With all the Restoration Hardware bashing I’ve been doing recently, I’m feeling the need to be a bit, how shall I say?, nice.
So I opened my new Pottery Barn catalog determined to find something nice to say.
And guess what? It wasn’t that hard! In addition to a few items that weren’t bad, such as:
-these block-print linens at right,
-the “Daily System” wall-mounted bulletin boards, letter bins, etc. (which I have in my office AND which happen to be on sale right now), and
– the Alhambra Dhurrie rug,
one thing really stood out. The room shots that identify the Benjamin Moore paint colors used on the walls.
They may have been doing this for years, for all I know; I’ve been so disappointed in Pottery Barn that I haven’t done more than breeze through it of late.
But I’ve always thought the Benjamin Moore / Pottery Barn fan deck was an excellent idea. We all should have one. Can you imagine? Instead of Googling someone before a first date, you’d just try to get your hands on his/her fan deck. Learn a lot.
Knowing the exact paint color in a picture is super duper helpful. We all know how hard it is to guess how a paint color is going to look on THIS wall in THIS room with THIS exposure with THESE lights with THIS rug…etc. But having a photograph of the color in situ – even if the “situ” is an impossibly beautiful catalog set – is a good thing.
The walls of this “bedroom,” for example, are painted Benjamin Moore’s 302 You Are My Sunshine. See the little paint dab in the lower right corner?
The walls of this dining room are painted Benjamin Moore’s HC-26 Monroe Bisque:
And this breakfast room is painted Benjamin Moore’s Decorator’s White, which is an INT RM color. (Interior ready mixed*, get it?)
Thank you, Pottery Barn. Thanks, Benjamin Moore. It feels good to love again.
*Note added 2/11: It took Gentle Reader ErinEvelyn to enlighten me that the RM does not, in fact, stand for room. Duh. My painters know what it means.
Annie Elliott – aka bossy color – is an interior decorator and design blogger in Washington, D.C. She’s also the creator of the “bossy basic,” a one-time service to jump-start the interior design process in your home. Think of it as CPR for your living room.