Decorating with White

All of this snow has me thinking of white.  The cover of the February Country Living magazine stopped me in my tracks. This is one of the few magazines that I don’t subscribe to but I may have to rethink that.  The cover looks very Eddie Ross to me (although he wasn’t involved) – love the carefully edited collections and the neutrals with blue.

Even though I love colour in my own home, there is something simple and lovely about a home decorated in shades of white.
The first home featured is this San Francisco Victorian which was restored over a period of ten years.

 
 










Love the modern kitchen with the antique/vintage mirror and chandelier.
White also transformed this traditional cabin in Montana.




Vintage finds take center stage in this New Jersey home which is featured on the cover.  Notice how the rug is different from the one on the cover – the blue one works nicely with their blue font!
 


Rachel Ashwell, Darryl Carter and Suzanne Kasler provide their insight into decorating with white and provide their Go-To white paint colours. 
Have you seen this issue? What are your thoughts on decorating with layers of white?

Small Spaces: Pretty in White

The April 2010 Style at Home is their Small Space issue filled with decorating ideas for tiny rooms. A few homes are featured but the one that spoke to me was that of design editor Ann Marie Favot. At less than 1000 square feet, her Victorian semi feels light and airy thanks to her use of varying shades of white throughout.

She mixes custom pieces like the sofa and chairs below with inexpensive finds such as the tufted ottoman from HomeSense (gotta love HomeSense!)

  

In the mud room, she used inexpensive porcelain tile which mimics limestone. I love the subtle Barbara Barry wallpaper.

Isn’t this kitchen beautiful? She kept the kitchen cabinets and white appliances but added quartz counters, a Carrara marble backsplash and a Blanco sink and faucet. Most people would swap out the white appliances for stainless steel but she kept them because they work well with the cabinetry.

She invested in lighting, changing one fixture at a time over the course of three years. I love the sculptural Bubble lamp in the dining room, the dainty glass one over the sink and the bell jar pendant in the bedroom in the last photo (you know how I love bell jar pendants!)

(I updated my low quality scanned photos to ones from the Style at Home site, except the last photo .)