Living Rooms With Margot Guralnick
In a cheery palette lifted from the makeup counter, Paris design company Colonel's new furniture collection is detailed with summery rattan.
Above: Isabelle Gilles and Yann Poncelet are the design duo behind Colonel, a Paris showroom and online shop. Shown here, Straw, Colonel's just-introduced line of beech and cane furniture, all of it fabricated in France.
Above: Colonel's Straw Pendant Lamps have lacquered metal frames inset with woven cane. They come in three shapes and in coral, yellow, and black; inquire about pricing.
Above: The Straw Sideboard is made of natural beech with sliding rattan doors. It's available in dark gray, vermillion, and indigo.
Above: The Hills Armchair has a white-lacquered metal frame, blue or green cushions in Kvadrat fabric, and leather-wrapped arms.
Above: The Straw Closet is solid beech with cane doors, and comes in light gray, coral, and yellow. See more of the collection at Colonel.
On the hunt for inspired uses of rattan? We are too. Take a look at:
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Architecture & Interiors With Meredith Swinehart
We're on an eternal quest for that home design Holy Grail: the perfect white paint. And given that spaces, lighting, moods, and personal personal preferences all vary, there are many factors to be considered—and also many right answers.
For guidance, we turned to members of the Remodelista Architect/Designer Directory. Their advice from the trenches confirmed our hunch: As architect Amy Alper says, "It really pays to take the time to find the right white." Here's how:
Above: A white wall and stone fireplace mantel in A Fairy-Tale Castle in Belgium: The Architects' Version.
1. Get to know the nuances in white.
Artists and others who work with color know that white isn't one hue but many—and that some are whiter than others.
"White paints can come with bluish, reddish, yellowish, and even greenish undertones," says Amy Alper. To see the variety, head to your local paint shop and ask for help spotting whites with a variety of undertones and compare them side by side. Or take interior designer Ellen Hamilton's suggestion and hold the samples against a sheet of white paper. The complexity of each color will reveal itself to you.
Above: The San Francisco office of interior designer Alison Davin of Jute.
2. Size up what's in the room.
Before selecting a paint shade, size up the palette of everything that will be in the space. "Are the colors cool or warm?" asks Alper. If they're warm, you'll want to lean toward whites with warm-colored undertones (pink, orange, red, yellow). If they're cool, consider cool-inflected whites (with undertones of blue, purple, or green).
What if the furnishings are neutral? "If neutral, I go with a warmer white," says Alison Davin of Jute. "If there is a lot of color, a cooler white."
Keep in mind that your furnishings will affect your perception of any paint. Says architect Ian Read of Medium Plenty in San Francisco: "Sometimes getting a 'warm' white doesn't actually come from the paint, it comes from the entire assembly of the space."
Above: A living room play space in An LA Cliffhanger: Go High or Stay Low?
3. Assess the lighting.
Because color is a phenomenon of light, the amount of natural and artificial light in the room impacts the tone of the walls. Says Alison Davin: "A pure white looks best with a lot of natural light. With less natural light, the white can have a base with more of a pigment.
Note that geography affects light as well. According to interior designer Ellen Hamilton, "In New York, the light tends to be gray and warm. This means the best white is sympathetic to a warm gray. Ideally, it would have warm gray as the undertone." However, "in Miami the same color may look like it has an orange cast. This is because the light in Miami has pure blue filtering through it. The blue in the light will make the warm gray paint look pink."
Above: Swatches of favorite paints in 10 Easy Pieces: Architects' White Exterior Paint Picks.
4. Choose several whites that you like.
Take what you've learned about the furnishings and light in your room and choose a few whites. When selecting, consider these tips from the pros.
- A pure white reads more modern than one with some color in the mix. (Interior designer Alison Davin)
- The best whites aren't really white at all. In most cases, bright white needs some tempering with color. (Architect Michael Howells)
- If struggling, err on the side of a neutral white, in between what you can clearly read as "warm" and "cool." (Interior designer Ellen Hamilton)
Above: An office space in the home of a graphic designer in Past Meets Present: Roel Vaessen in the Netherlands.
5. Put your favorite shades to the test.
All our designers insisted on testing the paint at home. Says Gretchen Krebs of Medium Plenty, "A white that seemed warm on a smaller paint chip may suddenly look too pink or sallow. Or a white that looked crisp and modern may feel way too cold in a larger application."
However, our designers were divided on whether to paint a sample directly on the wall or use a moveable swatch:
Why paint on the wall? Ian Reed suggests painting swatches "as big as you can and in several places. Colors shift from ceiling to wall, wall to wall, room to room. It is all about direction of exposure, proximity to windows, and artificial light." If you're working with a designer or contractor, he says, make sure that these tests are required as part of your contract, and even specify how many.
Why use a moveable swatch? Says Amy Alper, "It makes more sense to paint a large panel so you can move it around. The same color will appear differently on different walls in the same room depending on the amount of light on that particular wall. Take note of the paint during the day and evening, in natural light and artificial light." Or, says Alison Davin, use the paint line's largest sample cards and tape them up.
Above: A study in white in Inner Sanctum: Maximum Calm in a London Townhouse.
6. What if I still can't figure it out?
There are a handful of whites we hear about over and over again, all from Benjamin Moore. Here's our cheat sheet.
Alison Davin suggests Farrow & Ball and C2 Paints for rooms without much natural light. "Their mixes have more depth to them, adding dimension without having to add windows," she says.
Also take a look at our previous primers on white: 10 Easy Pieces: Architects' White Paint Picks and 10 Easy Pieces: Architects' White Exterior Paint Picks.
Find even more paint advice in:
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Kitchens With Margot Guralnick
Lots of Hollywood offices have movie-star swagger, but few are as stylishly original as the Epoch Films setup in a 1940s Beverly Hills warehouse that had been a brass foundry. Originally designed back in 2000 by architect Finn Kappe and Pamela Shamshiri of Commune, the space recently received a refresh, and what stopped us in our tracks is the newly overhauled kitchen. The work of Frances Merrill of Reath Design—who Shamshiri recommended for the update—it makes the most of the existing concrete backdrop while introducing a wood-accented warmth that Merrill labels "friendly industrial." We say: Rush to see it.
Photography by Laure Joliet.
Above: The new kitchen replaces a space with a half fridge and, in Epoch executive producer Melissa Culligan's words, "white laminate cabinets where boxes of half-eaten office snacks got lost." (Scroll down for a Before shot.) Since the renovation, she tells us, "It's now the heart of the office. We all cook and eat together: Eggs, oatmeal, therapy, it all goes down in the kitchen."
Our favorite element, the two-toned vintage cupboard, was the first piece of furniture bought for the space (from Nicky Kehoe), and became the inspiration for everything. "It had age, character, and color, all things we wanted to introduce," says Merrill. "Blending the vibe of that cupboard with the industrial feel of the room was the crux of the design. And it also allowed us to demo all the closed storage on the main wall, since it supplied a place to store the less appealing looking necessities."
The walls and steel window are original, as are the beams—after much testing of colors, the beams and back door were painted Benjamin Moore Caldwell Green ("It feels light and somehow inherently California," says Merrill). The floor is epoxy; originally in a bright blue that got very beat up, it's refinished in a neutral gray. All else is newly introduced. The custom maple table is by LA cult furniture maker Shin Okuda—see more of his work in our post Tiny Altars.
Above: The warehouse window supplies the perfect spot for the inset sink, which has a Kohler Deck-Mounted Chrome Faucet. The counters are paint-grade maple, also used for the cabinets and shelves.
Above: The simple open shelving holds tableware in a carefully selected neutral palette: a Tom Dixon brass Form Jug, ceramics from Heath (the Mugs are from the Coupe Line), and a wood and melamine Joseph Joseph White Bread Bin.
Above: The cabinets were custom built (and along with the table, the biggest splurges of the project). "To save on cost, we used paint-grade maple," says Merrill. "We painted the cabinets in Benjamin Moore Black in a satin finish, and ending up deciding to leave some sections unpainted—they're oiled in a satin finish." The unpainted wood forms the counters and continues as a frame around the French-door fridge, lending it a custom look. All the appliances are by Jenn-Air; as a space saver, the wall oven is mounted under the cook top.
Merrill sourced the artwork from Etsy and Nicky Kehoe.
Above: Are well-designed, fully loaded kitchens the answer to office happiness? "We all spend so much time at the office, but so much time thinking about what our houses look like," says Culligan. "This remodel has done so much for the culture of the company."
Before
Above: The kitchen was a place for grabbing coffee and meetings (and storing extra chairs).
See more of Merrill's work at Reath Design. And take a look at more of our Kitchen of the Week posts, including The Ultimate Indoor/Outdoor Kitchen.
For another LA office kitchen that we adore, see Biscuit Film Works in the Remodelista book and Steal This Look.
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