Decorating Tips & Tutorials Archives - Blue i Style

Playroom Furniture & Storage Ideas

blueistyle — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 05:00:00 +0000

It’s Week 2 of the New Year New Room Refresh Challenge. Last week, I shared the before photos of the former bedroom that we recently converted into a playroom / hangout room better suited to our growing boys. This week, I’m talking about playroom furniture and how to choose hard working pieces that add both style and function to the space.

Six years ago, I wrote a popular post titled “How to Decorate a Boy’s Bedroom That Will Grow With Him.” In that post, I made a pretty bold statement – I had recently finished designing Beckett’s toddler bedroom, and I said that the space could grow with him all the way into his teenage years, with just a few minor updates. I knew that over time we’d need to swap out the toddler bed, and that eventually he’d outgrow the small reading chairs – but I felt confident that the bookshelves, table, and dresser would stand the test of time.

Well, here we are – six years later… then three-year-old Beckett just turned 9. He now shares the bedroom down the hall with his brother, but, true to my original goal, with just a few changes, we’ve been able to update his toddler room into a hangout room that they boys will enjoy for many more years to come.

You can head to last week’s post to see the before photos and the plans we created for this bedroom to playroom transition (including swapping out the toddler bed for an inexpensive, small couch) – but today rather than focusing on what is changing in the space, I want to instead talk about what is staying the same!

This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase something I recommend, you’ll pay the same price, but I may receive a small commission.

Cubicle Bookshelves For Toy Storage

From the outset, I chose storage furniture that could grow with the boys. Along one wall of the room, I used two IKEA Kallax bookshelves for both book and toy storage. Over the years, the board books have become chapter books, and the toys inside the bins have changed many time, but the function of these shelves and bins have remained timeless.

If you don’t have an IKEA near you, Target has plenty of similar inexpensive cubicle bookshelves to consider, including some with added style features, like faux-cement tops, or two-toned shelving.

Whether you choose the IKEA Kallax or one of the options from Target, each of these cubicle shelf units features 13″ x 13″ openings. Most square storage bins on the market are a bit to small for these openings, but this brand of bins from Target fit perfectly and come in tons of colors and patterns. Here’s just a sample of the options available:

I purchased gray cubes and used fabric glue to create these DIY numbered storage bins. The numbers not only add a fun style detail to the room, but they also help the boys to clean up this space on their own because they know which toys belong in which numbers.

Storage Coffee Tables for Playrooms and Family Rooms

For the middle of the room, we chose a round coffee table from the Land of Nod (now know as Crate & Kids) with two large storage drawers. Over the years, this table has provided the perfect space for the boys to play games, do puzzles, and set up elaborate worlds for all of their animal figures. And since you can never have too much storage in a kids’ space – the drawers double the function of this table.

This coffee table is no longer available, but I’ve found some other great coffee table options with storage that would make a wonderful addition to any playroom or hangout room. For younger kids, I’d opt for a round option to avoid sharp corners.

Now it’s time to check in with the other seven talented bloggers who are also participating in the New Year New Room Refresh Challenge. See what progress they’ve made in their spaces this week…

Casa Watkins Living // Up To Date Interiors // House by Hoff // Our Fifth House // Jeweled Interiors // Blue i Style // Domicile 37 // Delineate your Dwelling

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Colorful and Modern Oriental Rugs

blueistyle — Wed, 18 Nov 2020 08:12:06 +0000

If you’d asked me few years ago if I’d ever add an oriental rug in my modern living room, I would have told you no way. But this traditional style of rug has made a playful comeback in recent years with lots of bold, colorful options.

At the beginning of the year, we repainted our living room walls from teal to gray, and added an entire wall of white book shelves (get the details on how we customized these IKEA bookshelves). After the updates, our living room was feeling a little too neutral for my usually colorful taste. The one thing we hadn’t updated yet was our twelve-year old rug, but it had seen better days and was fraying at all the corners. I decided bold new rug was exactly what the space needed.

I started searching for a colorful and modern rug with shades of pinks and teals – colors I like to incorporate for all the seasons. After scrolling through a lot of geometric patterns, I was pleasantly surprised to stumble upon some gorgeous bright and bold, modern oriental rugs. Since I was aiming to give our living room a bit more of a sophisticated feel, as compared to our more casual basement family room, I realized that a more traditional style of rug, but with a colorful twist, would pull the room together perfectly.

While traditional colors for oriental rugs have long included reds, browns, creams, blues, greens, and golds – modern styles feature brighter shades of pinks, teals, blues, yellows, and even purples. These color schemes lend themselves well to modern decorating with oriental rugs.

The rug I chose for our living room is charcoal gray with pink, teal, and just a bit of yellow-gold. You’ll find it first on the list of rugs below.

I’ve rounded up some of my favorite colorful rug options, all of which are very affordably priced in the $150-250 price range (based on current pricing at the time of publication). The list below contains affiliate links. If you purchase something I recommend, you’ll pay the same price, but I may receive a small commission.

Affordable Modern Oriental Rugs

Charlena Abstract Oriental Rug

This is the rug I used in my living room! It's also available with a beige background, which makes the pinks even more vibrant.

Schifflange Oriental Rug

This one is on closeout, so it probably won't be available much longer.

Harrold Oriental Rug

Ashburn Fushia Oriental Rug

This rug comes in fushia, navy, and teal. While the fushia makes the biggest statement, the navy is a perfect balance between bold and subtle.

Brennen Oriental Rug

Savannah Modern Oriental Rug

Sorrels Oriental Area Rug

Medici Salamanca Area Rug

Hillsby Burnt Orange Oriental Rug

Ayush Oriental Area Rug

Indira Oriental Area Rug

Imperial Anatolla Area Rug

Gutierez Oriental Rug

Aromas Oriental Area Rug

Lennert Oriental Area Rug

Indira Violet Oriental Area Rug

Santiago Area Rug

Drusilla Oriental Rug

Ashburn Fuchsia Rug

Medici Valenciana Area Rug

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How to Create Wall Words Using Cricut

blueistyle — Wed, 01 Jul 2020 17:33:58 +0000

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Cricut. All opinions are 100% mine. This post also contains affiliate links. If you purchase something I recommend, you’ll pay the same price, but I may receive a small commission.

A few years ago, when asked to describe my home style in three words, I came up with MODERN. GRAPHIC. FAMILY. While “family” isn’t a style in the traditional sense, to me it means creating a home that tells my family’s unique story. As a result, our decor reflects our shared love of art, music, travel, and fun!

The “family” aspects of our decor typically aren’t things that can just be purchased at the store – they are things that we have designed, DIY’d, or customized to be perfectly “us.”

I talk often on the blog about how I use my Cricut Explore Air machine to organize and label all the things, but I think sometimes Cricut gets overlooked as the perfect tool for creating custom home decor projects. With the ability to cut 100 different materials – including everything from paper and iron-on to cork and bonded fabric – the options are really endless, but my material of choice is almost always vinyl!

I’ve used adhesive vinyl to add a modern detail to an inexpensive bookshelf, to add a “Dressing Room” label to the barn door leading to our closet, and to create a large wood sign in our garage workshop, just to name a few. [See all of my Ciruct home decor projects here.]

But the vinyl projects I get asked about the very most often are the wall words in our kitchen and guest bathroom. Creating wall words is actually one of the simplest home decor projects to make with Cricut, but, because of their large scale, I think it can seem intimidating. Today I want to show you just how easy it actually is, and I’ve got a full, step by step tutorial at the end of this post!

Sure you can buy lots of wall quotes at the store, but they are typically generic, and always smaller in size. If I’m going to put words on my walls, I want them to be meaningful to my family, and I want them to fit perfectly in my space. My Cricut Explore Air allows me to do just that!

In our kitchen dining area, I struggled for years unsure what to do with the empty wall below our high, skinny window. Finally, I came across a quote (author unknown) that perfectly sums up our love of food, travel, and adventure: “If it’s wild and exotic, we’ll either eat it or invite it to dinner.” Using my Cricut, I cut the quote to fit perfectly below our kitchen window, later adding two rows of photos from our travels.

The design of our guest bedroom was inspired by the hotels that Scott and I stayed at in the Greek Islands on our honeymoon. One of things I loved most at Mykonos Grace Hotel was a poem on the wall of the calming blue and white lounge overlooking the Aegean Sea.

I was immediately taken by both the words of the poem as well as the graphic, vertical layout words on the wall, so I add the same quote to the wall of our guest bathroom.

The poem by Gill Nono reads: “The silence of knowing, the certainty of protection, the joy of giving, the smile for no reason, the embrace that is yielding, the look that speaks volumes, the sleep that is weightless, the release of control, the trust of fate, the patience of time, the certainty of right.”

I created the wall quotes in our kitchen and guest bathroom with my Cricut, but both predated my blog so I didn’t have step by step photos and never wrote tutorials for them. I recently decided to add another quote in the boys’ play area, so it was the perfect opportunity to share the simple step by step tutorial.

This wall in corner of our basement family room is a great example of how I love to personalize our decor – with the word PLAY representing four of the things our family loves doing together. We all love going to the theater (my husband is an actor, and my boys also love doing plays at school), we love playing board games together, we love music (and both boys are learning to play instruments), and we love playing and watching sports (well, just watching for me, LOL). The orange Y is covered in paper textured like a basketball, although that’s hard to tell in the photo.

I added the quote from legendary basketball coach John Wooden, “It’s not how big you are, it’s how big you play.” While Coach Wooden was talking about leadership in basketball, I want this quote to always remind our family to keep playing, in every sense of the word.

Here are a few more fun ideas for wall words that are “hidden” throughout our house. The first is inside our guest room closet where I’ve organized all of my wrapping paper and supplies, the second is under the sink in our powder room, and the third is under my sink in the master bathroom.

Ok, now that I’ve shown you some examples of how you can use wall words to design a home that uniquely reflects you family, let me show you just how easy it is to create these large scale wall words using Cricut!

How To Create Wall Words With Cricut

Supply List

Cricut Machine (I used my Cricut Explore Air, but you can also use Cricut Maker or the mini Cricut Joy)
12×24 Standard Grip Cricut Mat
White Removable Vinyl
Cricut Weedin g Tool
Transfer Tape
Cricut Scraper Tool
Level
Pencil

How to Design & Cut Vinyl Wall Words

Measure Your Wall To Determine the Maximum Height or Width of Your Wall Words. In my guest bathroom, this meant measuring from the baseboard to the ceiling, in my kitchen, it meant measuring the length of the window that I wanted the words to fit below, and in the playroom, it meant measuring the distance froxpm the top of the toy box to the ceiling.

Choose a Font for Your Wall Words in Cricut Design Space. Open Design Space and choose the font your want. I always use Cricut Sans because I like a clean, modern font for my wall words.

Size of Your Quote to Fit Your Wall. Since I wanted the quote for the playroom to be in one line spanning the distance from the toy box the ceiling, I typed in the full quote in one text box. Base on my measurements, I knew that the max length of my quote was 48 inches, but I wanted to leave 1″ of extra space at each end, so I set the width of my quote to 46 inches in Design Space. Once I’d set the width, I noted that the corresponding font size was 131.18.

Break the Quote into Sections to Fit Your Mat. With the entire quote in one text box, Design Space will likely warn you that it’s too big for your mat. In order to fit your quote to your 12″ x 24″ mat, you’ll need to separate your quote into two or more lines (using separate text boxes), with each line of text being no longer than 23.5 inches. As you add each new text box, be sure to set the correct font size for each (using the font size that you determined in step 3).

Preview Your Cut. Once you’re done designing your quote, click “Make It” in the top right corner of Design Space. On the preview screen, ensure that your mat size is set to 12″x24″. After reviewing your preview, click Continue.

Cut Out Your Wall Words. Cut a piece of removable adhesive vinyl to fit your mat, load the mat into your Cricut machine, and ensure that your material dial is set to Vinyl. Then begin the cut.

Weed the Vinyl. Once your cut is complete, unload the mat from your Cricut and peel away the excess vinyl from around your letters. Then use a Cricut weeding tool to remove the small pieces of vinyl inside the letters.

How to Apply Wall Words Using Transfer Tape

Reassemble Your Words Into One Continuous Line. Once your wall words are are weeded, you need to cut the text into strips so that your quote can be reassembled in to one continuous line.

Prepare Your Quote With Transfer Tape. Cut strips of transfer tape just slightly longer than your sections of letters. Peel the backing off of the first section transfer tape and apply it over the beginning of your quote, aligning the bottom of the letters with one of the guidelines on the transfer tape. Overlap the end of one strip of transfer tape with the start of the next strip of transfer tape to adhere each line of text together into one long, continuous quote.

Remove the Vinyl Backing. Using your Cricut scraper (a kitchen scraper or the flat edge of a butter knife also works well), firmly burnish (rub) the transfer tape to the vinyl, then flip it over and slowly peel away the blue backing, leaving the vinyl letters attached to the transfer tape.

Mark a Level Line on the Wall. Using a long level and a white colored pencil, mark a few lines on the wall along the distance that the quote will span. These pencil lines will easily wipe away later. If you have white walls, use a regular pencil but make your lines as light as possible.

Align Transfer Tape With Level Pencil Lines. Align the guideline on your transfer tape with the white level lines that you’ve marked on the wall.

Burnish the Vinyl Quote to On the Wall. Using a scraper tool, firmly burnish (press/rub) the vinyl to adhere it to the wall.

Peel Away the Transfer Tape. Slowly, peel the transfer tape away from the wall at a 45 degree angle. If the letters are sticking to the transfer tape, pause and burnish again before continuing.

Wipe Away Your Level Marks. Using a barely damp cloth, wipe away the light pencil lines that you drew in step 11. Then step back to admire your work! You’re all done!

I’d love to see how you’ve used wall words to personalize your decor! Comment below, or tag me in your photos on Instagram @blueistyle.

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How to Paint Laminate Furniture the Right Way

blueistyle — Thu, 07 May 2020 06:16:51 +0000

Back when I was in law school, I bought several pieces of inexpensive, white laminate furniture with the plan to repaint them for my first solo apartment. The only problem was that I didn’t know how to paint laminate furniture, so my simple little DIY plans quickly turned into a big mess with the paint literally peeling off in sheets.

Now here I am, all these years later, looking to upgrade the style in my living room, and what do I decide to do? Buy some inexpensive, white furniture and add some paint. Somethings never change! Not only do I still like to save money any time I can, it’s usually easier for me to get the exact look I want by DIYing.

For my living room project, I chose six Billy Bookcases – the most basic of white laminate bookshelves. But to get the high-end, built-in look I wanted, I decided to paint the back panel of the bookshelves to match our dark gray wall color and to add Ikea Oxberg glass doors in front of the shelves.

Fortunately, this time around I’m a lot more knowledgeable, and I know how to paint Ikea laminate furniture the right way! Turns out it’s actually not hard at all as long as you don’t skip one very important step!

This post is sponsored by my friends at Rust-Oleum, whose products make almost all of my DIY projects look better! This post also contains affiliate links. If you purchase something I recommend, you’ll pay the same price, but I may receive a small commission.

Always Prime Before Painting Laminate Furniture

The first thing you need to know is that, without proper preparation, paint won’t adhere to a laminate surface. Some paints will just bead up on the surface of the laminate. Other paints will go on with a splotchy, uneven finish and the first coat will begin peeling off as soon as you try to paint a second coat.

The good news is that painting over Ikea laminate furniture – or any laminate furniture – is as simple as a coat of right primer!

Choosing the Right Primer for Your Laminate Furniture Project

In order to choose the right primer for your furniture painting project, it’s important to also keep in the mind the kind of paint you’ll be applying over the primer.

Since I wanted the back panel of my bookshelves to match the wall color behind the furniture, I wanted to use the exact same latex paint that we used on the wall. Paired with the right primer, latex paint (which is water-based) is a great option for painting laminate furniture because it provides a durable, smooth finish.

Zinsser Primer for Laminate Furniture

When choosing primer for my laminate bookshelf project, I needed a primer that would stick to laminate and that would accept latex paint over it. I researched each of these three Zinsser primer options to determine which would be best for the job:

Zinsser BIN Primer – This primer is shallac based and sticks to all surfaces – including laminate furniture – without sanding. This primer goes on in smooth, thin coats. It drys very quickly, and it works with any top coat, including water-based latex paint.
Zinsser Bull’s Eye 1-2-3 Primer – This primer is great for lots of projects, and it is my first choice for most wall priming projects {as I talk about in this post}. However, like latex paint, 1-2-3 Primer is water-based, so it won’t adhere as well to laminate furniture without first sanding, and a longer cure time is also recommended when painting laminate.
Zinsser Cover-Stain Primer – This is an oil-based primer. Oil-based primers provide great adhesion. I’ve always been taught that, as a general rule of thumb, you shouldn’t paint latex over oil-based paint or primer. However, this Cover-Stain Primer accepts both oil-based and water-based topcoats.

After researching these three primer options, I narrowed it down to the BIN and Cover-Stain Primers for my bookshelves, since both would provide good adhesion to the laminate surface. Further research indicated that the oil-based Cover-Stain primer is much thicker and might require some light-sanding before painting the top coat in order to get a really smooth finish.

The Best Primer for Laminate Furniture

Since I’m all about making projects as simple as possible, the shellac-based BIN Primer was the winner for my project. It provided the best combination of good adhesion, quick dry-time, and the ability to paint latex over it with no sanding needed.

How to Paint Ikea Laminate Furniture in Two Easy Steps

Once you’ve picked the best primer for your project, painting Ikea laminate furniture is a simple two step process that can easily be completed in an afternoon!

SUPPLY LIST

STEP 1: How to Prime Laminate Furniture

For my bookshelf project, I used 1 quart of Zinsser BIN Primer to prime the back panel of 3 wide Ikea Billy Bookcases, 3 narrow Billy Bookcases, as well as 12 total Billy Bookcase height extension units.

We began by unboxing all of the bookshelves and separating the back panels from the other pieces. After unboxing and sorting the various pieces, we flattened several of the cardboard boxes to cover the floor and kitchen table instead of using a drop cloth.

Once we had all the back panels laid out, we were ready to start priming. We poured the Zinsser BIN Primer into a paint tray.

The BIN Primer is very thin. We found that using a foam roller gave us a very smooth, even coat while also minimizing splattering. With two of us working together, it took us about 25 minutes to prime all of the bookshelf sections.

This primer dries very quickly, so later that same afternoon, we were ready to start painting.

STEP 2: How to Paint Laminate Furniture

After allowing the primer to dry, we were ready to start applying the first coat of paint to these Billy Bookcase sections. We used the leftover latex paint from painting the dark gray walls in our living room.

The latex paint went on very nicely, and we could immediately see that it was adhering well to the coat of BIN Primer. I always recommend applying two thin coats of paint, rather than one thick coat. This will give you the smoothest, most even finish.

Once again, with both of us working together, it took less than half an hour for us to paint each of the bookshelf sections dark gray. A few hours later, we applied our second coat of paint to complete the job. You can see that, thanks to the base coat of primer, the paint looks great!

Ikea Billy Bookcase Makeover

The following day, after allowing plenty of time for the latex paint to cure, we were ready to start assembling the Billy Bookcases. The painted back panels went in last.

With the bookshelves fully assembled, you can see how the dark back panels, combined with the glass doors, elevate the style of these inexpensive Ikea bookcases and give them a more built-in look wrapping the corner of our living room.

I had a lot of fun filling the shelves with our books and lots of souvenirs from our travels.

I really love the contrast of the dark gray against the white! Adding a little paint to the back of the shelves is a simple Ikea Billy Bookcase hack with a big impact! Now that you know how easy it is to paint Ikea laminate furniture with the right primer, would you give this look a try?

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT PAINTING LAMINATE FURNITURE

Q: Do you need to sand laminate furniture before painting?

A: You’ll find some people who recommend that you sand laminate furniture before painting. The idea of sanding to scuff up the surface to give it a little bit of grit for the paint to stick to, but this won’t yield the best results.

Laminate finishes are very thin, and you can easily sand through to the engineered wood below. If you do sand, you need to do so lightly by hand – don’t use an electric sander. And even if you do sand lightly, you’ll still use primer in order to ensure the paint will adhere properly.

Using the Zinsser BIN Primer that I recommend above, you can paint laminate furniture without sanding, saving you the extra time and effort! Don’t create more work for yourself!

Q: Is there any way to paint laminate furniture without sanding or priming?

A: Like most rules, there’s always an exception, so YES, you can paint laminate furniture without sanding or priming IF you use the right kind of paint. You can skip the primer if you are painting laminate furniture with chalk paint. I’ve had good luck using Rust-Oleum Chalked on several furniture projects, and it comes in about 25 color options and has an ultra matte finish.

I opted not to use chalk paint on my bookshelf project, because I wanted to use the exact same color paint as our walls. But if you’re interested in trying chalk paint for your laminate furniture project, see how I used Rust-Oleum Chalked to turn a laminate printer stand into a stylish bar cart with no sanding or priming. I’ve also got tips for painting an Ikea dresser with chalk paint.

Q: Can you stain laminate furniture?

A: It’s important to understand the difference between laminate furniture and wood veneer. Laminate is a man-made, plastic-like finish. Laminate can NOT be stained. Wood veneer furniture, on the other hand, has a thin layer of real wood that is bonded to a less expensive surface (like MDF of particle board).

Because wood veneer does have a layer of real wood, it can be sanded and stained. However the veneer is usually very thin – often an 1/8th inch or less – be very careful not to sand too aggressively, and always sand with the grain of the wood.

Q: I’m painting something different. How do I know if I need to use primer?

A: This is a great question, and one I get asked a lot. Primer can make your paint projects easier and provide better finished results. Primers make painting easier by promoting topcoat adhesion, providing better coverage, blocking stains, blocking odors, and more. I wrote a post titled When and Why to Prime Before Painting that should tell you everything you need to know.

The post How to Paint Laminate Furniture the Right Way appeared first on Blue i Style.

How to Choose the Perfect Gray Paint for YOUR Home

blueistyle — Wed, 12 Jun 2019 20:08:00 +0000

One of the most common requests I get from friends, family, and clients alike, is for help choosing the right shade of gray paint. Each and every time, I know they aren’t going to like my answer, but I have to give it them, and to you straight… there’s no one gray paint that looks good in every home!

Despite a million blog posts out there claiming to have found the “perfect gray paint,” the truth is that the perfect shade of gray for my home may be totally wrong in yours. And more frustrating still – the color of gray paint you love in your living room, might be all wrong in your bedroom!

I wish it were as easy as giving you a fool-proof list of gray paints to choose from, but I know from experience that it just doesn’t work that way.

Just when I think I’ve got it down to a short-list of reliable recommendations, I walk into a friend’s house with my favorite gray paint sample boards, and sure enough – none of them are right, and we have to go back to square one.

But don’t worry, I can still help!

**Instead of making a list of the “best gray paint colors,” I’ve got some tried and true tips to help you pick the right gray paint for YOUR room!**

First, it’s important to understand why it’s so hard to pick gray paint.

A trip to the paint store will lead you to a wide array of swatches with “gray” in the name – but when you start to compare them side by side, it may seem like you’re eyes are playing tricks on you because soon none of them look gray at all!

I could go on for days about all the reasons why this is true, but let’s just review a few quick factors that affect paint colors. If you’d rather skip straight to my step by step tips for picking the right gray paint for your home, click here!

Understanding Paint Undertones, and Why It Matters

Paint colors are created by combining more than one color together, and as a result, all paint colors will have both a mass tone and an undertone. Mass tone is the first color your eye perceives – it’s what allows you to scan the giant wall of paint swatches and start picking out colors right off the bat.

The undertone is basically the hint of another color that’s mixed with the mass tone – and the undertone can completely make or break your color choice. The better you are at seeing the undertones, the easier it is to start narrowing down your color choices. Undertones can be harder to perceive at first, but there are some tricks to help.

Look Down the Color Card to Find the Undertones

Paint swatches with multiple shades on one card make undertones much easier to pick out. When you first start to look at the wall of color swatches, you’re eye may be drawn to a row of light gray options…

But when you take a wider view, looking down the color cards, and even to the next set of cards in the same columns, other colors will start to jump out at you. These colors are the undertones of those light grays near the top of the cards.

While those undertones might not seem readily apparent when looking at the light gray colors in isolation, when painted on a whole wall, these undertones will make themselves know as the light changes throughout the day, and when paired with other colors in the room’s decor.

Don’t Look at Paint Swatches in Isolation

Sometimes you don’t have the benefit of seeing multiple shades on one color swatch. Some paint collections and paint brands instead offer swatches with single colors, making it harder to see the undertones at a glance.

In this case, choose a selection of different grays, and lay them down together. When you see all these seemingly-gray grays side by side, you’ll notice that they don’t just look gray any more.

Undertones are typically cool (blues, greens, purples) or warm (yellows, oranges, reds). If you’re still struggling to figure out the undertones of your grayish paint swatches, try comparing them to something you know to be a true beige or a true gray.

Whether a warm or cool gray is right for you depends on a number of factors, including the lighting in your room. So let’s talk about that next.

Understanding How Light Affects Paint Colors

Just like the undertones of paint colors are described as warm or cool, light is also described as warm (yellow) or cool (blue). In your home, you have both natural light and artificial lighting sources. Both are equally important to take into consideration when choosing a paint color.

Natural Light Is Impacted By the Direction of Your Windows

The following is true for those living in the Northern Hemisphere. For my Australian-friends, the opposite will be true of northern and southern windows.

North-Facing Windows: Rooms with primarily north-facing windows will get lots of cool, blueish light consistently throughout the day. North-facing rooms typically call for paint with warmer hues to help balance out the cool, shadowy light. Avoid gray paints with cool undertones in spaces with northern exposures. The cool northern light will make gray paint with blue undertones look very blue.
South Facing Windows: Rooms with south facing windows will get the most direct, high-in-the-sky light throughout the day. If you are lucky enough to have lots of south facing windows, it makes picking paint colors a bit easier because this light works well with both warm and cool tones.
East Facing Windows: Rooms with east facing windows will get lots of warm, yellow light in the mornings as the sun rises in the sky, and then in the afternoon, as the sun moves west, the light through these windows will be much cooler (bluer).
West Facing Windows: Rooms with west facing windows will get minimal, shadowy light throughout the morning, and will then be bathed in warm, yellow light in the afternoons as the sun moves lower in the sky.
How to Strike a Balance in East and West Facing Rooms: As a general rule, gray paints with warm undertones typically look best in east-facing rooms during the afternoon and evening hours, and in west facing rooms, cool toned paints can help balance out the very warm late-day light. But in either of these scenarios, you’ll have the opposite light in the morning. If the room is used all through the day, a gray paint with less dramatic undertones will be the most versatile choice for a neutral appearance from morning to night.

Light Bulb Color Temperature Also Affects Paint Colors

Like natural light, the artificial light produced by light bulbs varies from warm yellow to cool blue.

Shopping for light bulbs, and understanding how they’ll look in your home, has become much easier since manufacturers of LED light bulbs have started listing the color temperature (indicated in Kelvin) right on the packaging. The higher the the degrees Kelvin, the cooler the color temperature.

LED Light bulbs are primarily broken into three color groups:

Soft White / Warm White Light Bulbs (2000K-3000K) – The light produced by these bulbs ranges from orange to yellow-white in appearance. These bulbs will accentuate warm undertones, while muting cool undertones. A “greige” paint that straddles the line between gray and beige will lean much more beige in this warm-toned lighting.
Bright White / Cool White (3100K-4500K) – These light bulbs produce a more neutral light, with light bulbs around 3500K being the most neutral. As the color temperature starts to approach 4000K or higher, light bulbs will have a slightly blue tint that will begin accentuating the cool undertones in gray paints.
Daylight (5000K-6500K) – The light produced by these bulbs are intended to mimic daylight, but they have a very cool, blue-white appearance. This color temperature is most often used in retails stores, hospitals, and offices. These bulbs are great for task lighting in garages and work spaces, but can produce a bit of an institutional feel that isn’t well suited for most living areas of the home.

Paint Sheen Affects the Appearance of Color

There are many factors that go into choosing the right paint sheen for your room, including durability and easy of cleaning, but since we’re talking about lighting and color, I’ll limit this discussion to how paint sheen affects color.

Gloss and Semigloss – Gloss and semigloss finishes reflect the most light, which can make a color appear darker.
Flat – Flat finishes absorb light, which can make a color appear slightly lighter. Additionally, flat paint finishes often have a chalky-appearance when dry.
Matte and Eggshell – Matte and eggshell finishes provide a balance between glossy and matte that usually result in the the truest match to their swatch colors.

Don’t Rely On Paint Recommendations or Photos

The dramatic impact of lighting is exactly why I cringe every time I read a blog post where someone says, “this color is the perfect gray paint because it has no blue undertone,” but then they proceed to recommend a paint color with a strong yellow undertone. That paint color might be “perfect” for their house, but those same yellow undertones might not work at all in your home.

Likewise, I have a favorite gray paint that doesn’t look at all blue in my house with mostly south facing windows, but when I tested it in a client’s home with north facing windows, it looked downright baby blue.

Also, keep in mind that colors often don’t look accurate in photos – because of the lighting in the picture, the way the photo was edited, or the color settings on your phone or computer screen. So even if you find a photo of a gorgeous room with gray walls that you love, remember that the photo may not be an accurate representation of the paint color, let alone how it will look in your home.

This is why it’s so important to pick your own paint colors, and below are some tips to help you do just that.

How to Pick the Right Gray Paint for YOUR Home

1. Always Look at the Paint Swatches In Your Own Home

Now that you know how lighting affects colors, you can see why it’s impossible to choose a paint color when you’re at the store.

Choose a Variety of Paint Swatches. Here’s where those recommendations from friends, bloggers, and magazines can come in handy. Grab paint swatches in each of these colors… just don’t stop there. Choose a wide variety of paint swatches and take them home before you start to narrow them down.

Pick Both Warm & Cool Swatches. Even if you think you already know that want a warm or a cool undertone, bring home samples on both sides of the spectrum. I’ve had lots of clients confident that they want a warm gray-beige or a cool greenish-gray, who end up picking something entirely different once they see them in their home.

Look at the Swatches In the Room You Plan to Paint. Once you get the swatches home, take them the room that you plan to paint. Look at them during the day with just natural light, and put a little star on the colors you think you like best.

Then look at all the swatches again at night and make another mark to indicate the those you like best under the artificial lighting in the room. Try to get it down to 4 or 5 swatches that you think have the most potential.

Don’t Look at the Colors in Isolation. In addition to comparing the color swatches to one another {which helps you to identify undertones}, make sure to also compare the color swatches to other items in the room to avoid undertone mismatches.

If you’re painting a bathroom for example, be sure to see how the various colors swatches look next to the tile, the countertop, or the cabinets. If you’re painting a living room, hold the color swatches up next to the couch, pillows, and/or rug. If you already have some gray elements in the room, you don’t have to choose a paint that’s an exact match, but you should avoid shades of gray that clash with one another.

Consider the Existing Finishes in the Room. Also take into consideration the color of wood floors, baseboards and door trim, or carpet. You need to consider whether you want to accentuate the existing color-tones or whether you want to use paint to balance out the these elements in the room.

For example, if you want to modernize a house that has lots of yellow or red-ish wood tones, consider choosing a cooler gray paint. Or if your house has modern elements that are a bit too stark for your taste, consider more of a warm greige (gray-beige) to give the space a cozier feel.

2. Buy Small Paint Samples of the Colors You are Interested In

After looking at lots of paint swatches in the room you plan to paint, and after narrowing it down to 4 or 5 colors you think have potential, you’re ready to buy some color samples.

Each paint brand and store will be different, but purchase the smallest quantity you can of each paint color you have narrowed it down to.

My favorite local paint shop has an entire wall of 2 oz. sample bottles in almost every color in the Benjamin Moore paint deck. The Sherwin-Williams paint shop in my area, however, does not offer samples like this, but they will mix a sample quart upon request. With many paint brands, you can also order color samples online for convenience, as long as you don’t mind waiting a few days.

One thing to keep in mind, however, is that these color samples {whether it’s the mini bottles or the sample quarts} will typically be mixed in a base that is different from the actual paint you will ultimately purchase. As a result, this sample will give you a very close representation to the final paint color, but the sheen of paint you ultimately choose will have an impact on how the color looks once it’s on your walls. {See the discussion above about how paint sheen impacts color.}

3. Create Paint Sample Boards

Once you have all of your color samples, you’re ready to create some sample boards. My local paint store sells thick, white sample boards, but white poster board (with a flat finish) or white foam core work just as well.

Pain Multiple Coats, and Leave a White Border Around the Edges. To make it fast and easy, I use foam brushes to paint each of my sample boards. I paint at least two to three coats, and I leave about a one inch boarder of white around the edge of each sample board (very roughly – no measuring or straight lines. I then use a Sharpie to label the bottom corner of each sample board so I can keep track of the colors.

You might be asking, why spend time creating sample boards? Why not just paint the samples directly on the wall? There are two reasons why this is so important: (1) If you paint samples directly on the wall, the existing paint color under it and around it will affect how you perceive the new paint colors; (2) The lighting in the room will be different on each wall (which is addressed by step 4, below).

The affect of the paint color under your sample. If you’ve ever repainted a room, then you know that it can take several coats of paint to cover the old color. If you paint only a thin sample swatch on your walls to test the new colors, there’s a good chance that the existing color will show through a bit, affecting how the color looks. On the other hand if you paint several thick coats of your sample color in swatches on the wall, you run the risk of leaving ridges on the wall that will show up later when you go to repaint the whole room.

The affect of the paint color around your sample. There’s an important color theory called metamerism, which basically {in very unscientific terms} means that your eyes will play tricks on you and see color differently based on what’s around it. In this case, if you paint a color sample directly on your wall, the way your eyes see that color sample will be psychologically impacted by the color immediately around it. To get the truest representation of the color, you need to see it against a white background, which is why I leave a white border around each of my sample boards.

4. Look at the Sample Boards at Different Times of the Day and on Different Walls

Once your paint sample boards are ready, use painter’s tape to tape them up on the walls of the room you want to paint. Start by taping them all on the same wall {so that you’ll see them all in similar lighting}, and then look at them at different times of the day – in the morning light, midday, late afternoon, dusk, and at night under artificial lighting.

As I talked about above, the light in any given room will change dramatically throughout the day, and that natural and artificial light will affect the colors differently. This is why it’s so important not to just look at the samples once and make a decision.

Also remember that natural and artificial light will work together during certain times of the day, especially in the summer when dusk lasts a long time. Turn light bulbs on even during daylight hours to see what the paint colors look like.

Don’t forget that the shadows and light will be very different on different walls of your room. If you look at a sample board hanging on a wall opposite a window, for example, it will have a lot of direct light shining on it. If you hang the same sample board on a wall that doesn’t have any natural light shining on it (next to a window, for example, instead of across from it), you’ll notice that the color will look quite different.

5. Be Patient and Don’t Settle

I know this may seem overwhelming! There’s a reason that gray paint is so hard to pick, and a reason that so many people end up unhappy with their color choice.

As much as I’d love to tell you that there’s one great shade of gray paint out there that looks good in every home, it’s just not the case, and it takes some leg work to pick the one you’ll like best in your home.

No matter what color you choose, it’s appearance will change throughout the day. The goal is to choose a color that you love during the times of day you will us the room most frequently, while making sure you won’t hate the color for half of the day.

And don’t forget that you have some control over the light in the room. The window coverings you chose can help to soften overly-bright daytime light.

If you love the color of the paint during the day, but not under artificial lighting, you can always change the light bulbs to a different color temperature. Once you decide which light bulb color temperature you like best in the room, be sure to make a note of it so you can buy the same light bulbs next time!

While it can be really tempting to want to pick one color for the whole house, don’t assume that the same color will be perfect in every room. Your living room and bedroom windows might face opposite directions, for example. If you are painting more than one room, be sure to look at the sample boards in each different space. Even if you want the whole house to be painted in a neutral light gray, there’s no rule that says you have to pick the exact same shade of gray in every room (although I wouldn’t paint different shades for adjoining spaces, like a living room and kitchen).

If you go through the effort to create sample boards of four of five different paint colors, and still none of them are right, be patient and try again with different colors.

While paint is relatively inexpensive, and you can always repaint if you hate it, the time involved or the cost to hire a painter is significant. It’s much better to take the time to choose a color you have confidence in.

How to Pick a Paint Color with Confidence

While this article talks specifically about how to choose a gray paint, you can follow this methodology to pick any paint color. The same principals about undertones and light will apply to any color you choose, and following each of the five steps above will help you to choose a paint you love for your home – no matter the color!

The post How to Choose the Perfect Gray Paint for YOUR Home appeared first on Blue i Style.

Home Office Ideas for Small Spaces

blueistyle — Thu, 17 Jan 2019 19:55:00 +0000

I dream of turning our basement bedroom into a dedicated office, but for now it’s just a gathering spot for all the stuff cast out of other spaces in our home – in other words, it’s a mess!

Eventually I’ll make time to tackle that major project and create my dream office space, but in the meantime, I’ve been doing most of my work sitting at the kitchen table or on the couch, which isn’t the best for my productivity. I needed a better place to focus on my work, so I recently decided to claim the desk in our guest room as my own mini-office. I was able to pack tons of function into this small space bedroom office.

A DOUBLE DUTY NIGHTSTAND DESK

When we picked the furniture for our guest room years ago, rather than matching nightstands on each side of the bed, we opted instead for one nightstand and one small desk. I wanted our guests to have a comfortable place to write or set up their computer.

Instead of a chair, I chose a {surprisingly comfortable} bamboo stool in place of a chair because it can be easily tucked out of the way under the desk. I originally styled the desk with a small lamp, a few boxes filled with notepads, pens and pencils, and a couple of candles. Many guests have used this mini-desk over the years, but until recently, I had never used it myself.

How to Create a Home Office in a Small Space: Nightstand Desk Bedroom Office Ideas

I’m so thankful for the ability to work from home and for the flexibility it gives me to balance my business and family life… but sometimes that balancing act results in things getting a bit mixed up. I really needed a solution to prevent my blog and client paperwork from getting mixed in with all of our family mail and papers, and to keep my business deadlines separate from our family calendar. And I really needed to get my butt off the couch so that I could get my work done more efficiently in the limited hours I have to myself.

Since guests only visit once in a while, I realized there was no reason I couldn’t claim the desk in the guest room as my own the rest of the time. I partnered with my friends at The Container Store to create a super stylish and functional command center for my business, complete with ample space for all my files, notebooks, office supplies, and even a dry erase calendar. Best of all, it looks stylish enough that when guests visit, they won’t feel like they are staying in an office!

This post contains affiliate links for your convenience. If you purchase something I recommend, you’ll pay the same price, but I may receive a small commission.

This little desk only has one small, shallow drawer, so I needed to add more storage on the desktop while still leaving enough room for my laptop and work. I found a great stacking system that allowed me to get a drawer, letter trays, and a desk organizer all in less than one square foot of space. And if I need more space in the future, I can easily add more drawers or letter trays to this stack.

Currently, I’m using the drawer for all of my business tax receipts, but, in the future, I may get the drawer dividers that are made for this drawer if I decide to use it for other supplies. The letter trays I used for files, planners, and notebooks.

The desk organizer, which sits securely on top of the letter trays, holds my most frequently used office supplies, including my favorite pens, highlighter, scissors, thank you notes, and washi tape, which I use for sealing envelopes and creating tabs on notebook pages.

A pretty, acrylic and gold tape dispenser does double duty as a bookend that keeps my blog and client binders in place. And I’m using a pretty blue and white porcelain bowl as a non-traditional business card holder.

I have to pause for a moment to gush about how much I love these mini three-ring binders that I use for my blog business and client projects! I use the lined paper inserts for notes and the graph paper inserts to sketch out organizing and design plans. The size is perfect for tossing in my purse when I’m headed to a meeting or a conference, and there are tons of other options to customize these binders with dividers, calendar pages, index tabs, address book pages, pockets, to do lists, and more!

I used damage-free picture hanging strips to hang a dry erase calendar on the wall above the desk. I primarily use an online calendar system to keep track of all the things, but I like having this visual calendar hanging above my desk where I can see a quick overview of my editorial calendar and client meetings at a glance. The calendar is also magnetic, so I can hang up notes or business cards as reminders of things that need follow-up.

I still want to create my dream craft room and home office in the spare bedroom in our basement, but that’s not in the budget right now. In the meantime, this mini-desk is such an improvement! My business papers are now organized rather than mixed in with our family paperwork in the kitchen, and I’m much more productive at the desk than sitting on the couch!

I’ve often heard that you should avoid creating a home office in your bedroom because it doesn’t allow you to separate your work from your rest and relaxation, but I also know that not everyone has the luxury of extra space and a dedicated home office. Whether you need to create a functional work space in your bedroom or in a guest room, like I did, I hope that these home office ideas for small spaces are helpful!

ORGANIZE YOUR OWN SMALL SPACE HOME OFFICE

Below are links to all the products I used to organize my files, notebooks, and office supplies in a small space. I love that these components are stackable, so you can add more drawers or more letter trays to fit your specific needs. The drawers and letter trays also come in both landscape and portrait configurations, so you can change the orientation to best fit your desktop space.

HOME OFFICE DESKS FOR SMALL SPACES

Whether your are looking for a desk that doubles as a nightstand to create a bedside office, or you just need an office desk for a small space in another corner of your home, here are some great options to consider:

The post Home Office Ideas for Small Spaces appeared first on Blue i Style.

The Most Popular Organizing and Decorating Ideas

blueistyle — Fri, 04 Jan 2019 17:40:00 +0000

You’ve probably heard the saying that you have to look back to move forward. I think this is true on many levels, and it’s how I always like to start the year.

When it comes to the blog, I find it really helpful to look back at the most popular posts from the prior year to see which projects resonate with you – the readers – so that I can create more of the types of content you want. And on the personal side, as I plan my project priorities for the coming year, I like to reflect on the spaces in our home that I love, as well as those that aren’t working.

In today’s post, I’m rounding up the most popular organizing and decorating posts of they year, and I’m sharing some of my major plans for 2019.

THE 10 MOST POPULAR ORGANIZING & DECORATING IDEAS OF 2018

1. Water Bottle Storage

Sometimes the quickest organizing projects can have the biggest impact on our daily lives. The cabinet with all of our water bottles used to be a source of daily stress for me! Every time I opened the cabinet door I would flinch expecting a bottle to come tumbling out at me. I finally found a super easy solution that everyone in the family loves … and you guys loved it, too because it claimed the spot as the most popular post of 2018!

2. How to Redecorate a Bedroom Without Replacing the Furniture

I think this post was so popular because it’s something we can all relate to. You’ve got a room you’d really love to redecorate, but there’s just no money in the budget to buy all new furniture. I hear this all the time from readers and clients alike. In this post, I walk you through the process of giving a room a completely new look without replacing the furniture.

Here an example of two other bedrooms I’ve redecorated without replacing furniture: Modern Master Bedroom Makeover | Light and Bright Client Bedroom Makeover

I also helped a client stay on budget by giving their living room a completely new look without replacing their large, brown sectional sofa.

3. Stylish Home Gym Ideas for Small Spaces

If getting in shape is one of your New Year’s Resolutions, then this is the post for you! I prefer to work out at home, rather than paying for gym membership that I can’t fit into my busy schedule most days, but I hated to the look of my workout equipment in the corner of our guest room. This is, until I came up with some simple and budget friendly ways to give it makeover. Now my small space home gym is much more functional and blends in perfectly with the decor of the room!

4. Budget Friendly Sewing Room Ideas

My friend and neighbor has the most adorable sewing room packed with tons of smart organization ideas, including a dollar store solution for fabric organization that I just love! This space proves that you truly don’t need a large space or big budget to create a stylish and organized sewing room.

5. Maximize Storage Space with Over the Door Organizers

I’ve heard it said that you don’t need more storage, you just need less stuff. It’s true that we could all benefit from a good purging session, but let’s be honest, sometimes you really do need more storage! My best organizing advice when you’re short on space is to take advantage of every available nook and cranny, and the 21 square feet of prime real estate on the back of your doors is one of the most commonly overlooked storage spaces!

6. Modern Dining Room Makeover

This project had some stops and starts as we struggled to find just the right furniture on our budget, and dealt with back orders and other delays. But the wait was totally worth it because our updated, modern dining room makes me so happy! From the comments I’ve received, you guys especially love the added storage, the super budget friendly chairs, and the new gallery wall. What a coincidence – those are my favorite parts, too!

7. Install a Wall of Garage Shelving & Drawers

Our organized garage makeover has been one of my most popular posts of all time, but one questions kept coming up over and over. You guys wanted more about how we installed the wall of garage shelving and drawers, so I wrote a post with all the details!

8. How to Organize School Papers and Display Kids Art

If you’ve got school papers and kids’ art piling up, you’re not alone. We can’t keep everything, but it can also be hard to let go. I’ve discovered that we’re better off keeping most of their art and papers until the end of each semester, and then when we sort through it after a little time has passed, it’s much easier for them to choose just their favorites and the work they are most proud of. I came up with a solution that is working for us, and you guys seem to love it to!

9. Toy Storage that Can Grow with the Kids

The holidays are over and there are SO MANY new toys! It’s a perfect time to purge and donate toys that kids have outgrown, and to come up with a new toy storage plan that will grow with the kids! In this popular post, I show you the toy organizing solutions I created for a client, and share lots of tips for organizing toys in any space.

10. BEHIND THE SCENES OF MY BHG PHOTOSHOOT

And last, but not least, you guys loved hearing the behind the scenes details of my photo shoot with Better Homes & Gardens. Being featured in the magazine was definitely one of the highlights of the year, and all the kind messages I received for you guys made it even better. Later in the year, I was also named a BHG Stylemaker for 2018, and I recapped my trip to NYC for the Stylemaker event in this post.

WHAT I HAVE PLANNED FOR 2019

Sometimes it takes more than one try to find an organizing system that works for your space and is easy to maintain. In 2019, one of my resolutions is to identify why the prior systems didn’t work in the perpetually disorganized corners of our home, and to come up with a better plan for each!

At the top of my list for 2019 is reorganizing my master closet, reclaiming the basement bedroom that I used to use an office (before it became a dumping ground everything in the house that didn’t have a spot), and finally finishing the decor in our basement family room to make it a cozier and more functional space.

What’s on your priority list for 2019? How can I help? Let me know what challenges your facing when it comes to decorating and organizing your home so I can write posts that will help you create and organized and pretty happy home that your whole family can enjoy!

The post The Most Popular Organizing and Decorating Ideas appeared first on Blue i Style.

Modern Gallery Wall Idea: Photos with Rounded Corners

blueistyle — Thu, 20 Dec 2018 12:16:00 +0000

When you have a large space to fill, scale is key! We have a lot of high, skinny windows throughout our house, and figuring out how to fill the space below them has been one of my biggest design challenges. In the kitchen dining area, I left the wall blank for ten years because all the art I tried just looked dwarfed by the scale of the wall. Finally, I came across an inspiration photo of an office where an entire wall was filled with three rows of oversized, black and white photos and it occurred to me that I could create a similar look with two rows of large framed photos below the window in our dining area.

DETERMINING YOUR FRAME SIZE AND LAYOUT

I love the look of floor to ceiling gallery walls. Of course, in this instance I couldn’t go all the way to the ceiling because of the high window, but I did want to fill as much of the wall space as possible.Start by measuring both the width and height of the space you want to fill, but don’t forget to take into account things like light switches and electrical outlets. I originally wanted to take my gallery wall all the way down to the baseboards, but realized I needed to stop a bit higher to avoid covering the outlet that you can see in the photo below.

Once you have your measurements, start shopping for frames options. For a gallery wall of this style, don’t go smaller than 16″x20″ frames, and the bigger the better.

Measure the outer dimensions of the frames. Remember that the size listed on the frame will be the size of photo it holds, not the size of the frame taking into account the frame width and mat. Take a measuring tape with you, and measure the outside dimensions of each frame. Then use the calculator on your phone to determine how many frames of that size you could fit across your wall, and what space that would leave between the frames. Aim to fill as much of the wall space as possible, leaving no more than a few inches of space between each frame. I ended up with 20″ x 24″ frames and 16″ x 20″ photos.

Stick with Even Rows. For a gallery wall of this scale, stick with frames lined up in even rows and columns. More organic or staggered gallery wall layouts can be beautiful, but they don’t work as well when you are aiming to fill a floor to ceiling space. {Read tips for creating an organic gallery wall around a television}

Where to buy large frames for a gallery wall. When buying lots of large frames for a large gallery wall, the cost can add up quickly. I thought about buying the frames at IKEA because the price is always right, but then I remembered that large frames at IKEA have thin plastic in place of glass. While I don’t mind this for some purposes (it’s actually ideal in a kids’ room, for example), I’ve noticed that you can often see a bit of a ripple in the plastic when it catches the light. I was afraid this would detract from the sophisticated and streamlined look I was after, so I needed frames with rigid glass rather than plastic. I found the best balance of price and quality at Michaels, where they put their wall frames on sale for 50% off fairly frequently. These are the frames I ended up buying.

CHOOSING PHOTOS FOR A MODERN GALLERY WALL

I wanted my gallery wall to have a modern and sophisticated, streamlined look, so I opted to convert all my photos to black and white. I love family photos, but they feel more appropriate to me in family rooms, bedrooms, and even hallways. For dining areas or more formal spaces, I prefer photos that double as art. Images with graphic elements and architectural details are ideal for making a statement without requiring you to look to closely at each photo in order to appreciate it.

The idea of choosing photos can feel overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. Start by creating a new folder on your computer and call it something like “Gallery Wall Options.” Then begin quickly scanning through your folders of photos from your travels. Looking through photos at thumbnail size is a great way see which photos have elements that catch your eye right away. If a photo needs to be viewed larger to appreciate it, it’s probably too busy for your modern gallery wall. When a photo catches your attention as a good possibility, copy the photo and paste it into your “Gallery Wall Options” folder. Move quickly and don’t overthink it at this point.

Once you have a bunch of photo options copied over to your new folder, you can start to narrow it down further. Since I knew I wanted all of my photos to be black and white, I went ahead and converted all of the photos before forming any opinions. Once I could see all of them together in black and white, I was able to start picking out the photos with the best contrast and composition.

Using photos that you’ve taken will make the gallery wall much more personal and meaningful, and will make it a conversation starter. Just make sure that the photos you choose are high resolution, so that they will remain crisp when printed at a large size. And don’t forget that, when working with high res images, you can always crop in closer on a detail of the photo.

ROUNDED PHOTO CORNERS FOR A CUSTOM LOOK

To give my gallery wall a more custom look, I wanted the corners of the photos to be rounded. My first thought was to have mats custom cut with rounded corners, but for 10 mats of this size, it was going to be too expensive for my budget.

Since I couldn’t afford to get custom mats cut, I instead used Photoshop to round the corners of the photos before printing them. Then I trimmed the excess white from the corners of the photos and mounted the photos on top of mat board to achieve the same look without the custom price tag. I’ll show you exactly how I did it, step by step.

Use Photoshop to Round the Corners of Photos. I’ll show you how I rounded the corners of my photos in Photoshop, because that’s the photo editing program I use, but I am certain you can do the same thing in most photo editing software.

Start by opening your photo and adjusting the dimensions to the size you want to print your photo (for me, this was 16″ x 20″). Created a new image (CTRL+N) that you’ll call “Rounded Corners Template” and set the dimensions to the same size.

Then select the “Rounded Rectangle Tool” …

… and use the “Rounded Rectangle Options” to set the fixed size to the same as your photo (for me, this was 16″ x 20″). Then set the radius of the rounded corners – you can play around with the radius size until you get the exact look you like. I chose a rounded corner radius of 400 px.

With those settings, draw a black rounded corner rectangle onto the white background.

Under the “Layer” menu at the top of the Photoshop window, choose “Flatten Image” to merge the black and white layers together.

Now click CTRL+C to copy this rounded corner rectangle template, and then paste it on top of the photo that you resized in the first step.

Finally, select the Magic Eraser Tool …

And click on the black rounded corner rectangle erase the black and reveal your photo behind it. The only thing that now remains of the top layer are the white corners.

Save your photo, and it’s ready to be printed. Repeat these steps for each photo – paste the black rounded rectangle template on top of each photo, use the magic eraser tool to erase the black and leave just the white corners, save, and print.

Print the Photos. I printed all of my photos at my local camera store (Mike’s Camera) because I knew they’d produce the high quality prints I wanted and I could pick them up the next day. You can also print large photos at your local drug store, or order them online through a site like Shutterfly.

Trim the Photos. I used a pair of sharp, fine tip scissors to carefully trim the white corners from each photo, leaving me with perfectly rounded corners. If you don’t want to go to the trouble of adding these white corners in Photoshop, you could certainly just print the photos and “free hand” the round corners, but photo prints this size are not cheap, and I didn’t want to take any chance of messing them up, or not having the corners look smooth and symmetrical.

Cut Mat Board to Fit Frames. Rather than adding mats around my photos, I planned to mount my photos on top of white mat board. I bought 5 large, white mat boards from Hobby Lobby and was able to cut each in half to fit perfectly inside the frames.

Position Photos on Mat Boards. Next, I need to find a way to position each photo exactly in the center of the mat board. My mat board was four inches larger than my photo, so I needed to position the photo with two inches around it in each direction. To make it quick and easy, and to avoid measuring every time, I decided to make a template. I used the piece of brown kraft paper that was wrapped around my roll of photos when I picked them up from the store, and I used a ruler to measure and mark two inches in from the top and the side of the paper.

Mount the Photos to the Mat Board. I lined my kraft paper template up with the top right corner of the mat board and then lined the top right corner of the photo up with the pencil line. Then I used photo mounting squares to attach the bottom corners of the photo to the mat board. With those corners secured in place, I removed the template, and added more mounting squares to the center and top of the photo. I used a total of 8 to 10 mounting squares per photo. The mounting squares are acid free, so they won’t damage the photo over time.

Frame the Photos and Hang the Frames. Once all of the photos were attached to the mat boards, I put the mats into the frames and I was ready to hang my gallery wall. I’ll do another post in the near future about the easiest way to hang frames in perfectly straight rows.

Hanging a gallery wall below the windows was the perfect solution for this space!

Now instead of just seeing a big blank wall when you look across the dining table, the view is so much more interesting. I especially love the way the black and white photos and white mats look against the dark gray dining room walls. The mats provide just the right amount of contrast, while the monochromatic in black and white give the dining room a very sophisticated feel.

Save the image below to Pinterest so you can find you way back to these gallery wall tips and instructions for creating the rounded corners. You can also follow my Gallery Walls with Style board on Pinterest for more modern gallery wall ideas.

The post Modern Gallery Wall Idea: Photos with Rounded Corners appeared first on Blue i Style.

Affordable and Modern Gray Dining Chairs

blueistyle — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 00:34:00 +0000

I have a love/hate relationship with shopping for home decor. I love looking at ALL the options and I start designing a room around each in my mind. When I’m shopping to buy, and not just shopping for the the imaginary rooms that I dream up, it’s usually pretty easy for me to zero in on the one. But when it turns out that the one is either out of my price range, or worse, is no longer available, I get pretty frustrated. There could be a million other options out there, but once I’ve found what I really want, it’s hard for me to move on to all of those other options.

That was exactly what happened to me back in the spring when I first started planning for the One Room Challenge makeover of our dining area.

This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something I recommend, I may receive a small commission, but you’ll still pay the same price.

I began by searching for a dining table that would meet our needs. Despite feeling like our current glass table was looking a bit dated, a lot of it’s qualities were really ideal for our family. I know a lot of people will say that a glass table isn’t practical with kids – because yes, fingerprints – but overall I found it to be a great table for our family, especially with two art loving little boys. We used markers, and paint, and stamps galore, and I never once had to worry about damaging the table because I could wipe anything off of the glass. And I was never concerned that the kids would push to hard with colored pencils and leave dents in a wood surface.

And let’s be honest, it’s not just the kids who make messes on our dining table. It also serves as a work surface for many a painting and craft project of my own. So when I started shopping for our new table, durability and wipe-ability {is that even a word?!} were high on my list. For the same reasons, I don’t want a rug under our dining table.

Since a rug is out, I couldn’t picture a big wood table in the space on top of our wood floors. This girl can only take so much brown in one space.

Our kitchen dining area is a very long, thin space, so I was looking for a long table that could seat at least 8 to 10 people comfortably. Finally I found a 104″ long, white lacquer dining table of my modern dreams! We already own a white lacquer desk that has proven to be a very durable work surface, so I knew this table could easily stand up to all our art projects. Best of all, I was able to order it during a big sale!

Next I started shopping for chairs to go with the table, and I pretty quickly found the perfect mid-mod dining chairs. Grey upholstery, a bit of wood (but not too much), a black metal for a modern, industrial touch and tie in the black chairs in front of the fireplace. These chairs also come in blue and green upholstery, and there’s a nearly identical chair that comes in white or black leather.

Best of all, my dream chairs were less than $100 a piece. DONE! Only not so fast… the chairs were listed as “out of stock” and my initial research indicated they might be discontinued. Womp! Womp!

What’s a girl to do?! I continued my modern dining room chair search hoping to find something else that could win my heart. I found lots of other affordable, modern dining chairs – including lots of gray dining chairs that I really liked. But all the while, I just couldn’t get “the One” out of my mind. After a couple of emails to the manufacturer, I was told they would be back in stock in early summer. Cue my happy dance! Early summer became mid-summer, then early fall. After lots of nervous nail biting that they wouldn’t arrive in time for the fall One Room Challenge, at long last the chairs came back in stock and 10 of them are now happily in my possession! More happy dancing!!

Now I’ve got a whole Pinterest board filled with my runner up modern grey dining room chairs that’s just collecting dust, so I figured I should share them all with you, because I’m sure my “lets just be friends” is someone else’s soul mate!

STEAL OF A DEAL GRAY DINING CHAIRS UNDER $100

Each of these inexpensive dining chairs are under $100 each, and a couple are even under $50 each. Most are available with free shipping, so these really are steals! Many of these chairs are sold in sets of two, so keep that in mind when you see the prices listed.

AFFORDABLE GRAY DINING CHAIRS UNDER $150

All of these affordable modern dining chairs are under $150 each. So many great options that won’t bust your budget! Again, some are sold in sets of two, so be sure to notice that when looking at the online prices.

MODERATELY-PRICED GRAY DINING CHAIRS UNDER $250

The cost of chairs adds up fast when you’re buying six, eight, or especially ten! These options were all a bit more than I wanted to spend for our dining room makeover, but not out of the realm of what I’d be willing to spend if the style was perfect for my space.

SPLURGE GRAY DINING CHAIRS UP TO $350

It’s so hard to define what is a “splurge.” What’s a splurge to me might not be a splurge to you, and vice versa. Each of these chairs are priced between $250 to $350, but man are they gorgeous!

If you’re in the market for gray dining chairs, be sure to pin the image below so that you can find your way back to this post when the time is right.

The post Affordable and Modern Gray Dining Chairs appeared first on Blue i Style.

How Lighting Affects Interior Design & How to Choose a Color Scheme

blueistyle — Wed, 29 Aug 2018 20:17:00 +0000

This post is sponsored by Babbleboxx on behalf of Soraa.

Whether I’m designing a space for my own home or for a client, selecting colors is always where I start. Sometimes I find a piece of art or a rug that I love, and I build a decor color scheme around that, but more often, I begin by thinking about the mood I want to create in the space, and then I look for color palette inspiration.

HOW LIGHTING AFFECTS INTERIOR DESIGN

When choosing a color palette, it’s important to keep in mind how the lighting of the space will affect the color.

I have helped a lot of friends and clients choose paint colors for their homes recently, and it reinforced for me just what a big impact lighting has on color. For example, the light gray paint color that looks great in my home, which has mostly south facing windows, took on an very baby blue hue when tested in a client’s house with lots of cool, northern light.

This experience has me thinking about the challenge of picking a new color for my home office. Redesigning my office is high on the list of projects that I want to tackle in the near future, but I haven’t been able to decide on a color scheme yet.

Since my office is currently a disaster, in need of both a design and organizing overhaul, I’ve been sitting on the couch in my living room to work most days. From the couch, this is my view looking through the entry way and toward the stairs…

The two walls you can see in the photo are the same color, but it truly looks like they are not. The difference is because there is natural light from our two-story entry windows shining on the wall with the table and art, and no natural light at all hitting the wall at the bottom of the stairs. The blue-ish teal color of the main wall is a pretty true representation of the actual paint color in this room, while the yellowish tone of the ceiling light by the stairs makes the far wall look much more green.

Every day, I sit on the couch thinking how much more productive I’ll be when I get my office back in shape. But I also stare at this color difference get a little stressed about choosing the right colors because my office is in the basement and gets very little natural light. It will by illuminated, day and night, by ceiling lighting alone.

I have been thinking about painting my office walls a crisp white to brighten up the space and give it more of a “studio” feel, but I’ve been worried that standard LED light bulbs will end up casting a yellow glow on the walls, which is definitely not the look I’m going for. We’ve tested cool white “daylight” bulbs in our house in the past, but we’ve found that they are a bit too far on the blue end of the spectrum and give the house a glow that reminds me of a commercial space or hospital. So I don’t think these bulbs would give me the look I want in my home office, either.

I’ve been looking for alternatives to the warm white / cool white lighting dilemma, and recently learned a new term – “full spectrum color.” Soraa Radiant LED is uniquely designed with full spectrum technology that accurately replicates every color in the spectrum. Other LED bulbs have “color gaps,” but Soraa’s bulbs are designed to make colors look the same as in natural light, the way they were meant to be seen.

Isn’t that what we all want?! To decorate with our favorite colors and have the colors look inside our home they same way they would in natural light. Since I’ve been concerned about lighting my basement home office, I decided to try out the Soraa Radiant LED technology in my basement family room to see how it would impact the colors in a space with equally little natural light.

I knew it would be easiest to see the impact if I could compare the colors in the room side by side under standard LED lights and the full spectrum Soraa LEDs. I set my camera up on a tripod and took a photo of our basement fireplace before swapping out the light bulbs, and then again after installing the Soraa bulbs. These are the unedited photos that I took…

The change in the lighting is definitely noticeable in the basement in person, but might be a bit harder to identify in these photos at first glance. It’s easiest to see the difference when you zoom in and look at specific elements of the space. The whites are more pure, and the orange, pink, and red tones are more vibrant and true.

Depending on the size of your computer screen, it might help to zoom out just a bit. Scroll until you can see both pink photos on the screen at the same time, and then so you can see the bottom of the white mats of the framed photo on the screen at the same time.

While the difference is easier to see in my photos when you zoom in, the impact in the space is amplified when it’s all around you. I finally feel free to paint the walls of my office white, knowing that the Soraa bulbs will give me the true white I’m craving, without unwanted yellow or blue tones.

How to Choose a Color Scheme

Since I’m a color lover, white office walls won’t mean that I’m creating a neutral color scheme. Instead, I envision the white being a backdrop to let my love of color go wild. I feel confident knowing that Soraa’s full spectrum technology will bring out the vibrant colors in whatever art, rug, and accessories I choose. This will help me create the cheerful space I’m dreaming of, and make me happier in my new office despite its basement location with little natural light.

Ok, so now that I’m ready to let my love of color run free… how will I select the colors for my office?

I sometimes get stuck thinking of the same color combos over and over, either because I’ve used them before, or because they are trendy and on display in every store. Fortunately, fresh color inspiration is everywhere – in art, in nature, and even in urban landscapes.

One of my favorite ways to think beyond current color trends is to draw color inspiration from some of my favorite travel photos. I’ve created some sample color palettes that I’m considering, and I hope some of these may inspire you, as well!

COLOR PALETTE INSPIRATION: Blue Domes of Santorini

COLOR PALETTE INSPIRATION: Cape Town Bo Kaap District

COLOR PALETTE INSPIRATION: South African Winelands

COLOR PALETTE INSPIRATION: Beverly Hills

COLOR PALETTE INSPIRATION: Alhambra Tile

COLOR PALETTE INSPIRATION: Greek Sunset

COLOR PALETTE INSPIRATION: Granada, Spain

COLOR PALETTE INSPIRATION: Pink House

Which color palette do you like best? Are there any of these you would consider using to create a color palette for you own home?

The post How Lighting Affects Interior Design & How to Choose a Color Scheme appeared first on Blue i Style.