Martini and Milk modern meets vintage

Nautical Time!

by Dian McManus posted January 31, 2011

We live in the marina area now, a few blocks from the beach. After living in the nearly 100-degree weather for so many years, I finally moved to the westside with the sweet husband and daughter. My husband’s new (dream) job required us to move so that the daddy would not suffer the 405 freeway rush-hour madness everyday, twice a day. Instantly, my instinct was to create a nautical-themed home when we picked the area. Well, at least in the “Dian’s idea of a nautical world”. I have always been a big lover of the classic nautical blue and white stripes, mixed with gold and bright red…and in the Dian world, I love to mix those colors with my all-time favorite kelly green, but with a few more whites here and there this time (think: a little cottage by the beach). I also still wanted to add a splash of black.  Sort of like the outfit I wore when we were boating last summer. Except that I wanted the blue to be a different kind of nautical blue. I dreamed of rich teal blue, not cobalt blue. I craved for something deeper than just the sky blue or ocean blue. The blue had to be so rich in imagination and emotions.  I wanted my “rich blue” to fill in as the biggest accent in the living room, sort of like swimming in the ocean. My new blue would go along with a lot of gold and wood that I had in mind. In addition, I longed for bright Christmas red walls. After all, I love Christmas and it was Christmas time anyway when we moved.  So, why not live in the spirit of jolly-ness everyday, I thought.

After thinking deeply and looking at too many teal blue colors on the internet for a couple of weeks, I thought I had found the blue-green that I wanted. But I finally found the perfect shade in the last three minutes I spent before I walked to the cashier at Home Depot. That day, I walked to Home Depot with Keira in my hand (so I knew I had to make quick purchases), while the daddy marched his way out to a different aisle to help me find other things we needed. I couldn’t find the color I wanted on the color card, but a different shade of blue-green card caught my eyes and I grabbed it in a speed of light. I fell head over heels with the color instantly. It was love at first sight. It felt just right.  It was lusciously gorgeous! In that one second, I knew I had to have our living room painted in that particular teal blue and the name couldn’t be more perfect: “Peacock Tail”, by Behr . (Isn’t it wonderful how things happen for  a reason, sometimes? Almost like finding the perfect person for you. Only easier.)

I have put more gold-gilded things and bits possible than I’ve ever had in my life around the house, especially on the teal blue wall. They are also mixed with wood, silver, crystal and glass. I am loving the royal-rich effect that the teal blue, wood and gold give me  (it’s good for my health because we are far from being royal-rich!).  Lavishly, I put a big antique mirror I got years ago from an East Park Avenue lady in New York, along with my beloved vintage crystal lamps I mentioned in my previous Apt 408 post. (These two lamps must follow me where ever we move!). Then what do I know, things got even better…for Christmas, my designer bestfriend Irma Hardjakusumah sketched portraits of me, my husband Sean and Keira (not to mention my parents too!!!). Not only that, she even framed them in the color that I love to compliment the peacock blue wall: gold, of course. We were chocked up. She is SO good! From the detailed sketching part – I mean, she thoughtfully picked all of our uniqueness and personalities, and poured them altogether into amazing drawings –  to the finishing touch on each of these the darling presents that fits perfectly in our blue-red-gold-wood vintage home! Argh..so amazing to be Irma. So lucky to be me! The bestfriend who gets to have the beautiful things designed by the astonishing designer herself!

This is the other side of the peacock blue wall. Half of it will be dedicated to our Keira’s little art “gallery”…and here’s her first acrylic-on-canvas painting as a birthday present for her daddy (notice the bright colors she picked? Seems like she likes what mommy likes!)

Our little entryway wall is as red as you can be when you feel like a devil. Maybe that’s why Behr calls the red I picked “Daredevil”. Well, it works for me. (Except that no devils are allowed to come in, though.) I found an antique gold-gilded mirror at Wertz Brothers antique mart in Santa Monica to greet our lovely guests to compliment the red wall before the guests are surprised by the peacock blue color.

Vintage blends with modern always catches my eyes. I think it’s best to mix them both if you have a passion for vintage things but you still want to keep your place looking fresh and young with cozy, warm, and romantic feelings at the same time. In our home, modern always meets with vintage. My husband is more of a minimalist patron and would not mind to live without the vintage, swirly girly things I picked for the house. But he is a complete sweetheart and appreciates artistic things, another reason why I love him. He also can feel the delightful, cushy feeling from the vintage pieces I pick. He likes to refer the places we have lived “a little hotel”. That’s very generous of him. I love that idea, of course. But I think we would need to make major changes to make it more of a “hotel”. To me, the fact that he refers our home to something bigger than it is gives me more confidence in exploring my love for pretty things (with budget limitation, of course). Sean lets me bathe myself in “whatever my heart desires” – as he sweetly says it – when creating a “home sweet home” for us. That helps a LOT! He lets my imagination work without boundaries. That’s important when I want to decorate a place. But in my mind, regardless having the boundaries or not, it is always good to balance the old and new.

I have always wanted to hang decorative plates on the wall. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the luxury of having so many fancy plates that we could share with the wall instead of the table.  All of our somewhat pretty plates were all made of porcelain, so I was also scared that they might fall on our daughter’s head or someone’s if I dared to put them up on the wall! However, conveniently, I had an idea: “It’s almost 2011 (it was in December when the idea popped up), they must have beautiful and chic fancy melamine plates out there!” And sure enough, they do. I “stumbled” upon adorable melamine plates one day on www.iomoi.com and just fell in love head over heels with all of the plate designs (actually, with everything they had on that website). I HAD to pick one, at least! And then I saw the one with an anchor on it and it screamed my name, well, my husband’s name to be exact! So two McManus plates were ordered, delivered, and hung, on our red dining room wall.

And on the extra happiness side, Sean absolutely appreciates it and thinks that the plates are very sweet. I take he is flattered that I like his name and the fact that I love living on the westside that much. He is right! (Psst. As always…)

The houses by the marina. In the colors I love…

And last but not least, the mommy and baby on a boating day…they think their outfit colors matched with those houses above, wouldn’t you?

Sail away in bold colors!