Day 6 and 7 What about color? and Cleaniiing and sorting like crazy!

Happy to see you here reading my adventures with the Cure!

This was my favorite AT Style Cure Lesson Increase Your Color Confidence in 5 Minutes so I really have to copy paste directly from Apartment Therapy some of the lesson here (just jump over to the post if you already read it):

WARM & COOL COLORS


1. There Are Warm and Cool Colors
The interior palette is roughly divided between these two groups of color and they are pretty self explanatory. Reds, yellows, oranges and beige or creamy colors are WARM. Blues, greens and grays are COOL. (...)
2. Warm Colors are Stimulating
The reds, oranges, yellows and all the off whites that tend to this direction possess all the qualities of warmth in that they are hot, stimulating and soothing to our EMOTIONS, which crave warmth. (...)


3. Cool Colors are Calming
The blue side of the spectrum along with cool browns and grays and the cool off whites possess all of the qualities of coolness in that they are calming, focusing and soothing to our INTELLECT, which craves a cooler atmosphere. (...) 


4. A Short Note on Black and White

   Though both black and white do not count as proper colors (black is all colors and white is the absence of color), they do have warm and cool properties, which are sometimes surprising to people, but are very important to know when using them:

White is cool.

Black is warm. (...)

5. A Short Note on Neutral Colors

Neutral colors are like mutts; they are mixes where no strong color is evident. Since all colors tend to make brown, neutrals cover a dizzyingly vast landscape of browns that run from the warm, red brown of milk chocolate, to the cooler taupes and stone colors, to the light beige off whites. Neutrals are rarely exciting in their own right, but they become very exciting and sophisticated with put together with one another and with a starring color in their midst. I recommend getting to love the wide array of neutral colors and using them liberally as a base for any room.

6. Putting Color to Use - Be Consistent To Start With!

Keeping all of this in mind, you should get started by deciding in advance what kind of an effect you want in the room, and whether it is going to be predominantly warm (social) or cool (private). Build a palette that works with one color set and then stick to your guns. (..)

THE 80/20 RULE

Use strong colors sparingly. Allow them to punctuate a room, not define it. In any room, go for 80 percent neutral and 20 percent strong colors. Small batches of color have a tremendous effect on the whole and will bring out the neutral colors around them. (..)"

This was such a great lesson I really think we all should read and re-read it here

Although as some fellow commenters I believe that you don't need to go white or beige to have a beautifully decored room, the 80/20 rule is wonderful and very useful! If you are bold or want to add more drama to your room, you can always choose that the 80 percent will be another color than one of those we call neutral, go orange, go purple, go red. The rule still applies!

Inspiration above from here

I've concluded that I mostly decor in warm tones, I could understand why sometimes I love a piece and it feels strange in a room and I've also decided:

I want a cold workplace! This is not easy, since the floor is terracota red tiles, there is an antique stone wall with light yellow painted fillings and most of the furniture is going to be in dark wood (is what I have to work with, and since most is very good wood I wouldn't dare myself to paint it). Oh, and the piano is black, which I've just learned is a, you guessed it: warm color!

At this point I got ahead of the cure, I was cleaning, decluttering, painting all at the same time. 

The walls were pretty sad and needed work and love. They were an eggshell color and now I've chosen: they will be white. Since they are very sandy (meaning old and letting sand fall out when the brush passed by) I decided to water the paint to make it easy and also in some walls to use one of the most antique paints in the world (and cheaper) it's a white dust called CAL in Portuguese (I don't know the term in English sorry) (a fellow commenter told me it's probably White Wash) then you join water and some kind of grease (I've used olive oil, just a little). You must be carefull since it boils on itself and becomes very hot. My grandmother used to paint our country house (her childhood house) in interior Portugal this way. 

So here you have some of the work in progress!

This place was really difficult to clean because...I love to clean. I love old stuff but I need to make sure they are impecable clean, so even the stuff that went to outbox went perfectly groomed. This took me some days. And also the rugs, the cleaning of the vintage sofas, and a lot of this and that I kept finding. You know cleaning: The Original Never Ending Story :D!

The assignment #7 also told us to pick up some paint chips. I'm going to be honest: I don't know that word. Is that paint samples? I believe so. I didn't got paint chips but I did look at the colors at the store. Luxens paint, which is cheap, good and environment friendly. I didn't bought the paint for the wooden blinds (is this the word?) of the windows. I was looking for a blue, a dark blue or a turquoise blue (I know: opposites). I decided I wanted a turquoise blue since I wanted a fresher room and that if I closed them in a rainy day it would make me feel a blue sky day was there outside! What color did I bought? That's what we can find out in the next assignments!

At this point after so much cleaning I only kept going because my boyfriend said: 

"Don't give up". It was so dramatic. I felt like I was in an Hollywood movie. So I decided to be the heroine. When I had the time I kept cleaning, sorting out and painting.

And although it was not the time in the cure yet, I sometimes brought inside the room one or two pieces that I love just to keep me going, maintain the focus and be inspired. (like my sister's painting above, actually a painting from this house!)

After all, if we like decor is because beauty, with all it's different meanings for everyone, it's because it inspires us. To do better, live better, feel better.

So let the work continue!

Funny Note: I recently discovered that when working alone my mind doesn't run wild if I'm listening to music. But the thick walls only let me tune in two local radiostations (at least with the old radio I had with me). I now know all the local ladies personal problems because they call there and talk. And I've also sometimes beared with the most insane electronic music. It was a rollercoaster of impatience and laugh. The traffic man actually said this (with the most serious professional voice) "The traffic today is a little bad, at least this is what I can see from my window". They don't have a traffic reporter, they just look out the window at tell us what they think :D!