Truth And Beauty Blog: Color My World

Saturday, September 25, 2010

One of the best things about the tree falling on our house March 13 has been choosing new paint colors for our rooms. The old 1920s plaster walls were knocked down due to damage and new, smooth sheetrock walls went up.

Tuesday morning, H. and I met with Catherine Belisle, the chic and lovely co-owner of Rabbit Rabbit Home Decor in Montclair and her colleague, Kelly Knight-Artigas. I've wandered into the little shop on Valley Road often, to look wistfully at the great lamps and richly colored custom-made drapes that pool stylishly at the bottom, to feel the soft throws, and to occasionally buy something from the sale section, like gorgeous kitchen towels. The shop also carries those pricey, luscious candles that Oprah loves, and I sometimes buy one of those, too.

But now! Now! Catherine [dressed beautifully in a flared-bottom skirt and blue ruffled cardigan, with amazing flat shoes with buckles at the toe] and Kelly [also stylish in a brown corduroy skirt, and wielding several color wheels] walked through our house between 8:30 and 9:30 A.M. and I think it is the best $100 I have ever spent. That is the hourly charge.
Figgy was at school, so Catherine and Kelly suggested she stop by after school one day with a favorite outfit or something, so they could help choose a color for her attic room.

This was all great fun. I would love to write much more about it now, but I have a date with H. to go to Target to get a pink bike!!!

We've given the painters all of the Benjamin Moore color names except for the kitchen [because we still have to choose floor and counters] and the exterior [because we might be married to the yellow we have, not sure]. Here's what Rabbit Rabbit helped us choose:

Bathroom: Spring Sky, soft, kind of tropical blue-green to go with white beadboard vanity. I wanted a beachy feel.
Bedroom: Glass Slipper, soft gray-blue to go with mahogany furniture – Catherine suggests white or cream bedding and window treatments. And one shade darker on the color strip, Brittany Blue, for our dressing room across the hall. [It was Figgy's bedroom. But our rooms are so small, we can't comfortably fit our dressers and a big bed in one room.]

My sunroom office: Jamaican Aqua, a couple shades less crayony than the Tropicana Cabana I had chosen the summer before tree fell. [Catherine says crayon is good for accents, a pop of color.] But Tropicana Cabana on the one wall behind the built-in bookshelves, which will be painted white.

Figgy's attic room: Outer Sphere, a soft kind of minty sky blue for what Catherine and Kelly said feels like a treehouse, with all the windows looking out over the trees.
More to come about this colorful journey. But I can't say enough about Rabbit Rabbit: rabbitdesign@aol.com.
[BTW, they've just moved to a new, larger location, on Lorraine Avenue in Montclair.]