Pantone Color of the Year 2014

Pantone's color for 2014 is Radiant Orchid.

Or as I like to call it, the color of my upstairs bathroom.

Which I painted 2 1/2 years ago.

Am I the only one who doesn't see Pantone as setting the trends but capitalizing on them? Honeysuckle Pink was the last one that seemed real. Tangerine Tango was an obvious grab at product placement, complete with Sephora tie-ins. It felt really forced, like they picked this color just because it would make a good lipstick. Did they get a new CEO or something? And then with 2013's color, it was so obvious - emerald was already popping up all over the place towards the end of 2012.

So yeah, not surprised at all that 2014's color is purple. It's the hot color right now and I LOVE it in my bathroom (makes my eyes look so green!), but purple isn't exactly new. House Beautiful has been featuring purple for years now. Apartment Therapy picked up on that back in 2009. And this year, many designers are realizing that they do actually like purple after all.  Two of my favorite blogs, Bossy Color and Centsational Girl, both did posts on purple this year.

Next year, I hope Pantone steps it up and picks a color that will start a trend, not copy one. Otherwise, they're basically just Andy from The Devil Wears Prada.

my lavender bathroom - pictures!

I did it - I painted my bathroom last week. And though I said I would wait on pictures until I was finished, I love the result so much that I just couldn't help myself. It's a little weird to have done my northern-facing bathroom in sunset colors, but I do love the warmth it gives the room at night. Once afternoon rolls around, the whole room & hallway just glow. And then the lavender is really lovely in the icy morning sun - and helps bring out the green in my eyes. This color just makes me happy.

The shower curtain's packaging was made out of the same peach as the top row with ruffles of the the middle pink and lighter purple, which made picking out a paint color so easy. I was able to do it right in the middle of Home Depot - no coming home to check colors, second-guessing myself and putting off the whole project for another two years.

And see? The shade is perfect. If the curtain had another row of purple, it would be Behr's Sweet Petal.

The icy northern light IS beautiful, but it's only so-so for getting detail pictures with my point-and-shoot camera. But you get it, right?

I also painted all of the trim in Ralph Lauren Picket Fence, leftover from painting my living room. One day all of the trim and all of the doors in my house will be this shade of white. It's perfect. Crisp and clean but still with a bit of life to it. And can I just say how much I ADORE Ralph Lauren paint? It was a bit thick after sitting in my shed for two years, but still went on smoothly (after much mixing) and was so much easier to apply than drippy, thin Behr. Really wish Home Depot still carried it, but I'd drive an hour (or order online) to get some more Picket Fence.

I've never really taken pictures of my bathroom before so even though my cabinet set-up isn't new to me, it is new to you. It really makes me happy to use decorative items to hold my everyday supplies - and makes this open shelf a lot more attractive. Plus the stained glass pieces were presents, which makes them extra pretty in my eyes.

Obvs the mini galvanized bucket (found online for 99 cents!) holds my cotton swabs and then the Liberty for Target canister hold cotton balls and the votive holder captures hair elastics, barrettes and tweezers.

And what a fun coincidence that the canister matches my new walls! You know what else matches? Everything in my shower. Yup - my shampoo, conditioner, body wash, body puff, shave gel AND razor are all shades of pink and purple. I swear this was not planned - but I do wonder if I was unconsciously influenced?

I love the way my bathroom turned out. I don't even mind the wrinkles in the shower curtain - and anyway, they are slowly falling out with each shower. Overall, it is just a happy, fun and spirited room. Just what I needed.

a lavender bathroom?

If you follow me on Twitter, you'll know that I bought this shower curtain from Anthropologie on Friday. It's GORGEOUS. Bright and fun and makes me think of salsa costumes from Dancing With The Stars or So You Think You Can Dance. Love it.

And it's inspiring me to paint this room. I kept checking it out all weekend, trying for inspiration. The current white is a bit stark. Gray could be an elegant choice - and it certainly would be safe. But I'm not one for safe paint choices. And anyway, I kept coming back to lavender.

Lavender? Really, Debbie? Wouldn't it look like rainbow sherbet? Or a kid's bathroom? Possibly, but the heart wants what the heart wants. So yesterday I took the package for the curtain (made out of the same peach cotton as the top row with ruffles of the darker pink and lighter purple - so cute!) to Home Depot and bought a gallon of Behr in Sweet Petal. It's on the pink side of lavender and has just a touch of gray in it. I think it will be perfect.

Don't believe me? Check out these pictures I grabbed from Pinterest:

Think I'll want to update some of the accessories in this room once the lavender is actually on the walls so it may be a while before you see the finished product, but I'm pretty excited to get started!

upstairs bathroom

I think I've figured out my upstairs bathroom. At the beach this summer, I decided that I should make it the same teal blue as the pool tiles at Amy's mom's complex. Back home, I realized that it would be much too dark and I settled on Freshaire Midwest Spring. It's a lovely shade of pool-water blue-ish green. Perfect.

And then this weekend, I found this shower curtain at Target:

 

It's crinkled polyester silk and looks like water. Reminiscent of Restoration Hardware's Silver Sage, which almost makes me not like it. But it's lovely and the right feel for my bathroom so yeah, I like it.

It's just a shade darker than the walls, which I like so it's not too matchy. The hem is a bit longer in the middle than the edges, but I don't really care about that and need to hem it about 1/2 an inch anyway so can fix it then. I've thought about raising the shower bar, but then that would take away some of the light from the window and I'm all about light.

I also got towels that match the walls perfectly, but the bathmat was actually a slightly darker shade so I'm going to return that and get a fluffy white one. I put down the one from my old apartment and love the white, but it's a bit too small and is quite dingy from years of use.

On the wall I think I'm going to hang my 2007 Bonnaroo poster. The background is black and I'm going to have it framed with a white mat and silver frame, which will be a nice contrast to all the pale aquas in this room.

updates of decorating ideas

Paint:

I cashed in my AmEx points for Home Depot gift cards and am going to splurge on Ralph Lauren paint. From what I've read, it's much better than Behr and it's a heck of a lot more convenient for me than Benjamin Moore.

Living room: Have decided to go with a more turquoise blue. Believe it is Blue Island.

Upstairs bathroom: Light Sky

Powder room: Harbor

Kitchen: Racer Pink

Woodwork: Picket Fence

Furnishings:
Bedroom: ordered a magenta coverlet from Crate and Barrel and it should arrive tomorrow. I still don't know what color to paint the walls, but I do know that I don't want to keep my current soft blue duvet. And I'm not so sure that a bold color is right for the walls. I'm leaning towards either a sunshiney cream or maybe a cameo-ish pink. Something soft and more like the morning light. And even if I don't like the coverlet, at least it will get me further down the road of figuring out what I DO like!

Living room: bought a mirror for $25 yesterday at Ross! Super excited about this. It's a bit oversized but not huge and a square-ish rectangle. Very simple black frame and a 1/2" bevel around the edge. Figure I'll put it up as is for now, but maybe will paint or silverleaf it in the future? And if I don't like it there, I'll just put it somewhere else. It's so simple and basic and cheap!

Dining room: think I've decided to go with the Martin chairs from Ikea. I'm going to head over there this weekend to try them out and, if I like them in person, to buy 4. My original plan was to buy unfinished chairs and either stain or paint them, but really - I'm never going to get around to that and in the meantime the chairs will get all beat up. I like that these are black - I think it will be a nice graphic element for the room and I really like that they stack. Because they really aren't my ideal chair, but they'll work for now. And then once I do get my ideal chair, I can stack these up in the attic and just pull them out when I need extra seating.
Fingers crossed that they're comfortable!

And I really want a new dining table. I have one from Ikea that I bought 11 years ago to use as more of a desk. It's unfinished and I need to stain or paint it, but it's fine. It seats 4 people but is a rectangle so there's room for my larger plates and serving dishes.

But what I reeeeally want is a dropleaf table. The middle section would be wide enough so I and one other person could have a simple meal with it closed, but the sides would come all the way down so it looked more like a sideboard. Then I could open up the sides and it would seat 6-8 people for a dinner party or to play a board game or whatever. I've found several on ebay that are going for between $600 - 1,000 so this is definitely something I need to save up for. And, of course, check out local shops and craigslist. But I'm excited to know it's out there!