Farrow & Ball's The Great Outdoors

The world renowned and personal paint favourite, Farrow & Ball recently held a competition to find the world's most beautiful exterior door.  I thought this was a really fun competition and a great PR exercise for the company.  I should add that I did not enter my own front door, as sadly, it hasn't seen a decent lick of paint, F&B or otherwise for a few years.  However, the competition did make me consider how this part of our home gets overlooked for the more lived in and visual areas and also the trend for painting exterior doors is slowly and surely overtaking the trend for natural looking, hardwood options.  I'm rather pleased since I'm all for injecting personality and individuality to our homes and elicit some property envy and head turning from the local residents.

Despite there being a £1,000 cash and Hunter Wellington boot prize for the winner (which was voted for by the public), F&B only received around 350 entries, which again I think is indicative of the lack of effort we are putting in to our entranceways.  So here is the winning entry, a rather spectacular Georgian property with an equally fancy door painted in Railings, complete with a very cute, colour coordinated cat.  I love how these colours look as they are sympathetic to their surroundings.

You can see the top 20 entries on the Farrow & Ball website.  Be warned, there are some beauties.

http://www.farrow-ball.com/the-great-outdoors/content/fcp-content

So what colour is your front door, and do you love it or wish it belonged to somebody else ?

Why purple makes me blue

I struggle with the colour purple when it comes to interiors.  It seems to be a hard one to get right.  In principle it's a wonderful, rich colour - great when it comes to flowers and minerals and may be fashion for example.

Having done a little bit of research on the colour, to try and understand what goes on emotionally and psychologically, I've discovered that because purple is a very rare colour in nature, it can be considered artificial.  Nature is very important and inspires me so that explanation makes some sense.  The folks at color-wheel-pro.com say dark purple evokes gloom and sad feelings and can cause frustration, so based on this explanation it's perhaps understandable that I don't feel 'at one' with it.

I wonder whether it's because of the vast options in tones, shades and hues.  The pale powdery lavenders and pretty feminine lilacs are undeniably simple to use within a scheme and are easier to live with. Done well, deep indigos and violets offer a moody dramatic version although difficult to pull off. Farrow & Ball's Pelt or Brinjal are smart handsome colours that I'd really like to see, being F&B you'd expect them to do well in a scheme.

I spent a couple of hours looking through my interiors magazines and the internet to find an inspiring purple interior that would dispel my views and found nothing.  But.... I know that I've thought about this many times before and upon review of my Pinterest boards, I found it, a purple interior I pinned recently that I absolutely love.

Credit - Lauren Sodolak

 Why do I love it?  Because it is a risky and unusual vivid purple that's then seemingly overshadowed by a mass of gorgeous glowing gold, eclectic furniture and accessories. A combination of shapes, colours, styles and textures.  Sounds so wrong, yet when it's all pieced together, it's absolutely right.

So, that's the answer.  Take a purple and mix it in equal measures with a colour that can stand beautifully on it's own alongside it, then chuck in some eclectic accessories... I'm off to experiment.

The inky journey has begun

It was very quiet in our household this weekend.  I dropped hubby up to Heathrow for his flight to Chicago and with the boys at their fathers, it was the perfect opportunity to get the paint brush out and continue on my quest for a more dark, mysterious and interesting home.

I'd purchased the 5 litre tin of Farrow & Ball Studio Green nearly two weeks ago but it only just arrived at my local Kent Blaxill on Thursday.  I live in a semi-rural town in Essex, so more or less everything you purchase interiors wise that's not so 'run of the mill' has to be ordered in and there's always some delay.  But I've got another possible theory, the guy at Blaxill's just stared at me blankly when I requested the paint colour, I'm not sure there's much demand for Studio Green estate emulsion and therefore it became a special request, not to Blaxill's head office but straight to the top, to Farrow & Ball's.

So, for those that read my blog, I've been banging on about completing this Abigail Ahern inspired endeavour for absolutely ages now.  I have to admit that after the first few slaps of paint were applied, I wondered why I'd started, given that it was going to take at least two coats and at least quadruple that amount if I hated it and wanted to paint it back.

It will take at least another weekend to finish the entire room, but I'm pleased to report that even at this crude stage, it's looking pretty fabulous.  And with my love of all things shiny, my reflective accessories and also the furniture, really 'ping' against the dark background. Everything just stands out and looks cleaner and brighter.  I reckon that's a bonus, me and the furniture polish may not be reacquainted for some time.

Then my mum came over on Sunday and after a couple of minutes of viewing and contemplation, all she said was "you're brave".

Well, it's only paint.