Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Why white?

Many, many years ago I would complain about the boring white/beige/bone/cream colour wall paint selections of my parents. Why couldn't we have peach or pink rooms in our home - it was the 80's after all! The furthest my colourful desires went was being allowed to paint my walls grey and my bedroom cupboard doors hot pink. Nice!! I topped that off with a white cover on my white brass bed, accented with pink pillows!

Come the 90s and the first opportunity I had to decorate our own home: I furiously painted everything in warm yellow with royal red feature walls. By the turn of the century, and whilst waiting for all electronic devices to fail, we painted the walls a desert colour (beige to Mum and Dad) with earthy tuscan red suede effects feature walls. Who doesn't love a good suede effect?!

So why is it now all about the white? I want to paint my walls white and tone everything right back. Perhaps it makes everything look crisp and clean. Perhaps it is about less clutter and better storage solutions; less random knick-knacks (and therefore less dusting) with more considered "groupings" of collectables? Perhaps three young children, two dogs, a cat and my lovely are all the colour I need; by adding colour to the walls combined with all our "stuff", maybe my home feels more like a Salvadore Dali painting and just does my head in!? Perhaps that was the reason my folks were boring "plain-walled" people all those years ago....hmmm, there's something to contemplate over the next coffee.

My lovely and I enjoyed our gorgeous wedding recently and spent our honeymoon in Fiji. One early evening I sat on the little lagoon beach, that was freshly raked each morning (I know!!), with my feet in the beautiful clear water and waited for the sun to set behind the palm trees for a couple of cliche photos. While I waited, little fish kept swimming near my toes and, thinking this was as cool as the setting sun, I started taking photos of the little fish too. Indeed, I managed to capture some very lovely cliche photos of the sun setting. However I didn't manage to capture the little fish; what I did capture was beautiful striations of colour in the water. There was my inspiration for a painting for our family room and kitchen; but not only that, it gave me the complete inspiration for our decor, starting with painting the walls white.

On research for the look I was after I discovered Marley and Lockyer. Ness has the most beautiful site and I have spent hours on there being inspired by her words, imagery and her beautiful wares.




Look at that stove! But I adore all the light and the white of the cupboards...



Beautiful windows, lots of light, gorgeous tonings...devine!


Ness had a guest blogger stop in: Christina Strutt from Cabbages and Roses who gave some tips on decorating and included this beautiful shot (amongst others).

If only my random collection of pencils and brushes looked this pretty!


Pretty and practical. Love it.


So go on over to Marley & Lockyer, take a look around and be inspired just like me to paint it white!

Good night!

Catherine
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1 comment:

George said...

Ho, ho - of course it could be that the urge to go to boring white/beige etc is a sign of age??

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