Annie Sloan's Room Recipes for Style and Colour

© CICO Books 2014

Annie Sloan’s ROOM RECIPES

STYLE AND COLOUR FOR

© CICO Books 2014

contents INTRODUCTION 6 STORYTELLING 8 DESIGN PRINCIPLES 10 STYLE FUSIONS 14 CHAPTER 1 NEOCLASSICAL 16 CHAPTER 2 TRADITIONAL SWEDISH 38 CHAPTER 3 MODERN RETRO 60 CHAPTER 4 BOHEMIAN 80 CHAPTER 5 VINTAGE FLORAL 102 CHAPTER 6 FRENCH ELEGANCE 126 CHAPTER 7 RUSTIC COUNTRY 150 CHAPTER 8 COASTAL 172 CHAPTER 9 WAREHOUSE 196 THE CHALK PAINT® RANGE 218 INDEX 220 PICTURE CREDITS 222 BUSINESS CREDITS 222 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 224

INTRODUCTION Deciding how to style and decorate your home isn’t easy. There are so many ways of approaching the task and so many styles to choose from. Like most people, you may worry about making a mistake or lack confidence in your choices. Our room recipes help you decide on the best style for you and give an overview of interior design and home decor. The styles we explore are all quite polarized. They are by no means definitive, but they capture quite specific looks. In reality, most homes are fusions of more than one style but even the most experienced designer will find it difficult to juggle more than two or three styles in one room.

An inspirational journey This is a world we know well but both Felix’s and my preconceptions were jolted in writing this book. Felix was

amazed to find that of all the locations photographed for the book, the most unrestrained—which in that sense made it feel rather modern— was the 17th-century Swedish manor house with its quirky mock picture frames and freely painted panels. For me, the 1960s design of the modern retro location was a real eye-opener. Being at art school in the 1960s, I viewed mainstream design of the time as pedestrian: unchallenging and uninteresting. How wrong I was!

What is a “style”?

We can define a style as being a particular approach or a unified look.

This look is like a palette consisting of colors, shapes, cultural and historic references, materials, attitudes, even ideologies. This palette can be drawn upon in many different ways to create a design style. When we describe a room as “stylish,” we are saying that all of the elements are balanced and work well together.

The more knowledgeable you are, the better. A broad knowledge is like a repertoire of ideas that you can draw upon. If, for example, you have a chair and you are not sure what to put with it, knowing the style of that chair will give you ideas. It’s not about creating a rule book, but more a set of guidelines. If you are inexperienced or lack confidence, you may find that following the style guide in this book helps you. If you are an experienced decorator, you will find that you can make all sorts of style fusions work.

6 introduction

Š CICO Books 2014

[opposite, above] These pieces are modern retro. The excellence of this design style was a particular revelation to me. [opposite, center, and below] Swedish style: The quirky freeness of the haphazardly laid hand-painted Chinese wallpaper and the painted faux picture frame and border were an inspiration to Felix. [above] We both found the painterly approach to French elegance very motivating. Throughout the book, we have suggested paint swatches, such as the greens shown here, for each style. [right] This sitting room [above] shows a charming and somewhat edgy take on the vintage floral style, while this collection of items [below] is warehouse style in both its look and arrangement.

introduction 7

© CICO Books 2014

paint your own

Complementary colors Find a piece of furniture where there is no strut between the drawers, so the colors can flow seamlessly from one to the other. There are many variations to these chest of drawers, some with integrated recessed handles and others with handles.

I chose to paint the outer casing in Graphite, which works with the modern print on the wall and against the white wall, so it is delineated, but you could try using Original or Pure instead, or at least a neutral or other dark color.

Apart from the outer color, just two colors are used here, and to work well they must be two complementaries. I chose Barcelona Orange and Greek Blue but you could use any two, as long as they are at opposite ends of the color wheel (see pages 218–219).

I took out all the drawers (remember the order) and started by painting the bottom one Greek Blue. I used a roller tray for the paint, so I could add Barcelona Orange until I liked the color, and then painted the next drawer. I added a little more of the Barcelona Orange each time until I liked the color and it was sufficiently different from the previous one. I carried on until I had one drawer left and then painted this with Barcelona Orange. You could, of course, measure each color and make the development more mathematical.

This piece was inspired by the Swiss artist Paul Klee, from a small painting he did in 1922. Klee was one of the Bauhaus painters, a design school that hugely influenced postwar design and, not least, my approach to painting.

[top] This small cabinet is painted in Olive, with the legs painted in Paloma, a light gray. Neutral grays are very modern retro. The inside drawer of this small cabinet is an Annie Sloan stencil created using Pure on Aubusson Blue. [above] This swatch features the colors used on the drawers— Barcelona Orange and Greek Blue—and shows how they mix to make a grayish-green in the middle.

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© CICO Books 2014

Find the right room recipe for your ideal style with Annie Sloan. Discover the elements of nine key looks – Neoclassical, Traditional Swedish, Modern Retro, Bohemian, Vintage Floral, French Elegance, Rustic Country, Coastal and Warehouse – and how to create them successfully with colour, furniture and collectibles. Including advice on paint techniques and more throughout, this will become your interiors bible.

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