Grey Stoked

Grey is the unsung drama queen - if it's moody, magnificent and taken on with enough conviction. It can be an inspired backdrop to glamorous shots of gold or silver or make any other hue it's teamed with sing out. It's such a statement by itself that only the brave and accomplished attempt it. Grey can convey period elegance or cutting edge contemporary, but only if it is full-on storm cloud ominous. My grandmother used to say, eying a storm on the horizon, the kind that makes clouds so alarmingly dark they can only be thunderous, 'It's black over Will's mother's.' We never did find out who Will was or where his mother lived. 

Anyway, here's an ode to the least expected and most daring of decors.  

Photo credits here

This room is sulking. Stylishly.

Made lush by burgundy velvet roses. 

 More velvet opulence

 Maybe it's big horse I love grey with black sequins and antique wood. 

Vintage restraint interrupted by marvelous shots of red. 

Evocative of mid-century by pairing it with 50's green.  

 Softened by rose and taupe this bedroom is still feminine.

Manly dominance. Calls for brandy and a cigar. 

 The perfect canvas.

If you know whose house this is, please steal the rug on my behalf. I'll be ever so pleased.

Forties panache with splendid splashes of silver and aqua. I do know the impeccably tasteful couple this house is an embodiment of, so I'll steal the cushions myself, thanks.

Same house, same superb choices. Set next to Deco aqua, and graced by the best silver tiles I have ever witnessed, this grey kitchen does it for me.

Country house chic with a whimsical edge of orange to mute the seriousness.

Applauding the wonderful atmosphere this grey creates for a great vintage collection. 

Leaving you with some glam-a-go-go. The pink seats are a bonus!

Hot Pink Love

It had to come to the hot pink. It cannot be avoided. Guilty of liberal use (and over-use on occasion...possibly...) in my decorating adventures, but hey. It's just such damn fun.  It's quite brave too - it's no half measure and requires firm commitment and a complete lack of giving a flying *^"* over what anyone else thinks. But it does make a statement. 
Now, if I were to admit it, there are colors I don't like. Loathe, even. Lime green, acid yellow, brown (unless used in Art Deco wood) and orange. If someone did me a secret room makeover and used any of those colors, I'd have a fit. It wouldn't even be the next morning with the paint brush, it'd be the next minute. However, there is one way I rather like orange - teamed with hot pink. It's so Sixties. I have an Agent Provocateur ensemble in just that combination, and it's Baroque Sixties Fab. Stops there though. Not having it in my house elsewhere.
Romp with me through the wilds of hot pink, why doncha? 

The inimitable Eaton House Studios. I have to admit to personally egging this on wholeheartedly. I've spent months here, unwilling to drag myself away from all the fabulousness. You can stay there too if you like. It's an hotel.

Just yes, Eaton House. Heaven.

A donated painting from Fabulada to honor the awesomeness!

Eaton House rose ceiling rose. Brilliance!

 See more here

 Or...just use a shot of it to boldly go. Like this here:

 See it here

No self restraint at all. Well done there! 

 See it here

My own insanity in the pink department. Yes, this is where I sleep. In case you can't tell, the bedding is covered in ruby sparkles too. Why? Because I'm shy and retiring.

Love the bed..the lamps..not so much. Pop inspired though! 

 Here

Yes, yes, yes, people! Hell yes! 

Here

Black and Gold

The only place to stay in New York was and still is The Ritz Carlton. No matter what upstarts spring up afresh. I loved it as a home from home back in the day and have many fond memories of it. Designer Scot Snyder excelled himself for them with his Chinoiserie. Nothing says opulence quite like black and gold together.

 

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However, here in the Brit Isles we do it equally lavishly. Check out the Voodoo Rooms in Edinburgh. How glam can you get? Baroque black was never more sumptuous than here.

I don't know why this particular combination lends itself so well to Baroque or Rococo but it does. This Chicago hotel mixes it up with a bit of Op Art and a swathe of OTT leather.

Here

Back in Blighty, something more attainable can be done with the simple application of wallpaper and paint.

 Here

But it still takes balls to make an actual gold wall and live in this, below. I love it because of my current fad for gilding every bit of furniture I come across whether it warrants it or not. 

 

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It's not easy to locate an interior that doesn't either reference Baroque or Chinoiserie with these colors, but I love this Ralph Lauren Home shot for its Art Deco feel, and because it has a black cat in it, which are the finest cats known to mankind. Fact.

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More Art Deco loveliness. I wouldn't call this restrained but I do like the reversal of gold first, black later. There's that bloody couch again. 

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Get it wrong and you can find yourself straying into Arab territory, which is to say, dangerously close to tacky on occasion. I'm being polite. I lived there for a few years. When it comes to design their motto is More is More. 
Here's a gorgeous contemporary scenario I wouldn't say no to. Decadence! 

Here

Mash It Up

Only the most skilled can throw random colors together and get a result that truly seems like they mean it. It takes a Phd in Hue and I truly admire those who have the talent. Many people are actually fearful of colors, which is really quite bizarre until you realize that most people want to blend in and go unnoticed. To stand out is to invite hostility, to be apart from a social group. It takes guts, take it from a woman who was pink haired for 12 years.
So let's celebrate eclectic and random in all its glory and the gift of those who can pull it off. 

Color! 
 
Happy to credit if you can tell me! 

So truly, if you mix the same tones together, it works.

 Here

Honey, let me decorate the room in peach, turquoise, white, gold, red and acid yellow. That OK with you?  

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Green, turquoise, peach, red, silver, blue, white and...um..gold. Well done there! Fantastic! 

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A funky little beach house. Joie de Vivre at its most exuberant. Go for it. 

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Oh yes. Bring it on. Now you're talking. 

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New Yawk loft living. Me, I'd paint the brick - why stop there?

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Rounding it up with a last hurrah of riotousness...

 

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Brighton Green

Perhaps my favorite color in the entire world is the specific green used on the seaside railings and lamp posts in the coastal town of Brighton. I've been known to spot a minuscule shred of it in someone's photograph snaps and call it out as Brighton. I fall in love with anything which reminds me of it and obsess over using it for interiors.
Here it is, it stops my heart...

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It must have been 50's bathrooms that started my love affair and I still lust after one of these

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 A proper vintage color, here it is in all its stunning glory in a Landmark Trust building in Warwickshire. If I woke up to this I'd think I died and went to heaven.

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Delicious Deco green in a classic tile combo...one of the reasons I get homesick for LA

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This room. The perfect screen by the fireplace. Dying! 

 I have to close up, I just must. You have no idea how close to hysteria this room drives me. 

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Fairly excitable to learn this fabric can actually be bought online and is NOT a scrap but a fully order-able product

 Buy it here

I do have a soft spot for it juxtaposed against red, and might well decorate a room exactly to the specifications of this 1963 Sherwin Williams paint chart picture. I could, you know. 

Yes. Just yes.

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As if this little bohemian kitchen wasn't enough, get the elaborate, fantastical ceiling.

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Only half of the panache but I'm still moving in if at all possible.

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Bit carried away today with the aqua, but I always am. Signing off with a 1988 shot of me in Margie, the best car in the universe. What other color did you expect it to be?