Blues Blaze Into Fashion for Fall 2012

ameliad I love my blue rug. We recently moved in and it was the very first thing I bought. It looks great with our gray floor and will look even better as we finish the room.

beverlyalbers I share your love of the counter stools. I've been looking for one of the shorter ones for my master bath for months and just haven't seen anything that I liked - but these are perfect! Can you share the manufacturer? Great article about my favorite colors too, thanks!

Anita Roll Murals I also love the palette used here for a teens room by Terri Kemp Interiors.

Jennifer Ott beverlyalbers, I know, aren't those fantastic stools? They are from CB2. Unfortunately their website appears to be down otherwise I'd send you the direct link. Once they are back up and running you can find them at cb2.com under "furniture"

beverlyalbers wrote:
"I share your love of the counter stools. I've been looking for one of the shorter ones for my master bath for months and just haven't seen anything that I liked - but these are perfect! Can you share the manufacturer? Great article about my favorite colors too, thanks!"

clyon Just painted my family room BM Aegean Teal - it was a very drab beige before and now it has life. We have a lot of windows and the trim is white. Our sofa is a deep olive. I love it!

beverlyalbers Thanks so much Jennifer! I will check their website!

Oceanside Glasstile We love this.. Thank you!!

patricia beharry Ameliad,Forget the carpet. The first thing that caught my eye was that beautiful table.

Angela Gagauf I just passed this on to my nephew. We worked out the exact color scheme for his new apartment and these pictures will help them him pull the look off. Thanks!

astraea I love blue, but when I bought this house, there were royal blue walls in the 2nd bedroom, main bathroom & basement office, and an olive drab in the kitchen & dinette .. DARK!! I switched them all to Benjamin Moore's "Pale Teal", which gave the soothing tropical vibe I wanted.

Just as a warning, I think that magazines & websites may use additional commercial lighting, for their shoots. When people actually paint their homes these darker, richer colors, it sometimes winds up darker than they expected or wanted, because regular home lighting isn't as strong!

jj_auerbach Ameliad - agree w/Patricia, love the table! Where did you get it?

Casart Coverings I sometimes think we may be obsessed with blue at Casart. We offer a lot of blue colorways in our designs beginning with our Blue Morpho butterfly icon. Here's 4 examples: Mary Douglas Drysdale's French Blue Faux Linen and Innocence colorwash, our Indigo French Peacock Damask and just look at all the blues in Quickie on the Beach from our Katherine Collection!

suzig09 My painter told me that blue can be tricky, it can look very different according to the light. I was therefore intrigued by the above comments about extra light in magazine shoots. They are painting tomorrow(bm healing aloe and beach glass). Wish me luck

Jennifer Ott Before committing to paint colors I always recommend my clients get pieces of drywall (at least 2' x 2' and up to 4' x 4') and paint sample boards with a few of the colors they are considering. Then they can "live with" the colors for a few days, move the samples around to see how the color looks in different locations, at different times of the day, under the different light conditions. It's amazing how much the color changes throughout the day. I recently had a client who loved how a color looked in the morning and late afternoon but thought it looked flat mid-day. She works works full-time and decided that she wouldn't be in the house very often mid-day, so she was fine with the color looking best during the times of day she would most often be around.

Yes, it's an extra step, but paint samples and pieces of drywall are relatively cheap. It's worth it to avoid hating the final color or having to re-paint. Also, keep in mind that the paint colors you see on your monitor are never going to exactly replicate the actual color coming out of the paint can, so, definitely sample in person any color you fall in love with via the internet.

queenanneslace Love the brown (in the bedroom / background) Can you give me name of the brown paint color? Tks ~

jane brody I paint my ceilings blue, different shades dependent on the room. We do have high ceilings, so perhaps others couldn't follow my idea, but I like looking up at the sky.

Scheherazade Khan These are gorgeous blues! We live in the tropics and our pool is the central focus of our back yard. In any space, blue is incredibly refreshing and seems to add just the right amount of color without eventually becoming dated. I recently redecorated our andalusian-style home, adding blue to complement the blue of the pool and the blue of the Mexican-tiled moroccan fountain. Thanks for the great ideas, I also love the pool blue sofa from CB!

I've attached some pics of the blues scattered around the entryway and living room.

Carole Butler Interiors Aqua Blue has always been a favorite color of mine, I have a touch of it in every room of my house. I especially love aqua blue and taupe. My home office matches my Tonkinese cat.

Fractallography Studio Wall art can be an easy accent piece to bring in a new color. Visit my page http://www.houzz.com/pro/ptmcg/__public or my online site for several available pieces using these colors.

Britastina Clyon,
I think we live in the same house! Wait, no. My sofa is not deep olive.

patricia beharry I really really love the bathtub. My only question is ----How does one get in and out of it since it seem a little high.; or is it the angle of the camera.

Robin Gillespie I just added a very similar color to my dining room and bought a bunch of sea fans to line the wall. I had 18' of wall to fill in, it maks the room so much more intimate. Make sure you buy 3 or more hues and test them with the lighting! I looked at 4 different colors on the wall for 2 weeks before I selected this one!

Faith Towers Media That blue Jonathan Adler pouf is really great! Yes, it seems that blue is really taking the design world by storm these days. I enjoy seeing blue used in a non-traditional way, like on a sofa or large piece of furniture. Here are a few other good examples of this: http://designfixation.blogspot.com/2012/08/singing-blues_29.html

State Wide Construction & Remodeling I've had a lot of requests for different blue hues the past year. From the calming blue/greys to the magestic blue/greens. There are many ways to implement these into your home. Either through paint, tile, furnishings, accessories and more! My advice- don't be afraid of adding color to your home.

http://www.swhomeremodeling.com/

alynnmaria I love lightest blue grey. It's serene and cooling and it goes with so many colors

ellie48 I love peacock blue!!! The brass at Pantone have their thumb on the pulse. I have used it for a while as an accent color with wasabi green, and the other blues like teal. Peacock is electric. Thanks for the validation! Thanks for the post too.

poobail I just painted a wall in my updated craft room a great periwinkle blue. The rest of the walls are a bright white and the floor is a dark wood grain linoleum.

cri_71 Blue is my favorite color. I am so glad to see it in this article.

lisadh Blue is the official color of my house!
Guest bathroom a gorgeous royal blue (Peek-A-Boo Blue by Valspar).
In my family room, we have a navy (Cabin Blue by Eddie Bauer) focal wall where all the media is with a light milk chocolate for the other walls (Rufford Hall by Ralph Lauren). This opens to the kitchen where the countertops are Meditteranean by Corian w/ honey maple cabinets.
One child's room is striped with Sky Blue by Laura Ashley and Montego Bay by Ralph Lauren, and the other child's room is Sea Spray by Valspar.
Still have to do the dining, which will probably be more toward the golds (china is royal and white w/gold) and the master suite which will take my DH and I agreeing on something, so that may be a while. Ha!

Molto Bene Studios Yes, we are seeing a lot of demand for blues too! Some wall finishes we are doing right now in that color

Contempo Space We've seen some orders for blue lately also. With furniture, colors are still a minority of orders of course.

Here are photos of our Marco entertainment center in a color we call lagoon and the Bingham wall unit in wildflower blue.

lexielyn We are moving to Florida and I plan on using blue tones throughout our condo. Thanks for all of the helpful hints. I will definitely paint a few sample boards as the lighting will vary in different rooms.

dancingfish Swooning over the beautiful blues!

Stephanie Duerden What about the tried and true cobalt blue?! I just love this fireplace also with Oceanside Glasstile.

A & D Glass Inc. It looks like the cabinet glass in the second photo is acid-etched, and is picking up the color of the walls. What a great way to add color and have it coordinate with the room. I will remember this to mention to clients!

Rio Brewster No wonder I'm obsessed with turquoise these days!

One thing to be careful of with greenish blues - I once painted a tall narrow room with a cathedral ceiling two tones of what I thought looked like sky blue. When it was done I felt like I was on the bottom of a swimming pool!

We switched it out to a blue with a grayer tone and it gave me the elegant look I was going for.

Kay The blues are beautiful. Our new kitchen I took inspiration from one on Houzz and had high gloss cabinets in Dulux Betsy.

miekeh I agree that you need to be careful with blue. We called this colour "slash your wrists blue" when we first moved in...it was that dark and depressing. Not that we don't like blue, our exterior is BM Philipsburg. New colour here is BM Hempseed.

Space Planning Technologies Inc. Blue is my go to color! It brings any room to life!

CAROLE MEYER What beautiful, saturated, colors! Yummy!

cheree_m What about how hard blues are to match? I wanted our bedroom to be green-blue and the ensuite to be blue-green and I have had a hard time getting it to look like it does in my head! The wall colour is perfect - I chose a white with a blue undertone and it looks great day or night. The furniture is espresso which adds warmth to the otherwise cool blue. It is the curtains and bedspread part of things that look flat. Any ideas?

Britastina Cheree_m

It isn't as hard as you think. For example, I learned from someone with vast experience that you won't be viewing the different colors up close. For instance, when looking at carpet samples arrayed on a table, you may think the little flecks of black or maroon look horrible. Put the samples on the floor and you'll think you are looking at a completely different carpet. I found out that paint and wallpaper or fabric have the same quality. This happened in real life when I painted my living room blue and had wallpaper with green(ish) leaves in my entry hall not too far away from the blue walls. They looked like an exact match. It's magic, your eyes blend them. Simply look at the sample colors from the 2 - 3 foot distance you will be seeing them in your room, not from 6" away.

Rio Brewster Re: matching blues

Actually it's easier to start with the fabrics and accessories. The paint can be literally any color you want, so pick your fabrics first, then do the paint.

Britastina Carpe Diem
I agree completely. But when you have not selected your fabrics, this can be a problem. Unfortunately (or not), I am working without a designer and putting rooms together as money permits. For example, I painted my "living/dining" room that is separated from my "entry hall" by two columns a teal blue. Two years later I wallpapered by "entry hall" with a wide open pattern of dogwood against a pale yellow. No one, including myself, believes that the walls are blue and the foliage is green. After about 5 years I still have to check it myself. They look to be a perfect match (and I hate matchy-matchy) and look light, airy and stunning. Our brains either pay tricks on us, or flatter us. Does not matter. It is magic. It is fun. I love every minute of it. Yes, I know that the underlying tone have to match and I was stupidly lucky but I am spending year after year of loving my home and having a blast!

Rio Brewster Yes but if you already have fabrics that you like and they don't quite work, changing the paint is an option and probably less expensive than new drapes/wallpaper whatever.

If you are having trouble making your drapes and bedspread "pop" (I hate that term), it could be a couple of things. It might be the ambient light in the room. In a Northern exposure blues will feel very chilly. Try moving the bedspread to different rooms in the house and observe how the color changes. Maybe it will be as simple as switching the blue-green and green-blue.

If the white/blue on the wall has a gray undertone then these saturated green/blues probably won't light up the room. Lavender or Iris Blue might look better.

Or maybe you can do an accent wall of a stronger color. Get a piece of dry wall and some paint samples and try a few things to find what works.

Good luck.

Lynne Barton Bier - Home on the Range Interiors Wonderful post on using blue in interiors, Jennifer. I find that blues are even making their way into the mountain areas where we traditionally have stayed away from cool colors in favor of colors that will warm you up when you come in off the slopes. I find that the blues with a little green in them, like teal and aqua, when paired with reds,corals and terra cottas add a nice touch to a mountain environment. We recently did a blog post on using blues in the mountains. http://blog.homeontherangeinteriors.com/western-style/mountain-blues/.
I love the way Martyn Lawrence Bullard used the blue pillow in the center of the warm colors in the room in this photo.

danabeachcondo These blues work great in our beach condo and although intense, it works due to all the natural light! Very soothing and brings the sky and water IN to you!