Go big or go home....Diamond Baratta Design

all rooms by William Diamond and Anthony Baratta

If you read any design magazines, you will notice one thing: Gay guys have all the money, and therefore the best homes. If you know me, you know one of those 'things' I say is, "I wanna decorate my house like a gay man." Now, I have no idea if these two are gay or not, but they decorate like gay men (please don't sue me adorable design team that is Diamond Baratta...I think you are the SHIZZZZZ!!!). Listen, I have a degree in interior design. I went to school for this. I dated BOTH straight men at my school, all two of them, you dig? I think I know what I'm talking about here.
So Diamond Baratta...major color addicts, in the best kind of way. Their website says something about clients who want 'couture' design, so I guess it's safe to assume that almost no one can afford them anymore, but one can always look!
Let's be inspired, shall we? (all photos stolen from Diamond Baratta Design)


My kids would soooo store stuff in there, like barbie shoes and hair pretties



wild about the framed dots. So simple and effective

Love the lino floor and the crazy island. I bet it's couture...
Why yes, I CAN do that to your walls!

lovin' the " EVERYFLIPPIN thing in here is purple"! Pick a color and then commit!
oh swoon!
Just literally dying for a client to ask me to do this to their walls.


What can we learn from these two?
1. Go big or go home
2. If a little is good, more more more is even better
3. who cares what anyone else says, if you like it put it everywhere
4. big bold patterns and even more big bold patterns is a very good thing
5. patterned floors are spiffy
6.hand painted walls should be bold and crazy, like multi colored stripes or large scale scribbling!

Amen, Mercedes Benz

Enough said.

file under: Why didn't I think of that?

I am so exhausted from this weekend. We got so much accomplished, but sleeping wasn't one of those things. My brain is fried so tonight I am offering something kind of fun: repurposed stuff from the paint store. Have a great week everyone!

You make me happy...when skies are gray...

via apartmenttherapy.com


You know, I have to permanently strike from my vocab the words "I will never do...."because 1. I used to swear I would never do pink and now I love it and
2. that I would always be loyal to and never sick of red and now it makes me wanna barf and
3. that I would always hate gray and now I'm obsessed.

Cause those aren't such tasty words and I've been eating a lot of them lately. I am crazy in love with gray.
Another thing I'm crazy in love with is the website pintrest. You have to be 'invited' to join
( which makes me special!!! HA HA) but you can type in things like 'kick ass dining room' and you will actually get 1000s of photos to thumb through. (Relevancy google, that's all we ask!!!)
But the downside is, original sources are iffy. Who knows who designed or photographed most of this stuff? Another downside to pintrest is the lack of sleep I've been experiencing since being accepted into this secret inner world of people who like to collect photographs of cool looking stuff.


So if you want to know my simple rules for using gray here they are:
1. For the love of Mike, add a dash of something warm or else you will be constantly looking for your sweater.







2.if you can't ( or don't want to) add something warm, add something fun.





3. Avoid colors like 'garage floor' and 'battleship' and 'the economy'.
consider 'greige'...
...it's warmer and less depressed.



4. Realize that gray is kind of trendy, but hopefully this 'trend' will last at least as long as blue and brown has, which has been like, forever.


5. Add some movement or pattern on the walls. A faux finish will do the trick!



or a stencil ( we never say the 'wallpaper' word around here)

or some hand painting.


6. Go girly with it! Pink and/ or ruffles keep gray from being too serious.
to see the world's most adorable pink and gray nursery, visit pink sugar photography's blog.



7. Anchor it with a dark floor.

8. Choose carefully. Gray is one of those colors that can be pinkish, purplish, greenish....make use of Sherwin Williams AWESOME color to go program and try out a few 5 dollar sample quarts before you commit.
For more help, look to House Beautiful and their ongoing commitment to great color by clicking here.

Benjamin Moore Bermuda Blue

via lonny mag
via housebeautiful



via flickr

Above are three rooms painted in Benjamin Moore's Bermuda Blue, which turns out to be pretty much the exact color of blue painter's tape.



I had a designer/client once request that I paint a dining room the color of blue painter's tape. Once I had picked my jaw up off the floor, I listened to her request and realized she had a pretty nifty idea. Our blue turned out to be Ben Moore's Bermuda Blue, with a gold and silver glaze over top, which toned the blue down considerably. I did a google search to see if I could find photos of rooms painted this color and found three. It's not a color for the color weary, to be certain.

If you are following, you will get the directions to create this look. It's a fairly simple textile type technique with raised designs with gold and silver leaf and Swarovski crystals.

If you are a new follower, you must also email me at chicpaintcontest@gmail.com with the word 'recipe' in the subject line.


Here's a close up showing the raised designs. (Remember my computer got fried and I lost
most of the photos for my book. I wish I had an even up closier up close, but this is all we've got.)

The wide shot of the room shows the coordinating faux finish on the ceiling, which was created with several layers of Lusterstone, a product by Faux Effects International, that creates velvet looking finishes.



Decorative finishes always look crappy with flash photography. This finish is really cool in that it kind of changes colors as you walk around the room, which of course cannot be picked up in the photos. I think this is one of the prettiest dining rooms I have ever created, and hey it's not red!!!! I think red dining rooms need to go bye bye for awhile.

Raspberry Lemonade Martini

I've got to be honest, had an odd week. I guess with any profession in which you deal with people, you find out how stange and tedious people can be.

I did have a great afternoon with one of my clients in which I was doing the usual 'waiting for paint to dry' routine, when she whipped out her blender and mixed up a batch of Raspberry Lemonade Martinis. Sweet, eh? Love those clients who see you as a person and not just a worker.

A person in need of a Martini! Ha!

Raspberry Lemonade Martini

1 can of Pink Lemonade or Limeade (size does not matter)

Dump can of Lemonade into blender

fill can with Cheap Raspberry Vodka and pour into blender

fill can with water and pour into blender

BLEND WELL

Rim the edges of Martini glasses with sugar

Garnish with lemon wedge, marishino cherry or mint sprig.

Motif: Interlocking Circles

I've been trying to find the origin of the interlocking circle design....but it shows up just about everywhere. Celtic, Japanese, early American quilts...you name it. It's fresh and funky again. I like the optical illusion and confusion created from staring at this pattern for too long. The drapes in my living room are avocado green interlocking circles on a metallic brown background and the girls and I have endless debate about whether the pattern is made up of diamonds or circles or leaf shapes formed into "X"s. I have stumbled onto lots this motif lately, here are some of my favorites. I LOVE these printed canvas panels from acquireddesign.com


Painted ceiling by Anna and Jim Sadler at Surfacerefinements.comThat's decorative artisty, stunningly precise, created by Anna and Jim Sadler. Read more about this married team here at Fauxology.com

Mosaic tile flooring from Mission Tile.

Wall tiles from Ann Sacks. Not only do I love the design, I love the color!!!



A few variations on the theme:

In the Elle Decor Showhouse, Palmer Weiss designers. via simplifiedbee.blogspot.com



I have no idea who designed this room, the photo credit is actually ebay. But me likey!!!!!

Roundabout stencil from Wallovers. If you don't know about Wallovers Stencils and the accompanying toppers they sell for each stencil, you should. If you've ever stenciled a large room with a large stencil, you know how much of a beyotch getting the stencil all the way to the ceiling line can be. The toppers are all adhesive backed too. Sweet!

Yeah. Gorgeous. From Tiffany and Co.