Happy Exclusive Plum Year!

I’m not the kind of person who follows trends. When it comes to fashion and music and home decorating, I march to the beat of my own drummer. But purple is one trend that I’m all over! Pantone recently announced that Radiant Orchid is their 2014 colour of the year. And soon after after, Sherwin Williams announced that its colour for 2014 is Exclusive Plum.

“This dusky, filtered violet is refined without being stuffy, elegant yet easy, and layered with romantic potential.”

Jackie Jordan, Sherwin-Williams director of color marketing.

It just so happened that I had been thinking of repainting the ocean-inspired gallery wall in our hallway purple. The perfect spot to try out Exclusive Plum! What was charcoal grey…

…is now pretty in purple :-)

Oh yeah, feelin’ the purple love! In fact, I was so in love with the colour, I needed more of it! But where… no way was I painting the whole hallway. I did that a few years ago and just about peed myself painting the front entry on wobbly scaffolding with only the chandelier to grab onto if I went down. Nope, not happening. Hmmmmm… there’s no reason why I couldn’t paint one end of the hallway purple…

And now all dramatic and sexy in Exclusive Plum :-)

I love how the purple works with the dark brown doors and the flooring and the colour at the other end of the hallway. And it’s totally satisfied my need to have more purple in my life :-)

What’s your colour of the year for 2014?

Backyard refresh

This spring, I decided that it was time to give our backyard a bit of a refresh. It was looking pretty boring and bland!

I didn’t want to spend a lot of money (well, hubby didn’t want me to spend a lot of money!) and I couldn’t do much about the plants or torn up grass. With three or four dogs playing in the backyard all the time, flowers will be stepped on and the grassless spots just won’t grow back. So I worked with what I had and fixed up what I could.

My colour inspiration came from this stained glass window that I made years ago at a workshhop given by Out of Ruins.

I used paint to breathe new life into things that I already had – planters, candlesticks, a lantern, and a small table. I actually loved the colour of the green table, but the finish had become worn and dull after lots of summers outside.

I used the same Krylon Gloss Purple spray paint on one of the candlesticks that I used on my $7.00 lamp. I got a lot of use out of that can! The other two candlesticks are painted with Valspar Deep Sea Diving and Tropical Oasis.

Thanks to my friend Janet for telling me about the glass floats at HomeSense :-) They’re a nice addition to the planters. And I couldn’t resist the cute glass frog :-) I used some shades of turquoise from PARA Paints on the big planters.

While I was at HomeSense, I saw the turquoise candlesticks and just had to have them :-) And hubby found citronella candles at Home Depot that fit the large candlesticks perfectly. I don’t know if citronella really keeps the mosquitoes away,  but is smells nice :-)

Our old wood Adirondack chairs had definitely seen better days. They were worn and weathered, and the dogs like to chew the arms. I found these plastic Adirondack chairs at Lowes for $16.00 each. They’re the perfect shade of green, and apparently not as tasty as wood ;-)

And of course, there was the patio table that I showed you back in May that’s been waiting to be finished…

I painted the metal on the table Sherwin Williams Oceanside. I used Rustoleum Oil Rubbed Bronze to paint the umbrella base. The tiles on the top are from Lowes. I really want a turquoise umbrella, but we have a brown one that came with the table when we bought it that’s never been used. So frugal wins out – for now! ;-)

I’d love to dress up the chairs and loungers with cushions and add an outdoor mat, but sometimes practicality has to come first. And I know that a cushion wouldn’t last more then 5 seconds before becoming a chew toy! So the backyard “after” isn’t all that fancy, but it’s colourful and as dog-friendly as I can make it, and an improvement over bland and boring, I think :-)

   

Paint chip nirvana: ChipIt! from Sherwin Williams

I just discovered Sherwin Williams Chip It! through one of the Facebook groups I belong to. Chip It! is to colours what Pinterest is to images. You add the Chip It! widget to your browser’s toolbar…

…and then click ChipIt! to create a colour palette for any image. Like this:

Images via: 1.The Lennoxx | 2. Completely Coastal | 3. Houzz

OMG, as if Pinterest wasn’t addictive enough. Thank you Sherwin Williams for turning me into a complete pinning and chipping addict!

And on a totally unrelated topic, I just realized that I have a bunch of comments that are waiting to be moderated – whoops! I opened my comments settings to make a change, and then I was like DUH, how could I have forgotten to check comments on older posts that need to be moderated?! I’m changing that setting right now so all comments get published automatically. So if you’ve left me a comment in the last couple of months and I never visited your blog, please don’t hate me! I’m off to visit you all right now….