Dreaming of an Orange Kitchen

I have been looking for inspiration over the last couple of days and while every magazine is featuring orange again ( which is great for me) I havent had anything that had a "wow" impact for me....

I have been scouring websites looking at kitchens. A client of mine in the beaches had a white traditional kitchen installed and the walls painted electric orange from Benjamin Moore - it is the paint colour also known as Hermes Orange and the colour of my real inspiration....

I would love to do a high gloss kitchen in our house - the colour of Hermes orange and the kitchens below gave me a little more inspiration....

Everything is paired with grey or white which would work well in our house but I need to do a little convincing to my husband to do it.....we did our smaller bathroom wall with the Hermes orange and it is great - but I really feel strongly that our kitchen cabinets - currently white could transform in an awesome way in high gloss orange....

maybe we should do a test panel and work from there.......

The Bedroom Project

Mario and the Kids left on monday for a week to visit his family in Quebec - so I decided to take the time to do our bedroom - it has been the last space in the house that we needed to work on and has been a little bit of a struggle to figure it out.

We are on the top floor - what would be the attic - so there is a peaked roof and lots of light - hardwood floors and beams to work with.

I had inspiration from Christine of Love the design next door to my store - she had papered her main wall in the store as an art wall with pages of old books....so I went on the hunt for old books that might have some meaning...Mario likes history and travel - so thats the books I found.

Now the hard part - figuring out placement of the pages - this process took me 9 hours....9 hours of placing, gluing and staring at the wall until I decided I was happy...sex in the city 2 played in the background, whiskey sour in hand I was happy but not satisfied..

I remembered we had bought some old colour engravings of birds from Ebay - went downstairs and dug them out and placed them on the wall in somewhat of a format - Now I got it....Birds are of meaning to us both and though we have Horses throughout the house - Birds would be good in our space.

Then it was on to the headboard - we had some suiting fabric that I was going to send to the upholsterer to do our headboard - but I decided I would do it myself - went to Home depot got some plywood cut for the headboard - fabricland and got foam and trusty staple gun and 15 minutes later I got a headboard......I wanted a little bit of depth and found some vintage buttons - lined them up - stapled the spot and then velcro'd the buttons on...and headboard complete - hung the stag which is carved wood and bed in place...

Bedding was easy I went for simple bedding and neutral with a hint of orange - there were some great textured pillows with orange edging and then found the cream wool one with the flowers on it...( the reverse side is just an orange bee) - added some finishing touches on the dressers / sidetables ie: Hermes Boxes, my Hermes messenger bag and the neutral lamps and then accessorized the rest of the room......

there is an 1890's judy with hoop skirt attached on marios side, the pale grey cowhide, metal cabinet with our books and the beautiful wool blanket folded on the bench that my friend Susan gave me for my birthday last year.

We have a french style chaise lounge on the right hand side with a small sarrinen side table and a custom Louis Vuitton pillow from my store on it....I LOVE how this room turned out...and best of all when Mario flew home today - he loved it too....

We have a little allcove by the chaise that was painted in the Benjamin Moore Electric Orange ( Hermes orange) with a crystal chandelier to lead in towards the window - the remaining things is to repaint - I think the white was too harsh so we are going to go towards a light grey or cream and to finish the roman blinds .....otherwise it looks awesome - I am pleased with it....and it helped me get through missing my kids and husband....

Fashion, Home decor and more - Its all about the Orange

I was thinking the other day about my next posting and wondering how I was influenced to make the choice of orange as the pop colour in my store and also in our house...I know Mario was a big influence in the choice as it is a colour that he loves. I am quite happy with how things have come about.

Years ago all I ever worked with in colours was Robins Egg Blue, white and brown - all the homes that I decorated were always in the colour scheme and my customer base was loyal with it as well. Who would have thought I would pop into orange and have it inspire me in more ways then I can imagine...

The Hermes box really is my inspiration - I have a nice collection of them right now and we search everywhere to find others - including stylists in the USA and abroad....decorating with the box gives a soft glow of orange but also the right amount of pop.

I spent my afternoon on our deck today searching the web for inspiration and realized that it surrounded me - literally and figuratively - last week my blog was about the orange around us - in signs, cars etc....this time it is all about fashion and style....

When you are inspired by a colour i think you take notice of it more....but designers like Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Dior and of course Hermes have stuck with orange as a mainstay in their designs..
Joe Fresh Fall 2011 collection had hits of orange as did many of the other designers.

Then it became more apparent that Orange was a colour that came in every tone , any design and all over from Home to Fashion . I have a client who has turned into a friend - she and her husband painted her bathroom - the Benjamin Moore Electric orange ( aka : hermes orange) but also her stairs leading up to her second floor - she was inspired by my store and followed through...We had another client paint her kitchen the same orange and all shiny white cabinets from Ikea....the colour has become bold and fun and it is so good to see so many people inspired to use it...

I am happy in our choice as an accent colour in our home - we are currently working on a couple of new variations to showcase orange - but as i continue with my store - I am always in search of new ways to find and deliver the goods of orange.

Is there really such a thing as an orange cow?

We are currently working on doing the master bedroom in our new house - it is of course the last room to be finished for reasons not really know to either Mario or I?  We had a hard time getting the right inspiration i guess and then all of a sudden it is coming together....the reason of this post is not to show the bedroom - but the cool new cowhide bench that came into the store made for us from a company in montreal.

The hide is dyed Orange - this one came out a little bright - so hopefully the next ones will be in an Hermes Orange - the hide is then added to the shiny metal criss cross frame for a lovely custom bench in front of our bed.

If you notice - the Gerbera daisys that are in the white vase on the chest of drawers is the exact colour of the bench.......

So our next step for this room is to do an orange damask tone on tone wallpaper behind the bed  - stay tuned.......hopefully this wallpaper goes up easier then the last one did.....

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The reveal of my ceiling......

When I moved into my new store space a couple months ago - it was a great space with school house lights, old tiled floor - good walls and character but it had the standard drop ceiling. I had fallen in love with the space because of the size and the simplicity of it and wanted to be able to change my look, my aesthetic and the overall feel.
It was not until Christine of Love the Design - who is moving next door to me removed her drop ceiling and our landlord had said that there was initially tin tiles under it.
Christines ceiling was drywalled over top - but I had taken a quick peek under my tiles and saw this mustard coloured ceiling. I could not live with myself - knowing that above me and under the pathetic tiles was this awesome ceiling waiting to be exposed. So I hired our contractor and lo and behold the reveal ( oddly enough I sat at my desk for almost 2 weeks pondering whether or not to do it) who could resist?

The detail of it is amazing - who would have thought that back in September I would move into my dream space and then have my dream ceiling. It is so beautiful. I come in now everday still in awe - a little dwarfed feeling as my ceiling is now 14ft high - but it is awesome...

My next steps are going to plaster the wall where the colour meets to look like an old french storefront - with aged walls - the back corner of the store already has it so I will copy the version to give the feel.

Someone came in the other day without knowing what the feel was supposed to be and she commented that she felt like she was in Paris. - Thats the feel. My aesthetic has changed to of course my Hermes Orange but also to old French and the feel of modern day France - my store is true to me - true to how I look at aged pieces and true to how I see modern - I am so happy with this space and cant wait for Christine to open next door...

so sources for doing this on your own....there are lots of replica ceiling tile places - authentic and old ceiling tiles can be purchased at http://www.legacyvintage.com/ 12 x 12 vintage tiles are a very inexpensive 6.00 each.
Post and Beam in the Junction carry antique pieces http://www.pandb.ca/ as does the Salvage Shop on Kingston Road.

New tiles are available online - Home Depot, Rona, Lowes etc all carry them. They are easy to apply and come in either tin or plastic and can be painted any colour.