close

10 Beautiful Rooms

It’s Monday so it must be time for 10 Beautiful Rooms and this week we’re starting off with this gorgeous green dining room from Pip’s Home, who you should all immediately follow on Instagram for pictures of her lovely house.

modern rustic with sage green wall by pips home
modern rustic with sage green wall by pips home

According to Pinterest searches for this lovely soft shade were up 170 per cent last year and it’s a fabulous colour that will go with more than you think – including the pinks through to terracotta, dark greys and it’s the perfect foil to black and white with lots of wood as you can see here.

pale pink study area by shnordic
pale pink study area by shnordic

Next up a drop of pale pink as seen on SHNordic. The trend setters can talk down blush pink as much as they like. It’s another great neutral that works with everything and I don’t see it going anywhere soon. Basically if you were thinking of white as your neutral then consider pale dirty pink or green instead. As long as these pale colours have a dollop of grey in them they won’t be too sugary and will make for a more interesting backdrop to your artwork and furniture.

wall mounted wood burning stove by shnordic
wall mounted wood burning stove by shnordic

Mind you, you can’t go wrong with the classic black, white and wood combination can you. I love how she has fixed her woodburning stove to the wall. I’ve got a wall. In a cold room. I wonder if that would be possible.

wooden cupboards by nakedkitchens
wooden cupboards by nakedkitchens

A few kitchens now because who doesn’t dream of the perfect kitchen? Starting with Naked’s natural wood and soft grey. The grain on the doors is just wonderful and you could paint the units in any colour you like if you tired of the grey and it would still work.

shaker loft kitchen by devol
shaker loft kitchen by devol

Or this mid-grey Shaker kitchen from Devol. It’s the dark floor and window seat that drew me in here and the grey cupboards are the perfect foil for the natural dark of the wood and the table.

But then there’s always the lure of dark green. The beauty of this Plain English kitchen is that the walls have been painted as well. I’m not sure I’m brave enough to do that although there’s no doubt it’s  stunning look. If my kitchen had the table in the middle rather than being at one end of a long north-facing room, I would definitely consider it. In my house, where the kitchen is long and thin it risks looking like a tunnel.

dark green kitchen by plain english via modenus
dark green kitchen by plain english via modenus

But when you have a large, well-lit room it’s also great to keep it light and bright but bring in dark colours as accents. The black windows frame the view and provide a full stop at the end. The blue cupboards bring definition to the space. If it was all white it might look a bit empty and soulless.

navy blue kitchen via shootfactory
navy blue kitchen via shootfactory

And here is a similar room with a few more colours filled in – a dark floor and darker cupboards. Its like someone took the blue kitchen above and coloured it in a bit more. Which one do you like best?

open plan kitchen concrete floor via shootfactory
open plan kitchen concrete floor via shootfactory

Mind you, leaving kitchens for now, what about this bathroom, which is in the same house as the kitchen above? Grey walls and green plants with brass accessories and some painted white brick for texture. That’s going straight on the pinterest board.

freestanding bath concrete wall via shootfactory
freestanding bath concrete wall via shootfactory

And finally finishing up where we came with a shot of green – more olive than sage here but no less restful for that. This is how white walls can work – add some wood for warmth and lots of different textures – the shaggy rug, the leather sofa, the plastic chair, a mirror and those patterned cushions.

neutral colours via shootfactory
neutral colours via shootfactory 

Right so you can all go off to work now I might just sit here a while longer with a cup of coffee and contemplate these calm spaces.

Kate Watson-Smyth

The author Kate Watson-Smyth

I’m a journalist who writes about interiors mainly for The Financial Times but I have also written regularly for The Independent and The Daily Mail. My house has been in Living Etc, HeartHome and featured in The Wall Street Journal & Corriere della Sera. I also run an interior styling consultancy Mad About Your House. Welcome to my Mad House.

3 Comments

  1. wonderful images! Thank you for making my Monday morning something to look forward to….smiles.

  2. Lovely post, but still leaving me in the current dither between dark green and sage green for my kitchen units. Every time I make a decision, I see a beautiful version of the other colour. And my kitchen is north facing so any colour is going to be blued a tad. Ai me!
    I love the textural bathroom with the concrete and white brick… only not as a bathroom. It has a cold and gritty look which is not what you want stepping on damp feet out of the shower. Give me pampered Hollywood style any time. And pink fluffy towels.

  3. Calm spaces, yes, that’s what I like my home to be. I love most of these rooms, they are beautiful. I’m not a fan of blue but ot could grow on me.
    We used a very similar green as in the first picture in our sitting room, Normandy Grey from Little Greene, really classy colour.

Comments are closed.