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10 Beautiful Rooms

Good Morning and happy Monday to you all. Back in the swing of it now? I’m going to start this stroll round 10 Beautiful Rooms with a few images from the Hoxton Hotel in Paris where I stayed for one night last week. It’s instagram heaven as you can see from the pictures below.

the hoxton hotel in Paris, image by KW-S
the hoxton hotel in Paris, image by KW-S

And now I’m on the hunt for some bedding like this – a quick google revealed that H&M have sold out of something very similar. But it’s not just the bed in this room. I wanted you to look at how they have used the paint. Yes there is a headboard – leather cushions hanging from a bar – but they have made the whole effect much grander, and raised the ceiling, by painting a wide stripe behind the bed and all the way up to the ceiling.

I popped into another couple of rooms while I was there and saw that they have done the same trick with a soft red and a warm beige to equally striking effect. So whether you have a headboard or, perhaps if you don’t, this is a good trick to do with paint to make a statement. It would work particularly well if you have a divan with no headboard at all.

the hoxton hotel in Paris, image by KW-S
the hoxton hotel in Paris, image by KW-S

This sitting area at the foot of the spiral staircase was perhaps the most instagrammed and prettiest of the lot, although there is no shortage of instagrammable corners in this hotel. Note the doors and skirting boards are all painted the same colour so that nothing distracts from the furniture or the wraparound effect of the curved green wall. I honestly think that if the woodwork was white this space would look terrible.

I know it can be a leap to move away from traditional white woodwork but I have yet to see a room where it didn’t look better when they were all the same colour.

the hoxton hotel in Paris, image by KW-S
the hoxton hotel in Paris, image by KW-S

Before we move on just feast your eyes on this bathroom/restroom/loos (call it what you will) and be assured, once and for all that you can mix and match tiles. The colours all tone but they are laid in different ways creating different patterns and held together by the large blocks of colours that are the doors.

And sticking with that dark navy blue, look how well it works with the controversial Spiced Honey in this image below from Paint and Paper Library.

rufus and squid in by paint and paper library
rufus and squid in by paint and paper library

The COTY always causes a row with most people saying they hate it but we tend to come round in the end and it’s often a question of how you use it. Dulux were suggesting pink and while that does work, that’s quite a bold choice. Why not start gently with navy blue, brass and cream and let’s see how that feels.

It’s working well as an accent in this COQ Hotel in Paris already with a flashes of white to lighten it all up. If I hadn’t just finished decorating I could quite go for this. Although…. the spare room needs doing.

the coq hotel in Paris
the coq hotel in Paris

Sticking with that shade – or a sort of version of –  here it is paired with a very classic black, white and grey scheme. If you look at the bottom half of the image, it’s very cool, clean and Scandinavian and, dare I say it, a teeny bit cold? Then you add the ceiling and suddenly the whole thing changes. There’s no need to add anything else as the room is just warmer and, because it’s a ceiling rather than a wall, it’s really modern too.

I was asked at a talk last week about feature walls and I talked about half-painting all four walls and committing to the colour and the randomness of painting just one wall but what I should have said, now I think about it is that the feature wall isn’t dead at all. It’s just that it’s the fifth wall that should be painted – the one that sits horizontally to the rest.

image via paint and paper library
image via paint and paper library

And here it is paired with pink in an old H&M shot for their autumn winter collection last year. I painted a ceiling in dark grey last year and The Mad Husband hated it but maybe I just chose the wrong colour. I think a paler shade can work really well. Or maybe it was just him.

new season colours from H&M
new season colours from H&M

Moving on from the deep yellows or spiced honeys to pink on its own. Still a strong colour, still very popular and still good with greys and blues if you’re not ready to go full yellow yet.

This is a bathroom in Edward Bulmer’s house. He makes eco paints with no plastic and only natural pigments. And then he calls them fabulous names. This one is called Cuisse de Nymphe Emue, which means Thigh of Overcome Woman, which is probably reason enough to buy it on its own.

Edward Bulmer paint cuisse de nymphe emue
Edward Bulmer paint cuisse de nymphe emue

And this is the insta famous pink bath of Katie Woods, of Come Down to the Woods fame, and you can see how well it works with dark navy, although this could just as well be grey or dark green, Or you could paint the bath in a dark yellow and the room would still look amazing. It’s the vintage picture on the left which is the secret ingredient here.

image of @comedowntothewoods bathroom via @beautifulhomesinthenorth
image of @comedowntothewoods bathroom via @beautifulhomesinthenorth

To finish another from the Paint and Paper Library which has reversed Katie’s bathroom and put the pink on the walls and the blue on the bath. Imagine this with a dark yellow/spiced honey – I’m going to call it tobacco ceiling. What do you think?

image via paint and paper library
image via paint and paper library

Ready to consider the new colour yet?

 

 

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.

8 Comments

  1. Rich and warm! This may seem unrelated but in terms of this gorgeous colour palette expressed in another way – I’ve just over the weekend found Tessa Hop’s and Sanne Hop’s Instagram pages and they are so rich with this palette, and such amazing compositions – it’s perfect for right now – at home and in clothes.

  2. I’m way ahead of the trend!!! Painted our bedroom ceiling a soft gold some years back, but now I’m going to call it spiced honey! I did have an attack of the collywobbles when I was painting it but decided to commit. Glad I did.

  3. Cuisse de nymphe is actually a rose variety but I have seen it used to describe the colour of a dress before (can’t remember where though, historical novel maybe). It’s a very pale pink. Tacking ´émue’ onto it evokes to me the idea of blushing, so calling that paint sort of blushing pale pink sounds about right!

  4. All these shots give us food for thought and all have something to add. I do like the first one. I’m not too sure about the spiced honey/tobacco just yet. Less is more I think. Happy autumn to you.

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