If you are ready to dive in, allow me to suggest three options in the deep blue family.

Let’s start with a dark Rich Navy. Nearly as dramatic as black with a lot more nuance, navy blue works beautifully in nearly every style of home. The color reads sharp and modern for a contemporary loft or office, while conveying a sense of timeless elegance in more traditional spaces like a dining room or bedroom. It not only works beautifully on walls, but can also serve as a great color for furniture and cabinetry to set off a lighter wall. Navy is absolutely stunning when paired with oranges, pinks, and turquoise.

If you want to add a twist of green into the mix, why not try a Peacock blue? If navy is too traditional for you, and you’d like to add a little more life into your palette, peacock shades are just the thing. Especially lovely when used in smaller spaces like a dressing room or child’s bedroom, it has all the drama of a deep blue with an undercurrent of whimsy. Peacock blues work beautifully with greens and purples.

Perhaps both navy and peacock blues are just too much for you, but you still want a deep blue to inspire a calm, relaxed vibe in your home. If so, add a little gray, and you have a lovely slate shade that works for even the most devoted fan of pastels. Despite its rich pigment, it has the same versatility as a light color, particularity when paired with white moldings and furniture to highlight its beauty.

Those are just a few—there are endless variations you can use in your own home. As always, I strongly suggest testing several shades to find the perfect color that works with your space. Have I convinced you to bring deep blues into your home? Have you already come over to the deep side and want to share? Or are you searching for that perfect shade? Feel free to comment—I love to talk color.

While it serves a necessary and functional purpose, the bathroom is also a space to inject your personal style, and nothing beats a fresh coat of paint to accomplish just that. Painting your bathroom is an easy DIY weekend project. The following are a few helpful bathroom painting tips for the next time you decide to paint your bathroom.

To refresh your bathroom, follow these simple steps:

1. Choose a hue. Narrow down the colors you’re considering to a few that you like. Pick up samples for a few dollars each and try them on the wall in large enough swatches so you can see how the paint color looks in the space at various times of the day.

2. Gather materials. The supplies necessary for painting the walls of a bathroom are quite basic. You’ll need: a roller, a tray, an angled paintbrush, painters tape, a flat-head screwdriver to remove electrical plates, a tarp for the floor, and semi-gloss paint.

3. Pick your type of paint. Bathrooms are easy to paint with the water-based formulas available from Glidden Paint. You’re free to choose any sheen, but the semi-gloss formulas are best for areas that are exposed to moisture due to their mildew-resistant formulas.

4. Do prep work. With a screwdriver, remove any plates on your electrical sockets or light switches. Painters tape applied to the baseboard makes horizontal painting a breeze. To protect your

floors, a tarp comes in handy in case there are accidental drips or spills.

5. Follow these easy steps. A good-quality angled brush is key for the initial step of “cutting in,” where you carefully paint the borders. There’s no need for painters tape along vertical edges if the hand and brush are steady. Once the edges are complete, use a lightweight nap roller dipped in a tray to cover the remainder of the walls with more speed and even coverage.

Once the first coat is dry, evaluate whether you’ll need a second. Often when the change of color is subtle, a single coat will do, but if the change is more dramatic, you’ll likely need two coats. Also consider Glidden Paint’s DUO formula for those dramatic wall changes from light to dark or dark to light; the built-in primer will eliminate the need for more than two coats.

Painting a bathroom is a satisfying process that doesn’t require anything more than the right supplies and a few hours of work. Step back at the end to admire your handiwork!

Glidden Paint color pictured: Oyster Bay.

I got in on the chevron action a few years ago when I convinced my husband that we should paint two walls of our bedroom in a dark gray and white chevron. Honestly, he wasn’t sold on the idea, but he helped me paint it anyway. Tom is a bit of a perfectionist, so it took us nearly a week to finish, but the end result was stunning. I added a thin, silver metallic stripe to the bottom of each gray chevron to give it a little more dimension.

Since then, I have been utterly obsessed with the chevron pattern. I am immediately drawn to anything and everything featuring the design in bright colors, whether they be cell phone cases, throw pillows, or dresses for my two-year-old daughter. I really like to see the movement that the pattern creates in a piece. I have put together a Pinterest board of some of my favorite pieces, which you can visit here if you are a chevron fan like me.

Through the board, you can see how great the pattern looks on different pieces. If you don’t want to make a huge statement on your wall, try chevron on your drapes or a photo frame. You don’t have to go crazy to make a big statement with a graphic pattern. I’ll continue to update the board as I find other great uses for the chevron pattern.

My chevron love may have reached an all-time high a few days ago, though. I was working with an outdoor artificial grass rug when inspiration struck. I grabbed my scissors and started cutting a few chevron stripes out of the rug. I then nailed it to my wall with tiny wire nails. The result is so cool!

If you’d like to try your hand at painting a chevron pattern, here are a few tutorials from my blog that may be helpful to you:

• How to Paint Perfect Stripes on a Textured Wall
• How to Tape and Paint Crisp, Level Stripes

With any pattern, there’s always the fear that chevron will soon be on its way out of style. But I push that thought out of my head and choose to live in the moment with what I love, as I do with anything home decor related. Should I wake up one morning and decide that the chevron pattern is no longer for me, I can break out my paint roller and brushes and transform it into something new.

For one of our first “make it our own” projects around the house, we decided to give our kids’ bathroom a fun new look using a few affordable and creative tricks to ramp up the charm and personality—including a creative DIY project for the bathroom backsplash.

After painting the room a bright and fun blue (try Glidden Paint’s Robin’s Egg) and adding molding to the drywall with DIY wainscoting painted white, we got to work on the bathroom backsplash. We ripped off the existing standard Formica backsplash and added a row of faux tin ceiling tiles found at a home improvement store.

It was simple to install, so this faux tin bathroom backsplash is the perfect project for a beginning DIYer. Unlike ceramic tile, these tiles are easy to cut to size with heavy duty scissors or cutters, and the application is a breeze with the recommended double sided adhesive tape. It’s a fun DIY project you can complete in an afternoon!

We’ve lived with our faux tin tile backsplash for a couple of years now and it’s held up great. I would definitely recommend this DIY bathroom backsplash project if you want to add a little more charm and character to your home.

If you’d like to create mood boards of your own, you might start by first determining which furniture pieces you would like to use. In this case, I chose a sofa, a sidebar for storage, a pillow and rug with some blue to them, and accent tables. Once you have all of the main players, it’s time to choose a paint color to support your design.

I like to take a screenshot of the entire paint palette I’m considering, then play with colors until I hit upon a few combinations I like. Once I have a few choices I’m happy with, I can look at the paint swatches in the space or even use paint testers to really get a sense of how the color will look. Mood boards help narrow down choices, but it’s still important to look at physical samples to see how everything really works together.

I started with “Driftwood Grey,” which was a great neutral choice, but I wanted something with a little more color. Glidden’s “Arctic Blue” works well with the other items for the room, and would feel light and fresh. Perfect.

Mood boards help you to see if the furniture you’re considering works together too, before you spend a lot of money on something that you may not like as much as you thought you would. Looking at the boards above, I would probably swap out those nesting tables for something else in a light to medium wood tone, though I do like the dark punch that they bring. That’s part of the fun of decorating this way—it’s easy to play and change things around.

Decorating my friend’s 300 square-foot studio apartment in the Big Apple was a welcomed challenge. My task was to transform a tiny pad into a place she could call home. Of course, the first item on the agenda was to choose what color palette would work best in such a small space. Because I was dealing with a one-room apartment painted in white, I felt a neutral palette would leave the door open to splashes of color through furniture and accessories she could easily change with the seasons (or her mood).

In order to create the illusion of having different areas in the studio, I decided to use paint for the task—an easy and affordable way to accomplish the effect. Why do the expected when you can have some fun? Instead of painting the whole wall behind the sofa/daybed in one color, I created two rectangles in gray and black to visually define the space—a cool technique I often use that I think works wonders. Glidden’s Smoky Charcoal and Onyx Black would work great.

To bring some unity to the space and jazz up the other side of the apartment, I painted stripes in a lighter gray (Glidden’s Moonlight Gray) around the closet wall. They defined the area, made the wall look longer, and gave the closet doors some much needed charm.

When planning the space, I thought the best location for the dining table was next to the window—the perfect spot to enjoy a cup of joe with a view. If working with a budget, flea markets are wonderful places to score great finds. But sometimes, like in this case, they might need a bit of TLC. These cool dining chairs were ideal for her studio. The only thing they lacked was a couple of coats of paint. A bright yellow (Glidden’s Refreshing Mimosa) was the perfect touch to add a ray of sunshine to this corner.

There’s no doubt paint and color can do so much for a room, but it’s how you use it that makes all the difference. It’s all about having fun and thinking a little bit out of the box.

White is alright. All-white bathrooms will never go out of style, but as you have probably already learned, even the palest marbles aren’t a true white. Painting your walls white will serve as a slight contrast to the blue and brown casts of the stone. Don’t be afraid to pick something stark—it will serve to make your bathroom feel bright and clean. Be aware, though, that your tile might look a little more dingy by comparison. Color suggestions: Marshmallow White, White Lagoon.

Fifty shades of grey. Bathrooms can be the perfect place for a pale or medium shade gray. It won’t make your marble tiles look less white, it can serve as a lovely backdrop for some choice pieces of artwork, and it almost never looks dirty, no matter how dusty! The key to picking the right shade is understanding the color cast of your bathroom lighting and marble stone. A perfectly balanced gray in one light may look more purple, green, or brown in another. Lots of swatches are your friends. Color suggestion: Pebble Grey, Seal Grey.

Dark and mysterious. If you want to go dark and bold but aren’t brave enough to do so in a large space, a bathroom can be the perfect setting. With much less wall space than most rooms, you can pick something as daring as an ebony black and the room can still look bright! The pitfall here is to make sure your bathroom gets lots of natural light and has great artificial lighting. Black walls and poor lighting is never inviting, but especially in the powder room. Color suggestions: Black Tulip, Peacock Blue.

Whooshing waters. Colors that sit just between blue and green remind us all of water, so nowhere is more fitting than in a lovely bathroom. Selecting pale shades will go a long way versus bolder colors that will detract from the beautiful stone in which you’ve invested so much. Color Suggestions: Clear Blue Sky, Misty Aqua.

So which marble bath owner are you?

Choosing the right living room colors was important because it is a room that’s connected to the kitchen, separated only by a beam and pillars, and sharing a connecting wall. We wanted our color scheme to feel cohesive and be a nice, neutral backdrop, but at the same time we didn’t want it to be boring.

One of the ways we were able to define the family living space and add architectural interest to the room was to try something a little unconventional. Because the ceiling in this room did not have any molding to separate it from the walls, we considered adding crown molding, but ended up with an easier plan to define the ceiling in a more dramatic way.

Since our ceilings were quite tall (around 9 feet), we decided to create a unique look for the room by adding trim molding all around the room, less than a foot down on the wall. We then painted the ceiling and the upper foot of the wall in the same color and the walls below the white trim in a different color. Adding trim on the wall was much easier for us than adding crown molding, so that was a bonus!

Normally you hear about painting a ceiling lighter than the walls to lighten the room up and make the ceiling appear taller. But in this case we took a risk and defined the room with a darker ceiling. We used Glidden’s Wood Smoke above the molding and on the ceiling, Glidden’s Polished Grey on the walls below the trim, and white on all the trim.

Much to our delight, the effect is still a light room with tall ceilings, but overall, the room feels more cozy, architecturally interesting, fresh, and comfortable for a modern family space.

In our connecting kitchen we painted the ceiling Polished Limestone and the walls Polished Grey just like the family room walls. We love how the entire space turned out and how each room flows effortlessly to the next without being painted all the same color. The variation in paint colors gives the house a lot more character. I share more about this kitchen and family room project on The Inspired Room, so feel free to check it out!

To create a similar effect with a neutral beige paint, you could try pretty greens or yellows and play with lighter and darker intensities of your favorite paint sample.

Have you ever taken a risk on a fun and unique paint scheme?

Initially, I wasn’t a huge fan. I told myself the pink counters and backsplash were the first things that needed to go. Due to a tight budget, however, I’m still looking at pink in my kitchen.

What I’ve learned over the years is that sometimes instead of fighting things, it’s better to embrace them. To be honest, now I love the pink! I like it so much that I’ve actually added more to the space. I’ve discovered that when pink is paired with red, brighter pinks, and gray, the resulting combination is lovely. Plus, it’s perfectly appropriate for a kitchen. The red brings life, energy, and passion, while the pink adds a feeling of comfort and caring.

As you’re sure to notice, I’m crazy about color and I’m not afraid to take a few risks here and there. Embracing the pink in my kitchen was a necessity because of budget constraints. Playing it up by adding accents of hot pink and red was a risk that paid off handsomely. I couldn’t imagine my little kitchen any other way.

If you want to recreate this color combination, I’d suggest Glidden’s Barley Blush, Pink Salmon, Candy Apple, and Toasted White.

What do you think of decorating with hot pink and red? Would you try this combination in your space?

When decorating in a cottage style, color and uniqueness is what gives Cottage Chic its charming qualities. No other style lets you add your artistic flair more. Painted furniture looks perfectly paired with secondhand treasures and high end pieces. The mixing up of color and styles, along with different finishes with their own patina is what makes it work. Nothing is overly matched—there is a laid-back, but pretty air to the style.

Recently, I added turquoise and white fabric chair runners over my slipcovered dining room chairs. They made the room come to life. The fresh vibe of the fabric gives the white chairs a new appeal that is easy to change on a whim. They were so easy to make. I may make another set to use at different times of the year to create a new look and feel for the room that won’t require a lot in the way of time and expense.

The small detail of adding contrasting ties is quintessentially cottage and adds to the charm.

An abundance of fresh flowers brings nature into the mix. Any style of decorating looks wonderful when fresh flowers are part of the decor. This is even more true when decorating in a cottage style. I know I can never have enough flowers and even have a supply of fake ones for when fresh blooms are not available.

Painting a shiny brass light fixture makes sure the room doesn’t look too sleek or traditional. It is simply done with brown and white paint applied with a sea sponge.

Clever reuses of ordinary items put the finishing touch on the room. I used decoupage medium to line old book pages to the inside of the shelves. An edited collection of white dishes, platters, and pitchers creates interest without looking cluttered. Vintage canning jars become vases, and baskets displayed on open shelves hold linen napkins and silverware

If you are a fan of affordable, comfy, casual, and colorful rooms, Cottage Chic may just be your style.