Benjamin Moore Peeps Into Our Bathroom!

The Color Of The Year for 2012 is
(cue the drum roll here) -- Wythe Blue.

From the Benjamin Moore website:

"We have chosen wythe blue (HC-143) as Benjamin Moore’s 2012 Color of the Year. It’s a beautiful, calming hue that has an element of heritage that offers grounding rootedness, providing comfort and stability.  And it's the color of the hall bathroom at That Old House, so of course we had to choose it."

Okay, so maybe that last sentence was tacked onto the real Moore statement.

By me.

But what is true is that Wythe Blue is the 2012 Color of the Year, and it is the color of our bathroom.

 Wythe Blue walls, and White Dove trim.

I love a bathroom with loads of closets.

This bath is 7 x 12 feet, so there is room for furniture in it.

This was a big change for us; all our former homes had teensy baths.

At our last home, the upstairs bathroom was so small that I was afraid to use it when I was

greatly pregnant for fear I'd get stuck and have to call the Fire Department to extricate me.

True story.

The furniture was my Mother's.

An antique washstand, painted blue by Mom in the 1960s, and antiqued with brown glaze.

The ice cream parlor chair also painted blue; my Mom loved to paint furniture.

The paint on these two old dears is naturally chipped and shabby, and that's fine with me.

Wythe Blue is an interesting color.

I find that most women see it as blue, while most men read it as green.

Benjamin Moore tosses it in with the Green family.

Isn't that just like a man?

It is named for the George Wythe House in Williamsburg, Virginia.

(Which I learned when I visited is pronounced to rhyme with the word "with.")

Mr. Wythe signed the Declaration of Independence, and his house may have ghosts.  It's worth a Googling.

Across the hall back here at That Old House is another historic color

from ol' Benny Moore -- Palladian Blue.

This blue is the slightly more anemic tint of Wythe Blue,

and is named for the great Venetian architect, Andrea Palladio.

Mr. Palladio also lent his great name to a style of curved-top window, flanked by smaller windows.

Palladian windows are often called Palladium windows, which is wrong.

It amazes me that even people whose business is houses often use the incorrect term for these windows.

Let's give poor Mr. Palladio his rightful due:  Palladian windows.

And Palladian Blue in our master bedroom.

Our Master Bedroom was pretty grim when we bought That Old House; the wallpaper made me seasick.

If you want to see its transformation, with all the gruesome in-progress pictures, click here.

By the way, Benjamin Moore, about that statement regarding Wythe Blue . . . "grounding rootedness?"

Really?  It's a gorgeous historic color; don't go all touchy-feely new-agey gobbledeygooky on it, please.

It's a shame I don't have any opinions on things, isn't it?  Happy Friday, folks!

I'm picking up a Craigslist desk today.  Pictures to follow!  -- Cass

Link Parties!

At My Romantic Home, it's Show And Tell Friday.  Click here!

Feathered Nest Friday makes its home at French Country Cottage.  Click here!

The Charm of Home features Home Sweet Home on Fridays.  Click here!

It's Vintage Inspiration Friday at Common Ground.  Click here!

Miss Mustard Seed hosts the Furniture Friday Feature.  It's a must visit -- Click here!

No commentsRead more

Furniture, Fabric, and Flattened Flora

My junking trip into the
wild and woolly Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
on Thursday yielded 3 tables and a sweet old rocking chair.

There, in the back of my trusty minivan, is my haul.

This is the junk hunter's equivalent of tying the deer onto the hood of the car.

Yes, I actually took this picture backwards, over my shoulder, into the rear of the van

when I pulled into our driveway.  I am that lazy.


In my defense, I'd spent a lot of time on the road in Pennsylvania that day,
traveling at 12 MPH behind vehicles like this (the big green thingy):

I don't snap pictures while I'm driving, but the big green thingy had stopped.  I guess for a rest.
Therefore, so had the line of cars behind him, including me and Red Minnie, my van.

Anywho, the tables and chair are a little ... ummm ... cleanliness challenged,

so they won't be coming into That Old House until they get the spa treatment outside first.

Then we'll see what else they need.

******************************************

So Thursday was an excellent day. 

A successful junking trip into Pennsylvania, and then when I got home --

FedEx had delivered my fabric samples.  Yay!

I showed you the patterns in Monday's post.  (Click here.) 

#1 was the clear winner among the comments left on that post.

So let's see how it looks in real life, in the Pink Bedroom!  Please pardon the lousy indoor lighting.

 As is usual with samples, most of them were eliminated right away,

so I narrowed it down to #1 and #6, with the striped #9 as an accent if we use #1.  

Also briefly in the running: #3 and #4, but they were quickly eliminated.

That's #1 on the left -- a scattered old-fashioned roses print.

#4 all the way on the right -- nice color, but the fabric is very stiff and would not drape well.  Out!

#3 is on the left -- too many red tones, not enough pink.  Otherwise a really beautiful fabric.

So here is #6.
Yes, there is a lot of it.  I ordered a yard because the pattern is so huge.
Here, it's draped over the loveseat.

I am cuckoo about this fabric, and I'd sign on for it now except --- I'm not sure it's right for this room.

Fabric #1, which is a linen-type cotton and has a soft, antique, muted look, might be better.

Less dramatic, but maybe a look we can live with longer. 

  It also goes really well with the striped accent fabric.

 But if I use the cottage-y looking, more restrained linen-y roses fabric, what can I do with the big peacock fabric?

I left the Pink Bedroom in a funk. . . and then looked down our second floor hall and realized,

"Hey!  There are other rooms up here!"

Want to see a part of That Old House that no one has ever seen before?

Here it is, below.  The room our daughter Anne has dubbed "The Cell."

It's the same size as our hall bath, and also the walk-in closet for the master bedroom.

We aren't sure what these 3 rooms originally were -- since the house was built before bathrooms --

but they may have been small bedrooms, nurseries, hired-man rooms, or even box rooms.

It's about 7' x 12' and is in its original, as-found state; we haven't stripped paper and painted in here yet.

 Eventually I want a pretty daybed in here, and make it a cozy spot for reading or napping,

and a small single guest room to use in a pinch.

But I can't see Giant Peacock Fabric in here, can you?  Talk about system overload.

So, we move on to the Master Bedroom, where the walls are painted in Benjamin Moore's Palladian Blue. The curtains in here are quite restrained, a yellow and blue toile from Greef with a Chinese look.

 Yes, that's also a rice-carved bed, similar to the one in the Pink Bedroom.

Hey, what can I say?  I found two on Craigslist.

How can you not get them when you find them for $200 or less?

Now, let's bring in the Giant Peacock Fabric, our #6 from last Monday.

 Ah . . . the background of #6 matches the Palladian Blue wall color.  Well, what do you know?

This is what it would look like if you were tipsy.

But -- do I want to introduce pink into the Master Bedroom?

Must I consult with Howard about taking such a step or can I act,

as Hyacinth Bucket would say, unilaterally?

Stay tuned.  Any suggestions or opinions are very welcome!

***********************************************

Now about that Flattened Flora in the post title . . . 

These below were upright Autumn Joy Sedum before the snow hit.

Would you believe we still have snow on the ground here and there?

 Along the sunroom foundation, the sturdy little wax begonias have finally fallen.  Squashed by the snow.

Last weekend that our big lilac was cut in half by its trunks breaking off with the weight of the snow.

But even our great big Forsythia, usually such an

enthusiastic mound of psychodelic color in the Fall, is looking a bit downtrodden.

I hold out hope that come Spring, our perennials and bushes and trees will

have all sprung back and recovered.  Let's hope for a mild winter!

Have a lovely weekend!  Howard is going flying,

and I am putting on my Mad Scientist lab coat and experimenting.

 Double, double toil and trouble, Fire burn and cauldron bubble ... Cass

Link Parties!

At My Romantic Home, it's Show And Tell Friday.  Click here!

Feathered Nest Friday makes its home at French Country Cottage.  Click here!

The Charm of Home features Home Sweet Home on Fridays.  Click here!

It's Vintage Inspiration Friday at Common Ground.  Click here!
Miss Mustard Seed hosts the Furniture Friday Feature.  It's a must visit -- Click here!

And it's Fertilizer Friday at Tootsie Time.  See what's still blooming, or not!  Click here!

No commentsRead more