- Thread starter Nigel Watts
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JoceAndChris
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Coincidentally I've got that wallpaper sample here in that very shade. I agree the Fowler pink isn't quite right, and that a combination of Red Earth for skirting, Ointment Pink for the coving, with stencilled details in Red Earth, would be lovely. I love the idea of the ceiling in Pale Powder, I know it isn't good conservation but if you painted the floorboards in Pale Powder floor paint too that would look great, with towels and bath mats in red earth. Ferns would look stunning in there as well, with china pots incorporating those colours.
Lime
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A decorative paper border is often the only item required to marry old with new.
Plain washable wall (colour gives mood) border gives elegance and harmony.
Plain washable wall (colour gives mood) border gives elegance and harmony.
Oh I'm doing our spare bedroom/study in pale powder with red accessories (bed linen, lamp shade etc) with the chimney breast a shade darker I think it's called Light Blue (which is green really). In the ensuite off this room I'm doing James White on the walls and Light Blue on the woodwork. They're lovely restful shades and go well with red. I've realised it's looking a little bit Art Deco so we've got a few lovely inherited Art Deco ornaments which we're putting in these rooms. Amazingly the last box we opened at my late father-in-law's house (luckily untainted by the burst pipe devastation) contained a complete glass Art Deco dressing table set which will go beautifully in this room - just gotta finish the decorating! I was so pleased to see this set as it reminded me once I went shopping with my late Mum and she hummed and haa-ed over something similar and didn't buy it and kept saying she regretted it.
Sorry Nigel I've drifted off the point but I like the colour schemes!
Juju
Sorry Nigel I've drifted off the point but I like the colour schemes!
Juju
JoceAndChris
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That sounds lovely Juju! I really like all those colours you've picked , and the contrast between red/orange shades with blue/ green shades is always so cheery.
How nice to find the Art Deco things as well.
How nice to find the Art Deco things as well.
JoceAndChris
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Nigel- Just on your point that Victorian decorating manuals say to use darker colours lower down - I think that's great advice. I remember how horrid the purple cornice in the hallway here was, though it was tied to the colour of the wallpaper below dado. Maybe if the walls above the dado had been painted in purple too it just would have blended in, but they were in Jacksons cheapest white gloss with a bit of red mixed in.
Anyway, as you're wallpapering up to the top I think it will be fine to do a red coving, but if you installed a picture rail you might want to rethink it all.
Your post has helped me think through my dining room cornice, which I'd been thinking would be London Clay. But Im now thinking ceiling and cornice in Dead Salmon, plaster section under cornice in Eating Room Red, plate shelf that goes round the room in Dead Salmon, Eating Room red wallpaper, doors and skirting in London Clay, dark brown floor, window in Dead Salmon, shutters in a combination of London Clay and Dead Salmon. Tweed curtains in all those colours.
This means the darker colours will be at the bottom, and hopefully the room won't be too drab when illuminated with silver ware in the cupboard, crystal chandelier, gold mirrors and plenty of candelight. I need to find a Regency style dining table to seat 12 to make it all make sense, then invite everyone.
I'm just finishing the sashes in Dead Salmon and they're looking extremely peculiar after a lifetime of white windows.
Anyway, as you're wallpapering up to the top I think it will be fine to do a red coving, but if you installed a picture rail you might want to rethink it all.
Your post has helped me think through my dining room cornice, which I'd been thinking would be London Clay. But Im now thinking ceiling and cornice in Dead Salmon, plaster section under cornice in Eating Room Red, plate shelf that goes round the room in Dead Salmon, Eating Room red wallpaper, doors and skirting in London Clay, dark brown floor, window in Dead Salmon, shutters in a combination of London Clay and Dead Salmon. Tweed curtains in all those colours.
This means the darker colours will be at the bottom, and hopefully the room won't be too drab when illuminated with silver ware in the cupboard, crystal chandelier, gold mirrors and plenty of candelight. I need to find a Regency style dining table to seat 12 to make it all make sense, then invite everyone.
I'm just finishing the sashes in Dead Salmon and they're looking extremely peculiar after a lifetime of white windows.
Lime
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A couple of general observations picked up over the years.
Wallpaper always makes a room look smaller.
The darker the walls the smaller the room looks.
Very dark colours create almost a claustrophobic feeling.
High ceilings distort perception, particularly of visitors.
Rooms with high ceilings look proportionately less spacious compared to exactly the same sized rooms with modern ceiling height.
Wallpaper always makes a room look smaller.
The darker the walls the smaller the room looks.
Very dark colours create almost a claustrophobic feeling.
High ceilings distort perception, particularly of visitors.
Rooms with high ceilings look proportionately less spacious compared to exactly the same sized rooms with modern ceiling height.
JoceAndChris
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Oh well. I like a dining room to be a cosy, cocooning space, in sumptuous colours - with candlelight and firelight reflected in perspiring silver wine coolers and the only whiteness to be the starched linen. Period properties ( I mean the kind with their interior structures largely intact) of the 18th and 19th C should make use of wallpaper too - nothing is worse than to see them dressed in white minimalism with modern and inappropriate furnishings.
Fortunately wallpaper is right back in fashion, and current, sensible advice being don't try to make a dark room light, celebrate its snugness with exuberant colours and delicious cosy comfort all around.
Fortunately wallpaper is right back in fashion, and current, sensible advice being don't try to make a dark room light, celebrate its snugness with exuberant colours and delicious cosy comfort all around.
Nigel Watts
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"There is one general scheme in the achievement of proper decorative effect which should at no time be overlooked, and that is, in like manner as the colours of the cornice should recede as they approach the ceiling, so also should the colours be arranged in regular gradation from the floor upwards. In the adjustment of various colours to their respective portions of the work the skirting should invariably be the darkest, the dado next in depth of colour and harmonising approximately with the woodwork, then the walls in comparatively light tone broken by the contrasting tints of the cornice." J W Facey, 1882
But he also says:
"And here let me correct a too common error. It is usually the case that after the wall-paper of a room has been chosen the painter devotes a great deal of time to an attempt to match the colour of the paper for the purpose of painting the woodwork of the room in a corresponding tint to the walls. Such a course is entirely unnecessary. The true artist instead of matching the paper would at once ascertain the most appropriate contrasting colour, as in the harmony of contrast lies the true talisman of successful decoration."
But he also says:
"And here let me correct a too common error. It is usually the case that after the wall-paper of a room has been chosen the painter devotes a great deal of time to an attempt to match the colour of the paper for the purpose of painting the woodwork of the room in a corresponding tint to the walls. Such a course is entirely unnecessary. The true artist instead of matching the paper would at once ascertain the most appropriate contrasting colour, as in the harmony of contrast lies the true talisman of successful decoration."
JoceAndChris
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Oh heavens. Fascinating, but I'm going to have to do the four rooms I've done over again!
In line with that idea of contrasting woodwork to walls Farrow and Ball's sample room for their new colours show door in Mizzle and walls in Brassica
http://www.farrow-ball.com/?gclid=CI-r_76-6aYCFUEOfAodJDpN6g
I'm not that keen.
In line with that idea of contrasting woodwork to walls Farrow and Ball's sample room for their new colours show door in Mizzle and walls in Brassica
http://www.farrow-ball.com/?gclid=CI-r_76-6aYCFUEOfAodJDpN6g
I'm not that keen.
Nigel Watts
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Joce I am pleased to say that this is just a point of view at one particular time in the past. Fashions and tastes change - Georgians had quite different views for example - but I am currently finding it quite fun exploring these Victorian ideas.
Nigel Watts
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JoceAndChris said:
Could one decorate a dining room entirely with colours named after edible plants or animals I wonder?
Dead Salmon, Duck Egg Blue, Sage Green and Sang de Boeuf perhaps?
What about other rooms?
Penners
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Sounds like the makings of a Heston Blumenthal soup. :xNigel Watts said:
JoceAndChris
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:lol: to Penners' enduring funniness!
I see where you're coming from with this remark, a sort of minimal nod to a historic scheme. But I have spent quite literally days looking at borders, and came to the conclusion that it might even be easier to stencil one than to find what you're looking for. They seem very out of fashion and as a consequence the choice in this country is extremely limited. If anyone has seen any ones that aren't aeroplanes, ballerinas, twee flowers please let me know.
These are very interesting - I'm emailing for a price and to find out if they ship to the UK.
http://www.adelphipaperhangings.com/festoon.html
Lime said:
I see where you're coming from with this remark, a sort of minimal nod to a historic scheme. But I have spent quite literally days looking at borders, and came to the conclusion that it might even be easier to stencil one than to find what you're looking for. They seem very out of fashion and as a consequence the choice in this country is extremely limited. If anyone has seen any ones that aren't aeroplanes, ballerinas, twee flowers please let me know.
These are very interesting - I'm emailing for a price and to find out if they ship to the UK.
http://www.adelphipaperhangings.com/festoon.html
Nigel Watts
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This project, like most I embark upon, have been taking for ever, but here is a progress update:
Neither attempt to get the same blue as the tiles quite worked so I am experimenting with a two tone look. Both are Dulux Trade Eggshell to a bespoke spec, made by my very helpful and friendly local paint supplier (The Colour Centre, Offord Road, Islington - much used by the local trade). Not sure if this will work but I am going with it for the time being. Wallpaper sample on the mantlepiece.
Door, window and both surrounding architrves will be in F&B Matchstick (a deep cream). Skirting boards and cornice in colours matching the wallpaper (the darker in the skirting and the paler in the cornice). Ceiling (not shown) is Pavilion Blue, a very pale slightly greeny blue.
Neither attempt to get the same blue as the tiles quite worked so I am experimenting with a two tone look. Both are Dulux Trade Eggshell to a bespoke spec, made by my very helpful and friendly local paint supplier (The Colour Centre, Offord Road, Islington - much used by the local trade). Not sure if this will work but I am going with it for the time being. Wallpaper sample on the mantlepiece.
Door, window and both surrounding architrves will be in F&B Matchstick (a deep cream). Skirting boards and cornice in colours matching the wallpaper (the darker in the skirting and the paler in the cornice). Ceiling (not shown) is Pavilion Blue, a very pale slightly greeny blue.