More Musings on Plaid: An "Aha" Moment

You know how sometimes you make choices - in this case, aesthetic choices - because something appeals to you visually?  Well, I just had a light bulb, "aha" moment about the new plaid background on my blog.  I chose it originally because it was bright and cheerful, but, actually, I was hoping I'd find a more traditional tartan...you know, something with navy blue, a bit of deep red, hunter green, etc., because I love those jewel tones woven together to create a handsome plaid pattern. 

It occurs to me that I choose those deep, rich tones in many areas of my life and have done that for years. When I think of plaid I think of wool and warmth, of traditional homes and cozy firesides, stone walls and pine paneling...all that good stuff that speaks of hearth and home.  They are the colors of "tradition" - plaids going back centuries - often found in the historic 18th- and 19th-century homes found throughout the countryside of the Northeast, and they also are prevalent in the world of horses where I have "lived" emotionally since I was a child, when I first began to ride, and literally through much of my adult life lived in or spent in the country.  There are traditional plaids often seen on horse blankets, riding vests, and other forms of  horse stuff, or "equestriana" as I call it, that have always "spoken" to me visually.  They represent a very real sort of comfort and happiness for me.

So when I came across this particular blog background plaid, I embraced it, in part, because it was the only one offered *free* on the Designer Blogs site.   It combines tones from nature - sun and sky, grass and earth, spices and fruits - and  it seemed to be suitably cheerful for my blog page.  Then, just a few minutes ago, I had one of those wonderful, "aha" moments.  I realized that the colors of this particular plaid reflect the tones that defined my house since it was built.  I know this because I grew up here as a child. 

My parents had this red brick ranch house built in the late 1950s - it's shown, snow-covered in the image on my header - and my dad worked closely with the architect to create a creative but functional design for his young family.  My mom always said this was my father's house since she was too busy with two young children - I was 4, my brother was 5 - to focus too intently on much of its structural design.  Indeed, it has a semi-open interior plan with a soaring, 14-foot cathedral ceiling over the living and dining rooms and a hallway illuminated by clerestory windows above the open stairway to the finished basement.  There also are certain features - especially the huge, three-flue chimney clad in a decorative, light beige brick that defines and distinguishes the living and dining rooms that is suspiciously reminiscent of the turrets of a castle.  It's definitely very male..."A man's home is..."...yup, Mom, you got that right. 

Still, a childhood friend of my mom's told me a few years ago that even when she was a child, my mom dreamed of having a house with lots of "built-ins" and, indeed, she got them in the design of this house.  There are modest built-in blonde, natural maple bookshelves and wall cabinets in mine and my brother's former bedrooms (now guest rooms and/or my sewing room), built-in closets, and a built-in laundry (behind doors in the kitchen - my mom wanted no part of schlepping clothing and bedding up and down stairs).

My mom lived here for nearly 50 years, so while she always asserted it was Dad's house, it was, and still is, for me, really my mom's house in many ways.  After the house was built, she made more of the aesthetic choices, especially in its furnishings and paint colors.   My mom had a fairly clear sense of her personal style - she preferred clean lines - not too much make up and jewelry that was elegant in its simplicity.  She chose simple furniture pieces that weren't necessarily Danish Modern, but echoed its classic lines, which suited the design of the house perfectly.  She also was not a "stuff" person - she didn't want to have a lot of "things" cluttering up the rooms as decorative items, only an occasional pottery dish on a buffet or end table.  Even though she was an artist earlier in her life, there were few prints or paintings adorning the walls, except, of course, occasional small works of "art" that we created in school, but they usually were displayed in the kitchen.  Mom preferred to let the design of the house, its clean, uninterrupted walls, be the stongest visual feature.  She was of Irish and German descent, but one might suggest she had a very keen Scandinavian design sensibility.  (I also know she was practical.  She knew well that more "stuff" sitting around on walls and tables meant more cleaning and dusting - not something she wanted to increase if it could be avoided.)  Still, like most of us, she clearly was influenced by the finishes in the house and they informed her color choices for drapes, upholstery and paint.

That's where this blog background plaid comes in.  Much of the house reflects the use of natural materials -

there are paneled, tongue-and-groove partition walls in a grainy wood that has a warm, pale beige tone.  There are natural slate floors with smokey blue, aqua and green, charcoal grey, toffee and plum.  The kitchen cabinets are a light blonde maple and all of the hardware on doors and drawers, and on all of the door knobs and hinges throughout the house are a copper tone - pretty trendy stuff for its day.  Clearly, the colors inherent in this house are very much like those in the blog background plaid!  The plaid emphasizes the darker and medium earth tones, with the blues, greens and cream as accents, whereas the house tends toward the lighter tones with the darker hues as accents.

As I contemplated the warm hues of this plaid - here comes the "aha" moment - I realized that it could serve as the basis for reinvigorating the color palette here in the house.  I need to bringing things a bit more up to date and into the new millenium, but at the same time preserve the essential elements - the simple, elegant bones - of the house.  It's a midcentury modern ranch that just needs some freshening up, a careful makeover, but not too much "make-up."  It needs an infusion of new life, and I need to add a fair bit of my own style, which is a blend of traditional with modern.  I have already done that to some extent, but I have wrestled with how to address the kitchen color, especially, since it is still sporting its very tired pale aqua blue, circa 1969, I think.  The aqua color clearly needs to go (sooo 1960s), but I have been reluctant to make a firm color choice because it needs to be the right one for the space and for the house.  I want the room color to be warm and calm and also complement the wood cabinetry (which will be addressed eventually, as well), and the adjacent space - a former screened porch, now enclosed sun room (with the same slate floors as in the foyer, hallway and dining room, natural red brick side walls, a natural wood door and window trim surrounded by pseudo-wood paneling that also likely will be painted) that is an extension of the kitchen's dining area and leads directly to the back yard.

Now I'm sure the colors of that blog background and how they reflect the tones already found in the house probably are the subliminal reason that I was drawn to this particular plaid.  They're the same colors, but re-ordered and presented a bright new way...de-emphasizing but not abandoning the blue, green and beige pastels and bumping up the rich earth tones - cinnamon, ochre, plum, taupe - aha! 

Now I finally have a much better sense of how to proceed, which colors to include and where to use them...and, if they were still with us, I think both Mom and Dad would approve.