Paint the crown & baseboards, leave the walls white!

I loved the idea of painting the crown and baseboards black in our office and leaving the walls white. White walls are particularly dramatic if you have any kind of trim detail you want to showcase. In our office, my husband had decided he was going to panel the walls himself and do a cool display ledge around the room. When he was done it was way too cool to paint a color. And white would make the perfect backdrop to display pops of color on the ledge. I chose a color called "Cotton Fluff" , which is a Behr paint color. It had just enough warmth so it was not stark white. So, the question....could we paint the crown and baseboards black if the rest of house is white?? Um, I have no idea:) So, I'm going to make this rule (since its my blog) that you can indeed do this if you have a room seperated by door and more closed off from the rest of your house (like a bathroom or in this case, an office). As far as the black color goes, any black will do. I would just match the sheen of the black color you choose with the rest of your house trim which is usually a semi gloss. On regular walls I always use a satin finish. I used to use eggshell until I had kids because satin wipes down better.

So here is a shot from the perspective of walking into the room through the double doors that close off the office from the rest of the house.

This amozing rug is from The Rug Market and is called the Rex "buckingham" collection. It was the splurge of the room for sure but it is what anchors the whole look AND it happens to be on sale right now because I purchased it over a year ago:) Google it and you can find it on several rug company pages competing on price!



Here are some photos of double doors in the office. These walk out to a porch outside. If you are going to paint the crown and the baseboard black you need to follow the rule, at least in that room. So anything that was white before needs to go black. In this case the door and the white trim around the doors.

The desk is from Ballard Designs. The chair is a find from Midland Antique Mall, downtown Indianapolis. I love the black lacquered finish. It is the perfect bit of glam to compliment the rug. It is amazingly shown as is, did nothing to it except steam cleaned it! And the best part, only $200!

If a real chandelier is not in the budget but you want the look, get a sticker!! These wall decals are available by the dozens on Etsy and are easier than I thought to adhere! We have ours hanging right behind the desk.

What to put on a display ledge?? Cover some old books with decorative paper from Hobby Lobby or Micheals in the color scheme you want to pop. In this case, all these books have black and white and shades of yellow in them. Also great frames can be found on Etsy, Hobby Lobby and Ikea. You don't have to pay a lot at all. And keep in mind that you can always get the big huge frames from a resale store and spray paint them! Any home improvement store has these really cool high gloss spray paints that will give you that lacquered look.

This is a huge frame and is from Midland Antique mall also. I paid less than $10. It came with the mat which was a dirty yellowed color but had a cool texture to it. So I spray painted the mat a flat gray color and it worked!

The chair and pillow are from West Elm The chair is the slightest color of pale yellow so it works in the room to not look too matchy with off white walls. The nesting tables are from World Market and the lamp base is a find from Midland Antique Mall but they have a really great yellow lamp base right now at Target for a steal! And you can also get a black or black and white shade there with their mix and match lamps.

Hope you enjoyed! Cheers! {Laura}