Brighten Your Life With Colors You Like

A few months ago I picked up a great little book that was published by Pittsburgh Paints in 1962. It goes into great detail about how to use color schemes in your home, how to choose paint colors, etc. and it's been an eye-opening read. It's changing the way we're using color in our place, which I plan to write about in more detail soon but in the meantime I thought I'd share a few of my favorite images from 'Brighten Your Life With Colors You Like.'

Reupholstered Dux Sofa

Thought I'd finally share some photos of our refurbished & reupholstered vintage sofa. The sofa was originally made by Dux in the early '60s. Dux was a San Francisco based company started by Swedish designer Folke Ohlsson in the late 1950s and Dux furniture is usually referred to as Danish Modern or Scandinavian Modern.

The sofa (which I originally posted about here) was badly damaged and had a horrible odor due to mold and (possibly?) cat urine. We had it reupholstered with vintage Danish fabric similar in color & style to an original fabric that Dux used so it would remain true to the period. We love the color and we think it looks amazing now. It was reupholstered by the Danish furniture experts at Klassics and they did a terrific job. Very happy with the results and I'm glad that we could save this beautiful sofa.






Room is currently influx and still being renovated. We plan to paint the wall another shade of blue that's more aqua. You can see samples in the photo below that we currently have on the wall while we try to pick paint colors. As you can see below, we're going bold and bright. After a lifetime of being surrounded by white walls I want lots of color in my life.

Paint & Progress

We're making progress but it's slow going. In order to save money we're determined to do most of the work on the house ourselves but between jobs, life, etc. it's going to take us awhile.

The room I plan to use for my office had to be completely re-wired since we had electricity problems and when we removed the crown molding we found an inch wide gap between the ceiling and the walls that had to be repaired. The ceiling was lowered a little when they installed air-conditioning into the place in the '90s and the work was poorly done so it's causing problems throughout our house. But with a lot of the hard work done we decided to finally start painting and hanging some new lights so I thought I'd share our progress.

Since our 1954 ranch house was based on an Eichler design & floorplan we've decided to use the original Eichler colors (and their variations) as a basis for painting our home. Thankfully Benjamin Moore still produces similar colors that were used by Eichler owners in the '50s. I wanted orange in my office so I decided to use "Pumpkin Cream" for my accent wall. The color is usually seen on Eichler exteriors (doors, trim, etc.) but I like breaking the rules a little and after living in rented apartments with white or beige walls for more than 25 years (that I was never allowed to paint!), I'm dying to have more color in my life.

I love Johnathan Adler's designs and when Lumens had a big sale earlier this year I used the opportunity to purchase a wall lamp that I had my eye on. The playful retro design works well in the room and I think it will work well with my future plans for the space. But before I show you my progress, here's a look back at what we started with.

And now the changes...

But we still have lots to do...