My Favorite Magazine Is Biting the Dust and I've Been Working on My Dressing Room

I'm perplexed and annoyed to hear that Domino, my favorite magazine, is ceasing publication, and closing its website as well. I checked my account and my subscription isn't set to run out until April 2010. A few months ago, another home decor magazine I subscribed to, House and Garden, stopped publishing, and the publisher made up for it by offering to extend my Domino subscription by the number of issues of House and Garden I had paid for already. That was fine, since I wanted to cut back on my subscriptions anyway. But now what's going to happen? According to blog comments, which are second only to BBC News in their timely and accurate reporting of the facts, I might expect to get offered subscriptions to Lucky (blech) or Vogue Home (meh). But really I'm just sad about losing Domino. It was so fabulous. It gave me lots of decor ideas. And it was only $12 per year.

But I shall carry on.

Check out my dressing room re-do, currently in progress, as is every decorating project I have ever begun, because that's the nature of the beast.

Before: A dark, dank, depressing, dangerous dungeon.



After: An okay place to get dressed and store guests.





I love it now that it's got more furniture and color and things on the shelves (belts, shoes, jewelry, etc.) but it's not done, of course. It probably needs some adjustment of the existing elements and it needs to be painted badly. Right now the walls are exactly the color of silly puddy. This is a paint color that should never have been created. I can't imagine where or how anyone would have ever thought it would look good on a wall or any other surface. I am a little stumped as to what color to paint the walls, but I'm thinking it should be a light color such as light beige (warmer and lighter than silly puddy), cream, light green (not mint, more of a light forest green, if such a thing is possible), or light gray. Or you know, light pink would be great, just really light so you don't immediately think "pink". If it's mainly a dressing room, a color that doesn't clash with my alabaster-white-with-pink-blotches skin tone would probably be the most cozy and flattering. On that note, cream that is on the warm red/orange side of yellow rather than the green side of yellow would probably work for warmth yet still keep it neutral. And the ceiling (both the high side and the sloped side) will either be white, or a lighter shade of the wall color. I might paint some black and yellow stripes on the sloped ceiling so people don't bump their heads. Just kidding.

So then the trick would be to actually get that color onto the walls, knowing that it's not going to look the way I expect based on how it looks on the swatch or even if I were to paint a big square of it on the wall like Domino (sniff) and other mags have advised me to do so many times. I bet the silly puddy color looked great on the swatch and as a little square on the wall. I bet it looked great right up until the last of the old color was covered up. At that instant it went all silly puddy on them, so they put the house up for sale. I'm sure that's what happened.

The landing outside the room that connects to our bedroom and bathroom is also silly puddy, so I should paint the landing as well. The bedroom is brown, bathroom is light blue, so I don't want to add yet another color, so perhaps the landing and dressing room should still both be painted the same color, whatever that turns out to be.

Another item on the to-do list for this room is to add a rug. I'm thinking neutral. It could also stand to have some art on the wall, and a chair or two. The bed is a temporary blow-up bed which I am too lazy to take down from the last time we had more people stay over than would fit comfortably in the guest room, but it works fine in the space and the only thing that would be better is just comfortable seating that can be moved when the bed needs to come out. Or a sofa bed. The cats will scratch it up, though.

As always, I'd love your opinion.