I am so excited about today’s post with Ace Hardware! You guys know I love using (pretty bold) colors in my home, so I was, of course, in love when I heard about Ace’s “31 Days of Color” event. At 12 pm each day during the entire month of March, a “color of the day” chosen from Ace’s Valspar and Clark+Kensington lines is being unveiled over on The Paint Studio along with inspiration for ways you can use that color in your home!
Each member of the Ace Bloggers panel is sharing a project using one of these color picks. The color of the day today is Clark+Kensington’s Vivid Blooms and just wait until you see how I used it!
Vivid Blooms definitely lives up to its name! It’s an orangey-coral with a little bit of dustiness and a lot of punch. I played around with a lot of ideas for using it in various parts of the house, but as soon as I carried the paint chip into our dark grey office, I knew I had to use the two colors together somehow.
It was actually Bryan’s idea to turn the seldom-used closet in our office into a cozy reading nook. I’m ashamed to admit it had become one of the last bastions of unpacked boxes in our house and was not efficiently used or organized. This “before” picture is after I had pulled all of the accumulated clutter out of the closet to get a feel for the space:
This closet is a funny space because right off to the left of the picture, there are four carpeted stair steps that lead to nowhere. This closet is right over our stairway so instead of having a funny slanted wall, they built steps in to give extra closet space. So the floor space is that little square you can see in the photo above, but the closet is a little larger than it appears.
I decided to paint the walls in Vivid Blooms for an unexpected dose of color in an otherwise dark and boring corner of the office. I wanted to use the bold hue as a jumping off point for a “vintage-bohemian” vibe – warm, colorful, free-spirited, layered, and above all, fun.
The first thing I did was take the door off the hinges to help widen the doorway and add to the “nook” rather than “closet” feel. Then I gave the trim and shelves inside the closet a fresh coat of semi-gloss white paint, which made a big difference in person, but was anti-climactic on camera. But seriously you guys – fresh white trim paint is the best!
On to the exciting part though – cracking open my gallon of Vivid Blooms…
I’m not going to lie – I was a little scared of how vibrant it is! But also totally in love with the way it looked with the darker elements in the office, like the plank top of our desk.
I spent two afternoons painting the closet. I would say that 7/8ths of the that time was devoted to cutting in around the stairs, trim and shelves; I only spent a few minutes actually rolling the paint on the walls in such a tiny space!
Now, that closet is in a pretty dark corner of the office, so naturally I was using the closet light to paint. And as I was rolling the paint on the walls, I was getting pretty nervous because instead of the gorgeous orangey-coral from the swatch or even the can, the walls were distinctly, blaringly neon orange. I thought that perhaps it was the white paint showing through the first coat, skewing the color. But while the second coat made the color deeper and richer, it was still glowing orange…
It was my light bulb! You guys, I have always been a die-hard incandescent fan. I love the warm glow of incandescent bulbs in the evening and have had a long-standing grudge against any other bulbs, unfairly based on some bad-run ins with sickly-cool-toned CFL bulbs. In general, I don’t mind the way incandescent bulbs warm up my wall colors in the evening. But in such a tiny space with very little natural light, the incandescent color cast was overwhelming.
When I switched to a pure white daylight CFL bulb, the wall color immediately turned into the incredible rich pinky-orange-coral color I was expecting! So, public service announcement – be aware of the color cast of your light bulbs, especially if the room you are painting gets little to no natural light.
Are you ready to finally see the finished product?
With a high-energy color like this, you could always keep the accessories more tame and muted for a completely different feeling, but I wanted to go over the top in this tiny space. I love the combination of coral + mustard, so finding my pair of tufted yellow chairs on Craigslist the same week I was working on this closet makeover (yes, I completed this several weeks ahead of time and have been masterfully keeping it under wraps!) was perfectly serendipitous.
My parents have had this gorgeous hand-embroidered tablecloth since I was little and they were gracious enough to let me steal it for my space. I installed a thrifted curtain rod over the doorway and simply clipped up the tablecloth! I pulled it back with a woven belt I brought home from Brazil as a teenager.
Do you remember the Christmas-light-ball I found at the thrift store? I mounted a plant-hanging bracket over the doorway inside the closet to hold it and ran the cord down the left side of the doorway. It’s a great gentle reading light!
Lastly, I added in plenty of my favorite book collections (Redwall, anyone?) and a painting I did when Bryan and I got married, loosely inspired by the book “The Little Prince”.
I couldn’t be more excited to be a member of the Ace Bloggers panel this year and to partner with Ace on this post! Ace Hardware provided me with the materials for this project and I was also compensated for my time and this post. All opinions and positions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of Ace Hardware.
HOLY CRUD, brynne, you killed it!!!!! i am in love! the color is so fun in there and great tip about the lightbulb. i love love love it! the tablecloth curtain is soooo fun! but most exciting is the fresh white trim. 😉
Aw, thank you Cassie! The color is super fun! My baby sister (okay, she's 7 now, but much much younger!) came to stay and immediately turned the closet into her own playroom 🙂 So the "reading nook" also makes a fabulous play house!
oh I LOVE it. awesome color against the gray walls and it looks super cozy 🙂
Thank you Stephanie! It's a really fun little hideaway!
I absolutely love it. Especially with the fabulous curtain combo!
Thank you Julia! The curtain totally makes it, in my opinion 🙂
Oh my goodness girl, you absolutely KILLED it!!! Perfect place to add that bold beautiful color!
Thanks Trisha! I love it!
What a fun space! Christmas light ball finds a home! Great job 🙂
I love it in there! (although I've bumped my head on it a few times and it's a bit spiky) It's so cozy with the Christmas lights on though!
Such a fun, colorful space!
Thanks Kristen!
What an awesome idea! Love the color you used!
Thank you Sherry! It's such fun color! I still have a bit leftover from painting the walls, so I'm looking forward to using it again somehow!
That color combination is exquisite!
Thank you so much Katie! Coral + mustard is my new favorite color combo!
I feel like if you were reincarnated into a "curtain," this would be it. I love the reading noom. So, so fabulous!
I'm going to pretend that I'm trying to be hip and "noom" is a cross between nook and room but really it was a typo. 😉
Haha, so perfect! Me in curtain form!
And I will definitely be adopting "noom" 🙂
Super cute Brynne 🙂 Such a lovely addition. xoxo
Thank you Kristin!
Oh this is gorgeous! I love all the boho details (that tablecloth turned curtain! that chair!) and how much the colour plays off the deep grey walls – so fab! xxx
Thanks Kimberly! I'm so happy with the way everything came together!
The chair…..I don't need to say more!
Oh girl, I know! They are some of my favorite thrift scores ever!
I reeeeeeally love this color. And i love how it adds such a pop of vibrancy in your closet. Perfection.
Thank you Kim! It's such a fun color! I'm so glad I have a little paint left over so I can use it somewhere else too!
what a fun pop of color! love the tablecloth turned curtain its fab fab fab!
Thanks Trina!
This is absolutely GORGEOUS!!!! This looks like it should be a dressing room at Anthropology. I literally love everything about this. I could lick that color right off the wall… except not, because I know that licking walls is not socially acceptable. I guess I could pull that curtain closed
Oh man – that is high praise! 😀
I love that everything that you put into the nook were things that you already had – it's so personal and beautiful! Great job!
Thank you so much! 🙂
So fun, Brynne! That color is gorgeous (I love the name, too :)) and your chairs works perfectly!
Thank you Pam! It was so fun to pull together! Although I've already taken the chair out of the reading nook and moved it somewhere else for now 🙂 That's the story of my life around here, haha.
Brynne, this is such a stylish spot now! I love that you went bold with the color, what a statement! And that tablecloth for the curtain? Darling and genius! Thanks for linking up with us at Best of the Nest!
Thank you so much Jennifer! The tablecloth is my favorite part! I've always loved it and I'm so happy my family let me nab it for this project!
Such a fabulous transformation Brynne! I didn't know how much I love that orange and gray combo – I need that in my life!!
Thank you so much Kris! I definitely wouldn't have thought to pair the two colors until I carried the swatch into the room, but I love it now too!
You had me at the bright coral, and that tablecloth really sets it off. Your finishing touch of the Brazilian belt is genius!
Thank you Ellen! I've always loved that belt, but had a hard time pulling it off as a fashion accessory – I guess it was just destined for this role 🙂
This nook exudes happiness! Such a cheerful color. Love the chair and the tablecloth curtain. Love this cozy space!
Thank you Carol! It was so much fun to pull together!
LOVE!!!!!
Thank you so much!