Did you see the October 2008 issue of Domino magazine? It featured the home of J. Crew’s creative director Jenna Lyons. We’ve been seeing a lot of black-painted rooms this year (even “Design Star” and “Top Design” contestants jumped on board that trend), but she took it to a whole new level, putting black in pretty much every room of her house, including the nursery.
Here’s the bathroom:
Notice that the bedroom has even less color in this shot than it does on the cover:
In the nursery, she painted the fireplace wall black and spelled out her baby’s name, “Beckett,” over the mantel, ransom-note style:
I wonder if this trend reflects the state of our economy right now? Are things so bleak that people want their homes to express that feeling? Or maybe it’s supposed to be reassuring. In tough economic times, the idea of being “in the black” has a lot of appeal.
Personally, I’d feel like I was living under (or inside) a dark cloud. I wouldn’t want to get out of bed in the morning. But I know a lot of people are wild about this look and insist a room doesn’t have to be dark just because it’s black.
What do you think? Do you like this trend? Is it something you’d like to try at home?
~
Photos by Melanie Acevedo for Domino magazine.
I am somewhere in between liking it but wouldn’t do it in my own home and hate it. I think hate is a bit strong but I don’t really get it. To me, it just oozes that a person probably thinks they are so chic that they are extending their all black slimming wardrobe to their home. I guess my answer would be “totally not my style” and that’s coming from a girl who likes her black slimming clothes
I actually really don’t like that nursery but the bathroom looks pretty cool with that black roman shade.
8 years ago when we bought our home, I put dark eggplant/nearly black wallpaper in our bathroom. Everything else was stark white, so this really made the bathroom stunning to me. I loved it then and still love it now! I wouldn’t do that in any other room than a bathroom though. It’s funny how things come back in style. I hear peach is making a comeback!! Don’t call it peach…. it’s coral. ha! I’ll be waiting on your post about that:-)
I like the *idea* of black walls, but I’m sure my hubby wouldn’t like Kilz’n them about a dozen times when I’m tired of the color! I’ve always imagined at least one room in my home being a dark grey or navy blue…that just hasn’t come to fruition yet!
As much as I LOVE the color black I’m not sure I’d want it on my walls.
i like it in some rooms, but not in others. not in the nursery – i don’t like the ransom note letters very much either. but i wouldn’t do it in my house unless i could afford someone to get rid of it for me when i got tired of it.
I am with Emily on this one. It screams: Chic…so loud that my ears ring! Years ago we painted our whole house dark, dark blue…I loved it four about a year and then grew tired of it and did then paint it peach and did use every can of Kilz in the Northwest for that redecorating project.
Having said all that….I do LOVE extremely oversized black chalkboards that go to the ceiling and take up almost a whole wall. Silly gal am I.
Have a great week!
Smiles ~ Ramona
Thanks for keeping us posted on the trends…..I think I will pass on this one
I don’t really care for these particular rooms, but I have seen a magazine photo of a black room that I thought was pretty cool. For the life of me I can’t remember where or what it was, but it seems like maybe it was a powder room. That being said, I wouldn’t do it in my house.
I can’t help it, I love the black rooms. However, I think in our home I would do one wall in the room, it just looks really cool and unexpected.
I think black looks best on huge rooms with tall ceilings and grand molding. I like color too much to go with black and my husband would *never* go for it.
I need to admit to swooning over all the black rooms I’ve seen in mags in recent months… But it’s the Kilz factor that stops me. I can’t help but think: Will it be worth the pain of redoing later? But I am still planning on using a little black paint – just on my french doors.
I loved her house, but am too unchic to pull it off in mine. Or my house is too unchic. But I bought it. I guess I’m the unchic one.
I like the ransom letters and the dark wood floors. I have friend who loves making everything black and painted her kitchen cabs black and they look fabulous. I wonder what she’ll have to say about this trend.
I wonder what I can paint black to make my house look more chic, even though the Grandma bones underneath will be screaming in defiance that we’re idiots because you can’t paint this old barn to make it look better, or to camouflage the frumpiness of it.
When I moved into my current house about 15 months ago, the master bedroom was painted a navy blue color. We haven’t repainted it yet because we’re going to eventually move into the next room and put the kids in ours, and we’d rather just redo all of it at that time. However, I hate how dark it is! Even with the light on and the blinds open during the middle of the day, it’s still the darkest room in the house.
I think it could be really cool in small doses, but this is just depressing.
A friend of mine painted the ceiling of her small-ish hall bathroom black. It is AWESOME, but probably because she really did a great job of pulling it off – glossy white tile on the floor and halfway up the walls with black trip, and the top half of the walls has an oversized botanical print on a black background.
There are very few rooms in which black would work. It’s one of those things that seems uber-hip when you’re shooting a magazine feature, but living in it day-to-day, it would get old quickly. Black in a bedroom, unless you have banks of windows and lots of outside light, would just be depressing. You’d have to turn on all the lights just to get around in it during the day. I’d save the black for a dining room with great architectural trim that could be a creamy white, with a large and brilliant chandelier — or even a dramatic living room with tons of great light. Painting your rooms black reminds me of the 7″ heels that some designers are featuring right now… seemed like a good idea at the time.
Oh.. and I think we forget that when they shoot magazine features, they use photographic lighting in the rooms. Perhaps that’s why many of us seem to enjoy seeing the room in a magazine, but have yet to see it look anything but cavernous in real life. The lighting in those photos is deceiving. I’m just not sure about a child’s room in black — is that even healthy for their psyche?
This is one paint color I cannot get behind. Maybe an accent wall, or strips. But not an entire black room. I’d have to have a personal tanning bed in the center of the room must to outweigh the depression factor.
H A T E it……..while I like black accent pieces I find doing a whole room very depressing !!! And a baby’s room ~ wonder how that will work out ?
Julia I think you know I dig this game lol
Have a nice day,
Kathy
I think it could be pretty in one room, like a dining room or something. It would take the right person to be able to pull it off though.
I could do a black room, but it’d have to be very specific. Your “ransom note style” comment cracked me up! Now that’s what *I* don’t get.
I’ve never bought a copy of Domino & I don’t watch TV, so didn’t realize that black rooms were trendy, but going by the ones above, I’m not in love yet. At least, not with those rooms. But the bad part is that when a few really good- looking black rooms show up, pretty soon, we’ll be seeing miserable DIY attempts at black rooms everywhere, and that’s the fastest way to kill a look. That, in itself, wouldn’t stop me from creating a black room. In fact, I’ve had at least one black room in whatever place I’ve lived since 1983, and at the moment, I have two of them, although they’re both interior hallways. In 1986 I painted my bedroom black, all black, the whole shebang: walls, floors, trim. My friends thought I was depressed–which I was at the time, but it had nothing to do with the paint, or vice versa–but once I finished, they all loved it so much I had to move my bedroom and turn the black room into a sitting room. In the winter, it was saved from gloominess by three big southern windows, a bright white ceiling, a lustrous copper-colored carpet & five lamps in a 14 X 15 foot room. In the summers, I rolled up the carpet, and with the shiny floor, white slipcovers & a lot of my grandmother’s mercury glass sitting around, the whole room became a cool dark cave, which was finebecause the place didn’t have air conditioning. When I decided to paint my entry hall black, I redid this room, and far from those ten-coats-of-Kilz horror stories, it only took two coats of dove gray paint to get a perfect surface. Take it from me, it’s no harder to take black walls light than it is to take white walls to, say, tomato red.
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a286/MAGNAVERDE/Magnaverde-1713-BlackRoom.jpg?t=1226340969
cover up black wallslots harder to cover up white with, say, a deep color to get aperfect dove gray. I ce. sss andevry place I’ve have no problem with The rooms above don’t do awhole lot for me and I didn’tsince I don’t have a TV
Obviously, I forgot to do a little housekeeping there at the end…
Just not getting it….oh to be so out of it…
Magnaverde, thanks for the link! That’s one of your rooms? It’s beautiful. I think you have to be a talented designer to pull this look off. As you said, I can imagine some pretty bad DIY versions…
Kathy, you asked for it, you got it. I came up with this post just for you.
-Julia
I’ve seen one dining room that had white mouldings, trimwork, etc., that was stunning with black walls. The black & white toile curtains looked amazing in that room. And the crystal chandelier really popped. However, in reality, I’d think you need a lot of natural light to counteract the gloominess. We painted our master bath’s water closet in chocolate brown and have regretted it ever since. It was previously a shade called coconut milk which made that little space sunny feeling.
I really like the bathroom, I think because there’s a lighter wall next to the black. The bedroom looks gloomy and the nursery is the most depressing of all.
YUK, no. No, no no. And I thought I was brave doing iced coffeee in the bedroom!
Hey, Julia, I do love black rooms if they are done well, but I do think you have to have a certain architecture in a home to pull it off. Wouldn’t work in a plain bare bones house at all, I don’t think. But I’ve seen a few black rooms that were WOW! I personally don’t think I’d do it ever, just don’t have the old house architecture or charm.
Do you know Magnaverde’s house in Chicago was published recently in O at Home?! He was! Great article.
Hi Julia..I am trying to decide whether to paint one wall of the entry at the condo a dark charcoal, called Mink by SW. Still debating. We have white trim and I think that would add to or help the look of the dark color. I think the trim would have to be striking, for me to like it in a larger room.
I think it would be okay if the trim were not painted black too! I hate all those pictures of one color throughout the room, even on the trim. I don’t think that I would do this in my house but I would like it better if it weren’t over every single wall/trim!
I just read that article this afternoon. I love the French doors she has in black and the bathroom. I’m torn on their bedroom. The nursery is still too dark, even with the white & yellow ceilings. Although, the chalkboard black paint that they used throughout the house will certainly come in handy in his room later.
I just want her living room!!! Grey walls w/lighter grey on the moldings & ceiling. Crystal chandelier, a zebra rug and two black chairs. There’s a bright lemon yellow sofa, but I would switch that out for pink and I’d be all set.
Scroll down to the 3rd photo to see the living room. http://imnotreallyadiva.blogspot.com/
I do not like it, and I bet Jenna Lyons won’t like it after a short while either. I really find the baby’s room disturbing in black, but what REALLY creeps me out are the block letters in odd sizes over the baby’s mantle, spelling his name beckett..sort of reminds me of a kidnapper’s letter for a ransom note in cut out letters fom a magazine…… bad choice.
Maya made me laugh. Thx.
Only in the powder room: chalkboard paint, chalk, my friends and cocktails, the after pix would entertaining but not suitable for a family blog, or any blog that can be accessed without parental approval.
LOVE IT! When done the right way!
I seem to always love it in other people’s homes but I don’t think I’d have the guts to do in my own house. And I would never do the whole house. Though I really wanted to paint our little powder room in chalkboard paint to make the loo a mini art installation of sorts. The man of the shore house put the kibosh on it. Men.
L.O.V.E. them! I adored this issue of Domino.
Horrid.
Hi Julia
I don’t like how she did it at all, it’s just to depressing, but there was a picture of a room done by Ralph Lauren a few years back in one of his ads and it was gorgeous, with red plaids, rich golds and forest greens. Do you remember that? I wanted my bedroom to look just like it, but just one, not the whole freakin’ house… yikes!
rue
I think I would like it in some rooms. “Ransom-note style” you crack me up!
I just upholstered a small room in black satin/matte stripe and put in a bling bling chandelier, then hung carmel and gold strip drapes on the doors and windows. It’s my library and a great place to read, have a glass of wine and escape to a different place. The inspiriation was my husband’s grandmother, a poet and bohemian in her time and the great secretary we inherited from her takes pride of place. I call it the women’s room, have lots of quotes from women I find inspiring tucked away in little surprise places. The whole room is a folly and is my little test for people’s ability to take risks!
I love it! So much so, in fact, that I’ll be trying this at home.
It looks dark Grey… I love dark olives and greys
Although I wouldn’t put it in a nursery I LOVE black walls that are painted with paint that reflect a little light. I don’t like flat black walls – they are totally uninteresting when there is not light playing off of them.
I would like to have seen a few punches of another color around the room (other than the jumble of color accessories around the fireplace.
I’m getting ready to “redo” my bedroom and since it already has a massive black bookcase I am taking the black to three walls and using a lipstick red on the fourth wall, the one that will feature my headboard.
I can’t wait. BTW, my kitchen cabinets are black and they look awesome with my collection of Fiestaware.
black paint on the floor yes…but not on the walls…
lol what? Black is trendy? O_O why… didn’t you know… Black is the new… Black. awesome. Really.
haha, this article is as fantastic as those rooms. (this is digital sarcasm folks, no time for a proper introduction.)
Anyways, my bedroom is black walls, white ceiling and floor with black/white furniture and bedspread. Mostly because I am addicted to black white. I try to only film in 16mm and the use of simple tones rather than hues can oftentimes carry so much more value when presenting a piece. I draw in pencil, film black white and my room is styled in a means that almost reflects that.
Oh no, am I trendy? …Or do I just happen to like it for valid reasons.
Remember folks… if you hate it. Hate it like its trendy.
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