House Beautiful- 26 Designers Share Their Favorite Grays4House Beautiful- 26 Designers Share Their Favorite Grays

House Beautiful Designer Grays 3: Top Row, 1-Pratt Lamberts Argent 1322, 2-Farrow Balls Light Blue 22, 3- Farrow Balls Green Blue 84 Middle Row, 1- Benjamin Moores Cedar Grove 444, 2-Ralph Lauren Paints Blue-Green GH81, 3-Benjamin Moores Colony Green Bottom Row, 1-Benjamin Moores Heavenly Blue, 2-Benjamin Moores Palladian Blue HC-144, 3-Benjamin Moores Sage Tint

House Beautiful- 26 Designers Share Their Favorite GraysHouse Beautiful- 26 Designers Share Their Favorite Grays

Benjamin Moore’s Colony Green, Ralph Lauren’s Blue-Green GH81, Benjamin Moore’s Cedar Grove 444

Mora Clock Seen At Bagatelle Antiques, Green Painted Mora Seen On Attic Mag.com, Blue Green Mora From Eloquence

Mora Clock Seen At Bagatelle Antiques, Green Painted Mora Seen On Attic Mag.com, Blue/ Green Mora From Eloquence

Ginger Barber's Rugged Texas Home House Beautiful Magazine July 2009

Ginger Barber’s Rugged Texas Home

1.  Cotswold’s Barn Conversion comes from Light Locations.  Inside, the home is saturated with shades of whites.  Take notice of it’s whitewashed rustic oak beams, the neutral decor scheme and open plan interior.  Decorated around minimal decor, this home has rustic furniture, industrial pendant lights, linen bedding and furniture and huge picture windows.

See more of this home at Light Locations

2. A Chattahoochee River Home, decorated by designer Amy Morris, was seen in Atlanta Home Magazine.  This home is decorated around the neutral palette, with soft creamy whites and touches of gray, green and blue.  In the entry hall, we see the start of a theme that continues throughout the house….  “Rustic and elegant“.  A herringbone-patterned brick flooring, combined with country distressed furniture is very welcoming.  What makes this house appear warm and cozy are the fabric choices and old world color choices.  One of the designer’s favorite style secrets involves using outdoor fabric in busy rooms…… “I typically use a polyester, which looks like natural velvet,” she says. It looks great and no one knows.

View more of this interview in Atlanta Home Magazine

View Designer Amy Morris Interiors

3.  Ginger Barber’s Rugged Texas Home.  This home was featured in House Beautiful‘s July 2009 issue. As you enter her 180-acre property you see a beautiful white farmhouse, which is Ginger’s main house, and across the pasture, is her 1850s guesthouse.

When they decided to renovate the guest house, they worked with an open design scheme.  It has a combined family and dining room, along with a master bedroom and bathroom.

She choose to work with a soft creamy gray for the color scheme.   Going with a lighter color palette helps the rooms feel bigger.  In addition to keeping it brighter, they boarded every wall with reclaimed wood and whitewashed the boards for warmth.

Ginger Barber On Lived-In Rooms

On Patina “A nice wide table with the paint peeling off. It’s got great lack-of-paint, doesn’t it? I love chipped painted things; they feel more natural, softer, more inviting. And that washedout Swedish cupboard in the main house’s living room is so wonderfully dull—I love that, too. I’ll even take a new piece and work on the finish to get the look I want. If you look at that pine table in the main house, you’ll see it’s stripped raw, rosy raw. I used white chairs around it because I love the back and forth of crisp white against old and worn”

On Slipcovers- “Again, you’ve got to live. You’ve got to be ready to throw the slipcovers in the wash andbe done with it. My work is 90 percent slipcovers. I mean, this family’s got two Jack Russell terriers, and they’re always on the furniture.”

Simple Linens- “I think a person gets sick of a floral sofa in six months, tops. And in a small space it probably takes even less time to get tired of too much color. The accessories are what give a shot of color to my work, and their shapes and textures add personality. A simple purple-striped coverlet does amazing things for a white bedroom like this guest room, doesn’t it?”

View more of this article in House Beautiful Magazine

View Designer Ginger Barber

Pro Painting Tips- Best Painted Furniture, Black Painted Antiques, Black Painted Furniture, How To Paint, Scandinavian Furniture, Swedish Antiques

Anyone can paint a piece of furniture black, but there are certain tricks to make your painted pieces appear more valuable than they really are.  Many of us feel that sensation of discovering a beautiful piece of furniture at a garage or estate sale, and then dreaming of what to do with it next.  If you are anything like me,  scrolling through pictures of paint chips, and color combinations can be a thrilling experience.

If you love lighter colored interiors such as white, light blue, or mint green, then black furniture might be a consideration for your interior.  Painting a piece of furniture black can create tremendous contrast for your interior.   Here are a couple tips to making your painted furniture look antique:

1.  Use Matte Paint

You won’t find shiny finishes on the old antique furniture in Sweden. This article won’t cover the modern black painted furniture that one would expect to see in the 50’s or 60’s , but rather the aged furniture that someone could come across 100 or more years ago.

When selecting a sheen, consider starting out with a matte finish.  Once the piece is dry you can add either a tinted wax or a tinted glaze to the final finish to give it even more depth.  The sheen will then produce a look between flat and satin.  Starting out with a low sheen will keep the overall finish looking rustic even after you apply additional paints.

2. Paint Your Hardware

While there are so many ways to feature hardware on black painted furniture, painting the hardware can be a smart way to making a black piece look understated yet elegant.  Take a look at a French Provincial chest painted in olive by Knack Studios.  The hardware was painted and carefully distressed.  In this case, a little bit of distressing went a long way.  Compare that photo, with this photo of a black painted bombe chest which is also painted in black.  The hardware is painted, but not distressed.  While bombe chests are considered some of the most spectacular pieces of furniture, this piece falls short for me.

– Darken your hardware with chemicals.  Rockler sells a brass darkening solution that ages brass, copper and bronze metal. It allows you to change the color gradually so you can control how dark the final product turns out.

– American Accents by Rustoleum sells an Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint that I have used on many pieces of my own furniture. After the paint has dried, simply distress the hardware with a sponge sander.

– 9 DIY Recipes For Rusty Hardware- Hersite

3.  Show Off The Wood With Distressing

Adding a bit of interest to your furniture can go a long way.  There are several ways to add patina.  Two ways that come to mind is by distressing, and another is by layering paint.

A: Distressing is a sure way of adding depth and interest to a vintage piece of furniture.  Some people like a LOT of distressing, and others like MINIMAL distressing.  It is rather interesting to see how people fall into those two categories.  Look at a few pictures on pinterest to decide what appeals to you.  The best thing about distressing is if you go too far, simply just repaint the areas, which will tone down the distressing.

Rococo Desk 1700's -Swedish Furniture From Bukowski Market- Gustavian, Gustavian Furniture, Rococo Swedish, Swedish Antiques, Swedish Auction Markets, Swedish Online Furniture AuctionsRococo Desk 1700’s

Bukowski is the leading auction house founded in 1870 by the Polish nobleman Henryk Bukowski. Bukowski Market also happens to be Sweden and Finland’s largest on-line internet site for quality auctions. Bukowski Market offers modern capabilities to the auction experience; one that combines online shopping with spectacular antiques and reliable expertise.

Bukowski pairs together buyers and sellers from around the world and allows antiques to be brought to the public for sale.  All items sold at Bukowski have been reviewed by experts in showrooms in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö, Helsinki, and Norrköping.   Bukowski offers a large assortment of antiques, design, art and decorative items for all tastes.  Before bidding from Bukowski, be sure to look at their terms of sale, and have your shipping and pick up arrangements set before bidding.

bukowskis.com