Blue For The Most

When we bought our house last year I wanted to paint the whole interior a chalky white and the paint I had in mind was 'Slaked Lime' by Little Greene. I wanted smell-free and I wanted clean, after so many years living in poorly decorated rented flats and houses (to my abiding frustration it is not the custom to redecorate rented accommodation in the UK, so one is stuck with 'magnolia' walls. Oh, how I have grown to dislike magnolia). We bought litres and litres of lovely chalky Slaked Lime and started painting our new rooms. And Little Greene emulsion really is smell-free, which means that you can paint your bedroom and sleep in it that same night. Only, when my beloved had finished painting our bedroom we both realised that this chalky white colour was... simply too white. The big bay window lets in lots of west-facing light, and our bedroom suddenly looked like a Victorian hospital ward. This was not the atmosphere we had planned for at all, so what now? We started rummaging through our many sample pots of paint and decided on a wild-card - a colour which Little G had sent to us in error and which we hadn't really looked at. Gauze, it was called, and it looked somewhere between pale blue and grey. We tried it. It didn't look bad at all. We rushed down to the paintshop and got them to mix it for us, and by the end of the day our bedroom was gauze.
While on the colour chart it looked pale grey (as you can see below) it turned out to be a lovely restful pale blue which works well with the white picture rail and skirting boards. A very happy result.

 
Only, it doesn't really work with my favourite cream and pale brown 'boutis' bedspread which I bought as a souvenir in Nice many years ago. Suddenly I felt I must find a new bedspread. It just stuck in my mind, and I couldn't find anything that worked with this pale blue-grey. Perhaps indigo might work? Cobalt would be too harsh. Indigo then. And one day I found an indigo quilted bedspread by what to me seemed like an obscure brand called Design Port on eBay and I decided to go for it. What the heck, if it didn't work I could resell it. It arrived from the US around 9 days later, and turned out to be just exactly what I wanted. A slightly faded indigo, almost denim, which worked beautifully. Sometimes it's worth taking a chance.

And then things fell into place - those dark blue floral velvet cushion covers I had bought as a souvenir in NYC this summer (as a true Scandi I couldn't resist the tempting Home collection at H&M's flagship store on 5th Avenue. OK, get a souvenir, but let's get something we'll use, is my motto), the ones which when I got them home didn't really work, they now work beautifully.

Photo: H&M

Things are still coming together, and I have spotted a few more elements which would fit into this pale blue-grey and indigo scheme. It turns out that dark blue interiors are sailing up on the interior decorating front this winter.

 Photo: Royal Copenhagen

Royal Copenhagen's new 'Blå Riflet' (the name in English is 'Blue Fluted') china service in a matte glaze, in case one wants to have breakfast in bed...

Abraham's 'Blue For The Most' album for those wistful quiet moments...

Photo: Iittala

Iittala's beautiful new 'Ruutu' vase, which will be available from January...

Photo: French Connection

Or for a more budget-friendly alternative, this roughly hewn glass bud vase and jar from French Connection Home (I would never have even thought of French Connection and stylish pared-down home furnishings, but a google search for occasional tables last year led me to their beautiful web catalogue)

Photo: Inreda.com

Family-owned Swedish-Icelandic paint company Kalklitir has gotten a lot of attention in the Scandinavian interior design press these past months. Kalklitir paint comes in powder form and you mix it with water before you apply it to walls (or wood) with a big flat brush in rough strokes. The finish is chalky with a beautiful texture and deliberate unevenness. Swedish blogger Jannice Wistrand did a feature on Kalklitir with some great photos - see here: Add Simplicity .

Photo: Svenskt Tenn

Svenskt Tenn has just reissued 'Zodiaken', a linen fabric designed by Josef Franck in 1936. Very timely colour-wise, and I love how 30's designs remain so fresh and relevant. 'Zodiaken' means 'The Zodiak', of course, and each star sign is depicted in a flurry of little stars (mine is Libra, top right) with The Milky Way running through it all. I particularly like how ST have combined this with another of their famous prints, 'Elefant', designed by Estrid Ericson in the 1930's (it is available in several colours and in cotton or linen). 'Elefant' in the black colourway has been much depicted in the Scandinavian blogosphere, and I confess that I have never taken to it, but I really like it in this dark blue teamed with the plain indigo. Who says a Chrismas stocking has to be red or green...

Photo: Hathaways/Houzz.com

A surprisingly bold yet very attractive dark blue wall colour. It obviously helps to have three large windows letting in lots of light, but still, this is a major departure from the chalky pale walls of the past years.

Photo: Marks & Spencer

And then this striking top from the Spring Summer 2015 collection by Marks & Spencer. I'm a bit baffled by its beauty. Who knew M&S could do something like this?!