Something Blue + Giveaway

No, this isn’t another wedding post!  The publishers of House Beautiful’s latest book “Blue – 350 Inspiring Ways to Decorate with Blue” sent me a complimentary copy to review (and will provide a copy to one lucky reader!)

I love the House Beautiful books which are a collection of images from the magazine supported with ideas and advice from interior designers .  This one has to be my favourite thus far.  

 

Decorating with blue is timeless, versatile, appealing and  a fail-safe choice when decorating.  I realized that I have included some of  the images in the book in previous blog posts.  See here, here and here.

The book shows how blue can work in any room and with any colour scheme.  This bedroom decorated by Tom Stringer in a navy and white colour scheme is bold and fresh.

 

While this bedroom with a muted blue and orange scheme is more tranquil.  Designer John Willey points out that “the orange isn’t too bright because it’s printed on tan linen rather than cotton.”  And by cotton he means a white ground – good tip! 

This is one of my favourite images from the book, in part due to the gorgeous blue textiles but also the idyllic setting. Le sigh…

Would you like to have this book as part of your collection?  The publisher has kindly offered a book to a reader.  To win:

* become a Follower of Decor Happy by clicking on the Follow button near the bottom of the sidebar and

* leave a comment letting me know if you have any blue in your own home.  If you don’t have a blog, please leave your email.

For extra entries:

* tweet about the giveaway linking to this post and including @vanessajfrancis in the tweet

* follow me on Twitter

This giveaway is open to residents of Canada and the US. I will choose a winner using random. org on May 19th.

Good luck!

I’m Feeling Blue (in a good way)

There were two reasons I was excited to receive my March House Beautiful in the mail yesterday. First of all, I usually receive my US subscriptions weeks after they have been on the newsstands, so to receive a March issue in January made me smile. The second reason was the issue was all about the colour BLUE, which is a favourite colour to use when decorating not just my own home, but clients’ homes as well. Erin of House of Turquoise gets a mention in editor in chief Stephen Drucker’s column. Way to go Erin!

I love the use of blue in this dining room especially the slipcover fabric on the chairs – Jasper’s Indian Flower in Blue.

Gorgeous glass tile described by designer Marshall Watson as “periwinkle verging on cobalt.” It’s a kitchen in Fire Island, New York which is 5 miles out in the ocean so careful consideration had to be given to the building materials. For example, the walls are all wood (not drywall) which breathes and bends in a storm. That’s what I love about this magazine – the insight from designers as to the design choices they made.

Great idea – 1” x 6” blue glass tiles lining the perimeter of the bathroom near the ceiling. Love the mix with the 12” square wall tiles and the hexagon floor tiles.

 

This room has three things I love – round mirrors, branches and subtle wallpaper (see earlier posts). 

Although I don’t think I would personally do a patterned sofa and rug, there’s something about this room that says come on in, sit and stay a while.  An artist painted the nautical chart of Long Island in the “map room” – how unique is that?

I love the bookcase painted in Farrow and Ball’s Down Pipe which looks very gray on the paint chip but quite blue in this photo.

Now that I have done yellow and blue posts, I think red will be next, don’t you?