Grey is one of my favourite colours, despite the fact that I grew up in the Toronto area, where grey is a permanent fixture in the outside world from Nov 1st-April. The right kind of grey can be warm, inviting, and cozy. It can be soft and rich, heathered and earthy.
TJ’s Mom asked me to make some twin quilts for the two beds in her guest room, the one often used by my parents when we all get together. (Yes, my inlaws and my parents get along and we all hang out on holidays. Yes it’s unusual. Yes I love them for all being so awesome. Yes I am the luckiest woman alive). She had seen the quilt I had made for my friend Amanda, and she loved the Aviary 2 line of fabrics that I used. She wanted to design her whole room around the mustard and grey colours in these fabrics.
A wee bit grainy, but here are some before shots of the room.
It was a pretty, soft green, quite feminine.
Lovely leaf prints on the wall, some satin-y spreads on the bed, a very well put together room. But she was tired of it, and wanted something more modern and masculine.
With the room emptied out, a coat of Benjamin Moore Pewter went up (in their Aura paint. That stuff is the bomb. One coat baby! I am seriously in love with this paint. Worth every penny of the cost. A tip though, check the BM website before you buy; they often have a $5 off coupon).
Once the painting was done in the room, I worked on painting a small side table that we had found in a great second hand store. Then I made a set of tab back curtains from some great Ikea fabric. One the room was loaded with the new bedding, it looked like this!
(Don’t forget that you can click to get a larger photo). What do you think? Here is a close up of the quilts:
One side of the room has yellow sheets,
and the other side grey. Sort of a “his and hers” theme. You can see on the quilts that I used the Aviary 2 fabrics, but also some other fabrics as accents.
The back is Anna Maria Horner’s voile, in pastry line. I missed snapping a picture of the actual backing, but this is what it looks like.
I’ll tell you one thing, I will certainly be using voile for the backing on my next quilt. This stuff is amazing! It is soooooo soft. It’s almost like a satin. I am not sure that I could imagine making a whole pieced quilt top out of it, as it is quite slide-y, but as a backing it just makes you want to bury yourself under it and never come out.
T’s Mom also painted out this great vintage dresser in Benjamin Moore Stuart Gold. The key to painting out furniture like this is to put a coat of water-based polyurethane on any surfaces that will have things sitting on them. This keeps them from sticking to the paint and leaving marks.
This little chair was in another room in the house, but it fit perfectly into this spot AND already had the right colours (both in paint and fabric).
There are a few things that need to be done still in the room, like some more decorative items, but I think it turned out really well. I think I need to make a quilt like this for my living room!
What favourite colours have you been working with a lot lately?
