Pepper Design Blog

Hallway Makeover: Sneak Peek

It’s difficult for me to not let you in on a little bit of the action that’s been going on over here. You might have read Friday that I have a plan that I’m scheming about for a hallway makeover that is both inexpensive and a little fun!

And as you may or may not have guessed by me ditching the wallpaper or stencil route, I’m winging my own accent wall with a couple of rolls of painters tape and a pair of scissors. That, plus we’ve added a NEW chalkboard section just below my DIY wall that’s separated with a thin 3″ chair rail. Very excited for Liv and her little buddies to draw all over it with heart shapes, stick figures and scribbles! It’s her very own coloring pad that’s available all the time and with plenty of space.

Creating the painter’s tape shapes has been somewhat time consuming. I’ve found that my most productive route is to cut out about 100 of the same shape and then stick them up on the wall asap. I’ve spent a couple of late nights catching up on favorite shows while using my laptop as the temporary pinboard.

I’ve decided to forgo a formal pattern for placing the shapes up on the wall in lieu of a more imaginative and less perfect design. Cutting the tape and applying to the wall has been a big project and I didn’t also want to measure space between shapes (for consistency) or map out a repeat pattern for a more wallpaper-esq look. I’ve found that by picking 4 or 5 basic shapes to repeat, I can have fun with the layout without being a perfectionist (trying very hard to quell the inner urge!)

We have since finished painting and installing most molding in the kitchen (before the appraiser for our refi came a couple of weeks ago!) but here’s a shot of walking into the hallway from our kitchen.

The in-progress pantry (going to be so cool with Kev’s idea of recycling old wooden pallets) is to the right and Liv’s room is straight ahead. You can get a better bird’s eye visual of how the hallway fits into the house by checking out the floor plan here.

This new accent wall is the perfect space for Liv to use as a drawing board while we’re making dinner, etc just beyond, I think it will be a fun learning tool and entertaining spot (and a good alternative to pulling out the tupperware drawer while you’re trying to cook). It’s also a great ‘drop zone’ for coats and boots and bags if I could make some sort of furniture/bench piece work there…

The finished hallway is almost ready to share!

Hallway Makeover: An Idea, A Color & A Challenge

What are your thoughts on wallpapered accent walls? I’m in the mood to give my hallway a good shake up and I’m thinking that one wall covered in a beautiful design would be just the way to mix things up. Plus it’s a hallway, and some how that makes me feel better about committing to an all-over pattern. Funny, I know.

Here’s where the hallway’s located in our house, and that wall that the arrow is pointing to would be my new, fun accent wall:

Originally, I began pulling images that inspired me regardless of color or pattern. The hallway leads to Liv’s room (as well as ours) so I even threw a few kids patterns in the initial inspirational mix. Here’s just a piece of what was in that folder:

1, 2, 3, 4

Please forgive the lack of sources… I am usually really really great about crediting (that the correct person of an idea receives proper credit & that an idea is easy to track down are both really important to me) but many of these images have been sitting in my Wallpaper folder for a loooong time, or sometimes I wasn’t able to find the source on Pinterest (really hope that’s fixed over there soon!). But where I do have credits I definitely included them .

So I had my big modge podge folder of ideas and I began visualizing that future space and I couldn’t shake the color blue. The current hallway is tan, and blue feels fresh and new! Here’s where that train of thought slowly wound me:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

So many choices! And so much looking. I saved my favorites and kept them close by for quick contemplating throughout the day which is a little exercise I often do when I’m super indecisive. But even after much thought into what the right pattern might be, I just couldn’t settle on one (Oh sweet indecisiveness! You and I are best friends).

See more of my journey over on Pinterest.

I eventually decided that I might have a bit more flexibility (and save some serious $) if I gave stenciling a try. Stenciled spaces can be stunning! And that basic block print has always been a look that I gravitate towards. Here are a few of my favorite patterns/inspiration with a stenciled hallway in mind:

Actually, I’m not sure all of the above are stencils. I know that that brown and white wall on the left is from here, but those blue patterns might actually be wallpaper. Either way, I was immediately inspired by the one color + white design look.

I had finally committed to an application and a vision.

Then I read about the winter edition of the Pinterest challenge (a challenge encouraging you to create one of the many items you’ve pinned) and I was set! I have my idea board, I have my project that needs tackling, and now I have my motivation to get. it. done.

The verdict? I’m going to attempt a unique wall pattern that is all my own with a roll of painter’s tape, a chair rail, a quart of black chalkboard paint and a quart of the perfect blue hallway paint. I feel like I’m setting up a magic trick…

See you on Monday!

PS In local home stores in 5 cities (Atlanta, Dallas, Sacramento, Salt Lake City and San Diego) ScotchBlue Painter’s Tape with EdgeLock is offering a buy-2 get-1 free by mail offer until March 12th.  Check it all out here.

Office Makeover: What I’ve Learned About Color

I may have just found my new inspirational color palette for the office.

I borrowed this beautiful boutonniere from Pomp & Plumage and inspired by a color palette from Pinterest, created my own with the office/guestroom in mind. When I first came across the image I adored the color combination and decided that perhaps this is the direction I should work towards (you can see in the bottom final color line up that I’m leaning towards the softer pinks and beiges over the burgundy reds though).

Here she is now, clearly in need of some of those alternative colors since the room is full of teal, tan and brown (the teal is hiding in the window curtains, on the bulletin boards, in the artwork and in the fabric leading back to the kitchen):

Color is not really my thing. I think that in general I have a pretty good eye when it comes to mixing color schemes but sometimes I get stuck (and that leads to a crazy amount of frustration because I can’t pinpoint the problem and then am nowhere near a solution).

But over time I’ve pulled together a resource list from those great design experts (you know, the ones with the degrees in color theory and not business – I am the latter) and I have come to embrace these color strategies:

Color Palette Inspiration

• Nature: color schemes in nature are perfection. They can provide inspiration and always always look beautiful. Nature does not screw this up.
• Room temperature: warm and cool should exist in every room. It’s not a hard and fast rule – you will find all blue or all green rooms and they will be beautiful, but one of the happiest pieces of advice that I have heard and attempt to implement today is to make sure that I balance my cold and warm colors in a room for that overall harmonious feel (you know when you walk into a room and it just feels right? I think this is the secret). Now if only there was the perfect tool to find the right warm orange for the right cool blue.
• Shelter magazines and blogs: color schemes resonate with us when we see them. Pull images from your favorite rooms and dissect to learn what it is about those color palettes that you love.
• Fabrics and photos: pull colors right out of a beautiful swatch of fabric or a favorite photo. They work well there so they’ll work well in your room.
• Fashion: trends in fashion turn into home decor and color inspiration soon after.
• Color wheel: stick to color and use it in various shades (from the lightest light to it’s darkest saturation) – and then head to the opposite side of the color wheel for that ‘pop’.
• Online tools! See below.

A few favorite online tools include:

• Colour Lovers: You can search the millions of palettes for a few specific keywords (I chose teal and brown here) and it offers up hundreds of color combinations to choose from. For those of us stuck in that color rut (why don’t they offer color theory in business school?) it’s kind of a sweet life saver.

• Kate and Katie each shared about their experience with Colortopia and it sounds like a great site to have in that color toolbox. The idea here is that you can upload your own favorite photo and select areas or colors from that image – Colortopia will create several beautiful color schemes for you to play with.

• Elle (a reader) mentioned Design Seeds in the comments, which after checking out I had to add. Maybe they were the designers of the original inspirational palette of that above boutonniere that I saw on Pinterest? What I thought was especially cool is that you can enter a color value (I could use a color directly from my curtain design, for example) into the Palette Search tool and it listed all posted palettes. So neat. Anyway, worth a look:

• Pinterest, Houzz, Etsy & blogs: these are often forgotten about as color tools, but when it comes to online solutions there are few better resources than experts out there that have shared their work. Be it for a party, home or piece of art. Use these experts to inspire good color choices.

Speaking of using alternative inspiration, here’s a wedding shared over at Style Me Pretty that inspires my love of natural wood in the home. Mmm beautiful!

There you have it! This is where I turn when I’m stuck in a color rut.

A quick wrap up: turn to nature, take your room’s temperature, be inspired by shelter magazines & blogs (a few of my favorite who readily offer advice are Emily, Jenny and Janelle – among countless others), find fabrics and photos, take a nod from fashion, don’t forget the all mighty color wheel, utilize online tools (such as Colour Lovers, Colortopia) and turn to a diverse round up of inspirational sites (Pinterest, Houzz, Etsy) and blogs that break out of your traditional design reads (especially wedding sites!).

Any other suggestions out there? am I missing any key tools? At the end of the day, I just love me some color.