North River Penthouse

I believe that even if you live in an rental, you should take the time to design and decorate it to your taste. Your environment affects your well being in so many different ways, so why not take the time to customize it so you live a little happier and a lot more comfortable?

I'm currently starting a new project : North River Penthouse, which is a rental, so obviously we don't want to spend too much money on it, but it can definitely use a bit more personality. Don't get me wrong, it's a nice apartment, but I find it to be a little too much on the yellow side (the floor, the wall, the cabinet).

So one of the main things will be to break that yellow and introduce other colors. In this case, we're going modern and sleek look (as much as possible) and we're taking inspiration from nature (rocks, woods, etc).

First things, first : Paint. It's the cheapest and easiest way to completely change the look and feel of a room without spending too much money. This time, we're going with grays: A light warm gray from Benjamin Moore called Gray Owl and a darker gray for a bit of contrast, also from Benjamin Moore, simply called Gray. These will be used throughout the flat.

For some reason, I love chalkboard paint. I've used the one from Benjamin Moore on several projects and I'm going to use it again on this wall. I also finally found a magnetic chalkboard paint that I will try on this project. The magnetic chalkboard is much heavier than the Benjamin Moore one. We'll see.

The wall is pretty much ready to be painted. In this case I chose the "box" to receive the chalkboard paint. I like to use the architecture to decide where the paint is going to go.

Here's a neat little trick: When I take out the outlet covers, I always tape the corresponding screws directly on the plate to make sure I don't loose them.

Stay tuned for more coming soon :)