4.15.2011

Loving the Grey

When we moved in, our living room was a really great blue. Our friends, the former tenants, have amazing taste, but since we wanted the room to feel like our own, we decided to paint.


I came up with this two toned grey idea based on high chair rails I had seen Genevieve Gorder do on HGTV. It played in to our two toned couches and coffee table nicely. (You can check out pictures of the rest of our living room here.) Also, the height was a modern take on a traditional detail, which I love. I chose grey because it’s really warm and a modern neutral when you use it right - I love it.  The only challenge we faced with the big line is that old houses are not level at all.  In particular the windows in this room ARE level and the mantle is NOT.  How to trick the eye?…

After a lot of brainstorming, here’s what we came up with:
  1. Start the line at the windows and make sure it’s level to them on three of the four walls. We used a laser level throughout - saved a ton of time.
  2. Work our way from the door, to the windows, and around to the wall with the mantle.
  3. On the mantle wall, use string to make a line that curves ever so slightly to give the illusion of a straight line without having to follow the wonky angle of the mantle. This took a lot of experimentation, teamwork, and stepping back to eyeball things.
  4. Angle the line slightly as it comes into the door frame.  This is where the biggest jump in the line occurs. We decided to put the jump here because the break for the door is a great camouflage for the problem. Also, it’s not an area of the room with huge visual focus (ie. it’s not the first thing you see when you walk in the room).
So now I’ve given away our dirty secret.  Don’t judge us for making you believe it was straight, we just wanted everyone to feel happy and level!  You wouldn’t believe the measures we’ve had to go to to stave off vertigo in this house…