Neutral ...

... I stop fighting and love it. 

I referred in a previous post to how we fight only over decorating - we have such dissimilar tastes - and each time it is compromise, egotistically speaking, always on my part. Well, thanks to medication, therapy and a Friday cocktail I finally worked out that compromise is not too bad a thing when that compromise pushes the result into areas I normally would not go - in this case a strong, graphic print. Guess what? I love it.

The photo above shows the choices we made - the large graphic Kelly Wearstler print from Lee Jofa for a wing chair, the Kravet velvet upper left for the sofa and the David Hicks velvet upper right for the pillows. The small swatch of inky-blue linen velvet from Silk Trading Company is the alternative choice for the sofa and probably a tone lighter than that would be the best. If I cannot find that tomorrow then the ink-dark blue linen velvet it is. 

The surprise and the sorrow is that these fabrics look great with the green-blue shown below, yet it cannot be. The problem with that room is not the color, which is admittedly intense, but the relationship between the spines of the book-jackets and the color of the paneling and the shelves. When the books are back in, as they are now, the whole room shouts and that has to change. 

I don't like disposing of book-jackets - after all the design that goes into them they should not be discarded just so a library can look serious. OK, I'm being judgmental but how else does one form taste?

If I had time and inclination to wrap my books in ivory watercolor paper, each hand-labeled, the green blue could stay. Imagine how beautiful that would be: cream or ivory Arches paper, roughly textured, with hand lettered title cartouches on the spines, all glowing against the green-blue. Imagine! 

The color chosen to replace the green-blue and work with the other rooms off the library is "Clunch" from Farrow and Ball. A color described by Farrow and Ball as "Neutral. As in the chalk stone building blocks used in East Anglia. A very versatile off-white." For those of you, like me, who have never been to East Anglia and maybe never intend to please click here to view.

It will be a crying shame to lose the green-blue and if there were enough space in these 2000 square feet for empty beautiful rooms I would keep it. But, there ain't. But it is glorious!

That weasel word "neutral" - it isn't as if life came with a job description!