Today I came across Alcro‘s brand new paint collection and Graham & Green‘s Autumn 2011 Catalogue. The themes were so similar it must be honored a post: Greys & beiges! These are pics from Alcro’s ad.natur paint collection. It’s inspired by something that makes us humans feel good: nature. Claiming that neither whites nor bright colours can give the calmness and harmony of beiges and greys.

I tend to agree. Last winter we painted our Stockholm-White bedroom beige (F&B’s Matchstick) and I still love it. It enlivened the room and make the perfect backdrop. One thing to keep in mind speaking of nature colours though, is that nature is also the dark blue sea beyond the beach, the field of flowers next to the industrial building and the drab green and rusty brown trees and hues in the forest. Nature has been endowed with the most amazing colour splashes and schemes. So could the decor :)

Moving on to the G&G Catalouge, it again strikes me how well beiges and greys – or  grey plus sand/beige/blonde wood – go together. I think it’s a really cozy vibe going on here. And there’s room for even more flower meadows and lush plantations…

I think colour theory is really interesting. Like how and why colours affect the perception of a room and what colours do when you put them together. Such as the thing with warm and cold colours. Broken down illustratively, the warmth of a colour is associated its redness and yellowness while the coolness has to do with the blue- and greenness. Like hot fire and cool ice! That’s the simplest part, though it has a grey area; like the lukewarm beige borderline cases (I have btw finally settled for a beige paint hue!). Furthermore, the “coldness” of a colour tends to increase with the whiteness/lightness, while the hottest colors are fairly strong. And they affect room space as well: warm colours seem to invite us whereas cold ones distance, they have a depth effect. Anyhow, how you perceive a colour is always determined by its surroundings (and of course its gloss and texture etc): A colour is perceived as warm or cold on the basis of how it relates to the surrounding colours. This interaction can for example cause a red-violet hue to appear warmer if it is placed next to a cold colour, such as blue, or colder if it is placed next to a warm colour, such as orange. The greater the contrariety the greater the effect. Since carrot-orange is such a trendy colour right now, I think these temperature-balanced interiors make the perfectest point.

Bedroom design by Jonathan Adler via Style at home and bottom pic via Design*Sponge (the wall colour is Benjamin Moore’s Blue Stream and the door is Pumpkin Spice.)

So, I had decided for beige walls in the bedroom (or we had, but my intended was onboard the black walls-boat and the wallpaper-boat aswell as this my latest proposal..) Isn’t beige the beigest word in English! Sounds terribly blah and weak. Well it’s not, it’s the new white and a loved child is given many names the Swedish saying goes so how about tan, cafe latte, camel, champagne, khaki, beach, oatmeal, sand and almond to mention a few. Anyhow, it’s one of the most difficult colours to find the right hue of. We bought and tried 11 sample pots. From Farrow & Ball, Alcro and Måleributiken mainly. None of them fitted this specific room. Too dark, too yellow, too red, too beige. The Stockholm-White walls, in all light-directions, transformed into a patchwork of beiges:

OK, so you got 11 small paint cans of imperfect beiges on your table. What would Pippi do? Yupp, make her own blend! So, I took five generous table spoons of the best match, Joa’s White (“J” in the pic). Added a spoon each of the two second bests (lovely colours but not perfects here); Stony Ground and Savage Ground (“FB”, “SG”) I stirred briskly. To lighten this blend a bit and introduce some red to balance out the yellow I added a teaspoon of Måleributikens almost-white powder-rose (left overs from painting the xmas candlestick-lamp) and a teaspoon of Alcro’s Strand (“AS” in pic) I finished off with one more touch of Joa’s white. Stirred it and served the wall. Wait to dry and another layer. Next day: Perrrrrrfect! :) So we took it (painted on a stick) to my fav DIY-store K-rauta. They put my sample under a machine and the nearest shade as per the NCS standard was 1505-Y30R.

The visual blackness is 15 %, and the colour strength (chromaticness) is 5 % (in scale 0-100). | y30r | indicates the ratio between the two chromatic properties y (yellowness) and r (redness) on a scale from 01-99 (0 means that color alone is yellowness as indicated by only y and 100 means that the color has only redness as indicated by just an r). So it’s yellow with 30 % redness. Hence a light, warm-grey-beige colour with a reddish-yellow hue.

1505-Y30R is one classic Swedish “latte colour”!!! Recommended in several Swedish house & home discussion boards! Widely popular. That’s what happens when you go Pippi Longstocking with Farrow & Ball paint..:D Am I complicated or what?!

Now I’ve only seen this paint without daylight, but sofar I join the chorus of praise for 1505-Y30R – it’s an excellent choice :) Need advice on beige paint? Just ask ;) And as for our walls, case isn’t closed…yet.

Update: In daylight, in this particular room, 1505-Y30R was far too pale, almost lilac. Next step was to research the NCS-colour system – which (theoretically) lead me to the hues S1005-Y30R, S1510-Y30R and S1510-Y20R. The first-mentioned colour was too pale, next too yellow, third too red/warm. Conclusion: the NCS – Swedish colour standard system – couldn’t help us here. And all F&B paints are inbetween the NCS-picks; with only “Lime White” being close to a NCS, S1005-Y20R. Lesson taught? Go for a ready-mixed hue. So we’ll buy a few more samples to get the right one:)

Spring news! Farrow & Ball paint is, we say deservedly so, world-renowned for their purity and depth of colours. This British Paint God today introduced nine new colours to their palette. The 2011 colours range from neutrals to moody greys and takes on a mild and serene scheme. When the muted shades come together they are like earthy subdued pastels.

Alongside the warm nude-honey Oxford Stone (no.264) – a nice addition to the range of “New Wall-Whites” -  I think Plummett (no.272) and Mizzle (no.266) are the most interesting news.

Dark grey Plummett is a lighter version of the “amazing grey Down Pipe“. I can imagine this lead-grey doing wonders in a glossy finish. And matte alike. Mizzle is a pale greeny-grey, or as described: a ‘soft blue grey’ that got its name from very British combination of mist and drizzle. This is one of those mysteriously balanced hues that change according to weather and scene. The 2011 news also include Manor House Gray, Dove Tale, Cabbage White, Calluna, Brassica and – this one deserves its own topic later – Charlotte’s Locks. In the neutral/moody palette there’s locks from a very special redhead! Pippi Was Here. She told F&B to introduce a fierce 50′s inspired orange.

I just finished my remake of an old sewing box: A really ugly, scraped, brown and green painted one, bought last summer at a flea market for five bucks. It has been tucked away awaiting better times but when I got a spare paint sample from Henen (of Farrow & Ball’s Downpipe) an idea was born and it got to see light again.

I dispatched the lid and painted it first a round of plain blue and then almost a round of Downpipe (I left out some areas in the back and on one side just for the fun of it). Finished off with some lace around the opening. I keep my sewing tools in a very manly, practical, compartmentalized toolbox – while this box now got a second life as a keeper of flowers in front of the balcony. In Spring I will fill it with pelargoniums.

This weekend we visited our overcrowded store room in the attic (how come storing rooms always so quickly turn into a mess?) on a mission to find stowed away Christmas decor. We found an old electric candlestick lamp in oak. Boooring. But look -  a left-over paint sample (powder white) and some plastic lingonberries later:

Can’t light it until Sunday though. Those are the rules.