Guest Post - Green and Blue

Hi everyone, due to the lack of posts here, I was more than happy to get an offer for a guest post by Arcadian Home blog. Just to keep everyone informed, I'm actually expecting a new member in the family, thus the rare updates on my blog! Have been resting for the past months. My actual due date is this Saturday! Hopefully the little one arrives on time or earlier. Pregnancy is tiring during the finals weeks.

Anyway, I'll let Mari take it from here. Hope you enjoy this guest post... xoxo

Hello, everyone! It's Mari here from Arcadian Home blog, a fantastic place to find lots of decorating inspiration, including winning ways with beautiful table decor, interesting wall art and lovely lighting fixtures. I'm so happy to be visiting with you at Weekend Escapades to share a guest post about spaces with wonderful green and blue color palettes. Amnah inspired me to choose this topic with her post about how much she loves blue, but is becoming interested in green. I've pulled together eight images that illustrate the versatility of the great color combo—blue and green. As you will see on our little virtual tour below, greens and blues are lovely together in all sorts of rooms, from the traditionally elegant to those with a contemporary minimalist look. Whether it's just a pop or two of these lively hues or a room saturated with vibrant blue and green, I hope you'll find inspiration for your own colorful interior or outdoor spaces. Please enjoy!

 
 This formal dining room is kicked up a notch with a brilliant green wall and eye-catching shapely chairs with gorgeous backs dressed up in chartreuse and turquoise burnout velvet.

 
 With a much softer background color on the wall, this living room also includes touches of deeper shades of blue and green. I love the blue sky peeking through in the canine painting.

 
 This lofty bedroom is a restrained blend of blue and green—stylish and inviting. It's one of my personal favorites. The pale walls are painted in a perfect blue hue.

 
From pale blue walls in a bedroom retreat, we turn to soft green walls in a lovely dining room with watery aqua chairs. The embossed pattern on the chair backs adds texture and visual appeal to the design. Buffet lamps are pretty in a color that seems to be a beautiful blending of green and aqua.

 
 Think green and blue rainbow. This living room and nearby office are dressed up in a lovely array of green and blue hues, from pale seafoam to a toned-down version of chartreuse. A contemporary striped rug ties
the room together.

 
 This pretty pale corner vignette gets a bit of color with a blue unframed painting and green buffet lamps. I love the wide gold detailing against the muddy shade of green on the lamp bases.

 
Pale turquoise walls and apple green cabinets create a spa-like space in this large bath with marble floor and shower surround.

 Green and blue is a great color combo for an outdoor space. Here a vintage porch goes for cool contemporary style with stripes, patterns and solids. The hanging ferns are fabulous and so are the contemporary floor lamps created from a classic form.

Images 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 

What do you think of these color combinations? Leave us your thoughts below and be sure to visit our website for more home decor and lighting inspirations!

Thanks, Mari! Oh yes, due to the amount of spam I've been getting lately, I've activated the word verification in the comments section. Hope it doesn't put off genuine human beings from commenting!

My pins over the year...

Hi! I'm back with a short update :-)

It's probably been more than a year since I joined Pinterest, and I was looking at my pins back then to see how my preference for decor has changed over the year. You know how when you keep a diary and read back to the days when you were younger, and thought, "really? I wrote that?"

Well, in this case, it would be, "really? I pinned that?"

Okay, my pins from last year were not bad at all. Let's take a look at a few of them, shall we?

Source here

I'm still into neutrals and blues and browns like in the photo above. This room is still pretty - clean and modern.

Elle Decor

I like the herringbone floor and again - clean and modern.

Rue

At the time, I was sourcing for inspiration to decorate my sister's bedroom. I like the image of this room. I particularly love the patterns on the bed sheet and the texture from the grey-blue velvet pillow.

Houzz

This is a nice dining room - and I've always loved lanterns. Loved and still love white upholstered dining chairs, too.

Source here

Another handsome living room made of greys, blues and browns - my favourite colours.

Though all photos above are beautiful in their own ways, I now find myself gravitating towards rooms that look less than perfect, lived-in and maybe a little under decorated?

Let me share with you some of my recent pins to show you what I mean.

Source here

This is what I call an effortlessly beautiful room. It just doesn't look decorated - the rumpled bedsheets, the aged wood of the side tables, the 'real' reading books in the niches and a cute personal photo of a baby. This could be anybody's room - and it just happens to be beautiful.

Source unknown

I love the relaxed look of this area. The patina on the frames of the two identical mirrors makes a beautiful contrast to the reflection of a more modern chandelier.

Taken from here

Another undecorated room - wouldn't you just love sitting here, doing mundane daily stuff, but it wouldn't be so mundane because everything around you is so pretty. The bookshelves are messy - but that's what brings character to the whole room. It looks like a real room.

Barefoot Contessa

The use of natural materials - the rug, the basket under the desk, the wooden stool and painted desk, brings the warmth into this little hallway. It looks so inviting, doesn't it?

From here

And this kitchen, although the cabinets are modern with no handles and a clean, streamlined look, the use of wooden countertops, antique trays and aged wooden beam just brings the kitchen back down to earth that I love.

So as you can see, after a year of collecting images on the internet, my preferences have changed from that clean, modern look to a more lived-in, undecorated look.

Have you found that your preferences have changed over the years? 

looking for a lantern for my dining area...

It's been a while since I last wrote, hasn't it!

Well, work has been rather hectic, so I haven't had much time and energy to update here.

My husband and I have been busy looking for lights to decorate our new home. We've been looking for three weekends and still haven't found anything suitable for our dining area until today! I can easily say that looking for pendant lighting can be as difficult as looking for our wedding rings two years ago :-).

I've never really been a chandelier kind of girl - I like simple lighting, and I am drawn to the simple elegance of lanterns.

However, after scouring a total of... (counting in my head)... 12 (!) different lighting shops, today there was a shop that had great-looking lanterns at reasonable prices. In addition to that, lanterns are categorised under the 'outdoor lighting' section, so today, while admiring the lantern I liked, I didn't tell the sales girl that I was considering of hanging it in our dining room. I think she would have maybe laughed at me.

Anyway, we haven't bought the light yet as we were rushing off somewhere after that, so we'll probably buy it tomorrow or next weekend. I hope I can post a picture of it here and show you then.

In the meantime, here are some of my inspiration photos of lanterns in dining areas. Take a look!

Velvet & Linen

I love this sunroom with the french doors and windows! Isn't the lantern so pretty as well?

Munger Interiors

A simple, clean white dining area with a lovely, squarish lantern. Love it. Love the Roman shades with the elegant grey stripes, too.

Tammy Connor Interior Design

I am in love with this room above! I love the sheers with the thin iron rods and those glass doors. Beautiful!

Loi Thai's dining room

Now who has not fallen in love with Loi Thai's dining room yet? Well, I have. Amid the neutrals, the beautiful dark lantern makes a great accent. I love the size, too.

Sally Wheat - Better Homes & Gardens

A pair of industrial looking lanterns complete this look in this fresh and bright dining area. Check out the ghost chairs. Aren't they lovely?

So what do you think? Well, I am most certainly loving the lantern look and most likely will get one for myself!

Have a great weekend, all!

black accents

Today is 1st May and it's Labour Day here in Malaysia! For all Malaysians, I hope you're having a good holiday!

Just the other day, my rather opinionated sister mentioned that my blog features a lot of white and wicker and needed some variety. Of course I was indignant and said, "well, yeah, it's my blog, I'll post things that I like." Which happens to be a lot of white... and some wicker, too.

White walls and wicker chairs? Erm, I couldn't resist! Image from Country Home

So, if you're getting bored of white, I thought that this time I would write about the opposite of white... which is black of course. I've always liked rooms that are neutral in colour scheme, but I feel that a hint of black, as an accent, tends to ground the room and give it that little bit of edge.

Here are some examples.

Katrin Cargill

I love the black backsplash, the granite top, the lanterns and the black stools in this country kitchen.

My Home Ideas

Hints of black on the coffee table, black piano, iron railing and curtain rod. I love this room.

Katrin Cargill

The console table against the wall is black - adding some edge to this otherwise neutral room.

Decorpad

I love this white kitchen and the black pendant lamps to ground the room together.

All Things Stylish

I love the composition of black and white photos in black and white frames. Modern and stylish.

Eclectic Revisited

The beautiful black chandelier is a gorgeous accent in this neutral and edgy room.

Source unknown

I love this study room and the hints of black - the chair, the doors, the photos and their frames.

Elle Decor

Black and white stripes on the banquette - the other chairs and furniture are more traditional to complement the modern stripes of the banquette.

Elle Decor

I adore Meg Ryan's house featured in Elle Decor. White with dark floors and black accents. Her bedroom is gorgeous, too.

Elle Decor

And the black cabinets in her kitchen.

Elle Decor

 So what do you think of black as accents? Is it too strong, or would you consider using it in your home?