Question: What do you do when you have, oh…five…maybe six gorgeous, European-made racing bicycles scattered throughout your condominium?
Answer: Call bossy color, of course.
The bicycles are not why this fantastic client called us, but we knew right away that figuring out what to do with them needed to be part of our design strategy.
Even if we had a place to stash the bikes out of sight, why would we? They’re beautiful, sculptural objects. And they need to be readily accessible: our client spends most of his precious free time riding. (Evidently, one uses different bicycles for different road conditions, weather, and moods. One day you feel a little French, the next, a little Italian…who knows which bike you’re going to want that day?)
So instead of designing and building some expensive, gargantuan closet-type thing, we decided to make better use of a large, unused wall in his bedroom.
We decided to frame the bicycles by painting the “active” section of the wall a deep blue: Benjamin Moore’s 2062-20 Gentleman’s Gray. (We used a satin finish for durability – the finish and the deep color hides tire scuffs.) I suppose I could have said, “accent wall,” couldn’t I? Huh. Wonder why I didn’t?
Then we just hung those suckers up, one per hook.
Doesn’t it look great?
Here they are from the front hall (which our amazing client permitted us to wallpaper in a BLACK shagreen wallcovering from Schumacher):
Oh, if you insist ;) Here are some other shots of that amazing wallpaper:
Yep. I have the coolest job – and the coolest clients – ever. Don’t be jealous.
Quoted recently in The Wall Street Journal and on Washingtonian.com, Annie Elliott is an expert in curated interiors, brilliant color palettes, and telling busy professionals what to do in the nicest way possible. The “after” photographs above are by Michael K. Wilkinson for bossy color.