery thing on the left.  Surely it is not a chair!!

Aqua and lime again.  And emerald.  Designer Thom Filicia covered both the walls and ceiling in a lacquer-like green paint in this small space.  It is listed as a small space.  Designers aren't always pleased they are assigned small spaces and sometimes add too much to get attention.  I think that is the case with this one. 

Lovely green chairs and soft green table settings in the dining room above.  I love when dining room chairs are comfortable.  Those look accomodating. 

The last room we share has a much more serene color scheme but note there are touches of aqua.  Neal Beckstedt did this studio.  The chaise is lovely but I can never imagine the utilitarian aspects of a chair set in the middle of a room. 

Green.  Green.  The green green colors of home. 

These days we're all hoping for more green.  Wonder if that influences our design color choices.  Nah.  I'm sure that thought is just too provincial.

I've always liked green.  Only in recent years have I been willing to come over to the blues. 

PRUNELLE...

This is a repeat of a post from the old blog with a few edits to make it timely.  Not outdated, I think, since I've seen a lot of purple in design blogs in recent weeks so I brought this back.. 

 

I read a number of home decorating magazines itermittently. It's my business. There was a time when I stacked them up month by month. Would you believe I once had ALL the Victorias ever published? I miss Southern Accents terribly.  I buy Veranda sometimes and wish Elle Decor were more available to me.  Others I pick up sporadically or sometimes a friend passes one on.  I like shopping for magazines from a rack and just will not trust the mailman to deliver one unscathed.

In this brave new internet world we have some wonderful decorating and design blogs - there are so many but I've found some I can trust to offer inspiration regularly.  We'll link to them when we can. Two years ago there was a piece on The Peak of Chic about colors and how their names are more interesting in French than in English. The color being discussed was called prunelle by some famous designer. Purple. Brownish purple. The color doesn't sound any more appetizing than it's namesake but it is a fantastic design color for upholstery or accents. I would love to do a room with dove grey walls and shades of grey, prunelle and yellow in upholstery and accents.  Perhaps red.  I think a rich bullfight red and prunelle would be luscious next to each other.  It is a well known decorator maxim that every room should have a dot of red or black.   Notice I didn't say "pop".  I don't want anything to "pop" in my rooms.  I'm bored with the use of the word in fashion and decorating. 

Would I do the walls of a room in prunelle? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe.  Is it a new color or a new name?  In the same evening I browsed some clothing catalogs and found that JJill knew about prunella since there were at least six items in the online outlet close to that color. Come to think of it, I have an old and worn Life Is Good t-shirt that is faded prunella. I knew I liked that color.  Don't go looking at JJill now.  Remember I first wrote this post in 2009. 

The photo above is of Italian prunes and the one shiny one is the best exemplification of the color I could find. Isn't it rich??

~ Sami