Your Photo Inspiration Realized

Back in January, I posted "Your Life, Your Colors", about a Glidden Paint quiz to discover your color palette for your own walls.  If you haven't taken the quick/fun quiz yet be sure to swing by and check it out...Takes 2 seconds and seems really accurate from all the feedback I got.

Anyway, I wanted to talk about the depth of Glidden's My Colortopia website today, not just about the quiz which I already liked, but they have a section on their site called My Image Inspiration. It's a great place to find colors to paint your walls and even accessorize with other elements in your room.

So I will walk you through the steps so you get an idea of how easy this very helpful tool is to use...

1st:  Let's Upload a photo...

My client loves orange and if you didn't know this already The color of the year just happens to be Tangerine Tango.

To get her excited about the palette for her office I sent her this picture....So for this exercise we are going to use it as our photo for inspiration...

2nd: Now we are going to "select your/my favorite"...

So you pull the box over any part of the picture you want to pull colors from. And you can enlarge the box if you want or need to as well.

3rd:  Last step, browsing color palettes....

Don't panic, like I initially did when I first saw the colors that I "supposedly" liked...At first I was thinking oh oh, I don't see or want "deep coral" or "red grapefruit" those are way to pinky....But I didn't read the directions thoroughly, ha!  

Of those 4 color selections you click on the one that best represents what you want....So on mine it was the "Vibrant Day Lily".

The next step shows the palette I am intending on using in my clients office....It worked, that is exactly the palette I am using.

If you are like my Mom for instance and don't know how to upload a photo or are just not overly inspired by any photo that comes to mind...You can go directly to The Inspiration Gallery (scroll down the page from here) and pick a photo from there and do the steps above.  It will look like this...

They have some beautiful photos already chosen, so super easy right?

Oh and it took me 5 minutes tops to do this exercise and what great feedback I immediately got.

***** (five stars) Glidden, I am feeling inspired already.

Oh and a cool feature after you have your palette selected is the 1 click option to share it with others if you want.

I look forward to hearing from you on how this worked for you.  Please let me know if you uploaded your own photo or chose one from the Inspiration Gallery as well.

I have been sponsored by Glidden brand paint to write this post but the thoughts and opinions expressed are all my own. :)

Change the Face of Your Fireplace, Part 2

One of the most popular posts I ever wrote was Change the Face of Your Fireplace.  I guess my clients aren't the only ones who don't know what to do with their fireplaces and how to update them.

I thought it was time to add a part 2 to the original post with some more fireplace updating ideas.

For a cleaner, more contemporary feel you could consider all glass, definitely a fresh look right?

This tile is great, it adds really nice texture without seeing any grout joints. 

On this fireplace, we did a Contours tile from Diamond Tech with a travertine slab on top of the hearth.  The slab was a little more money, but worth it to my clients who don't like grout lines.

This client wanted to get rid of the polished brass fireplace insert, it was too shiny to him. But there wasn't anything wrong with it other than the shiny brass.  So a really inexpensive way of fixing that, was to paint it a flat black, it does the trick every time.

Now when I looked at the mantel it just looked soo wimpy it was driving me crazy for his larger family room. After getting to know this client and his taste..I recommended we try something different....

(Family Room: Before)

I have been driving by this place for years never having the right client to suggest something like this until now....

I showed him some pictures like this one and he bit...I was sooo excited!  After measuring, carefully of course, I found the perfect one and had it installed.

And voila....He loved it!  It added the perfect amount of weight to an otherwise dull/boring fireplace.  Oh and yes I took out the tired marble surround and replaced it with the travertine tile I used in the floor of his kitchen to tie it all in.

(Family Room: After)

The backside of this fireplace is another fireplace.  He loved the family room fireplace makeover sooo  much he let me do the same thing on the other side.

(Office: Before)

Of course I painted the polished brass a flat black, changed the surround again to a warmer travertine tile and check out the mantel, BAM right?  Well I mean the paint helped too, ha!  

(Office: After)

We were on a roll!  I think this client will never look at a plain fireplace the same way again...He immediately wanted me to do something, actually the same thing on his other 2 fireplaces in his house for his master bedroom....That is where I drew the line...Nah uh, you can't put that in master bedroom, no way...But we can do something grand and elegant.

(Master Bedroom: Before)

We could do this!

(Master Bedroom: After)

He LOVED it!  It's even more stunning in person.  It added the perfect amount of weight to that side of his room and painting the walls a bit darker really made it pop too.

So please don't be afraid to change the face of your fireplace...It can be done for very little money or alot, but always with a big impact...Remember most of the time your fireplace is a focal point in your rooms, do you really want a sad/dated focal point in your house?  I think not. :)))

Of course I love feedback, so let me know what you think of my latest installment of fireplace faces okay?!