Botanic Bleu: Rustic Blue Box For Fall

Rustic Blue Box For Fall

Living with the colors you love is easy when you realize your home is yours, not the real estate agent's, not your mother's, not your neighbor's, and not a professional interior designer's. While all of these people may influence your choices for your home, you get to create the home that makes you happy, not the one that makes each of them happy.

Creating the home I love includes using a rustic blue box for fall when my neighbor uses yellow, my mother used brown, and interior designers use the latest trend in colors, like gray.

Blue and white have been my favorite color combination for decades, almost all of my adult life. The only blue I remember in my parent's homes over the years is the dark blue, not quite navy, painted bedroom set that I picked out when I was around fourteen years old. No one else we knew had painted furniture... a trend-setter at fourteen.

Oh, yes, Mother did have blue willow everyday dishes.

Give my mother credit for buying a bedroom set she would not have selected for her bedroom. Brown, beige, tan, ... neutrals were the colors my mother favored because everything went with them, and they hid dirt. My three siblings all played sports... baseball, basketball, football, softball... and dirt in north Alabama is RED CLAY. Mother's sofa was a dark brown with reddish undertones.

Not white.... too hard to keep clean with four children.

Still, when it came time for me to select china, silver, and crystal like all engaged Southern girls did at that time, my mother, with the help of the sales lady, steered me away from the formal china I wanted that had blue in the pattern.

Later, when the Long Tall Texan and I bought our newly-built tract home in north Texas, we were able to choose the colors for the carpet, tile, wallpaper, etc... I wanted blue carpet and tile that had blue in it. These were options offered by the builder, but the builder's real estate agent argued against choosing blue, citing that only 5% of the population choose blue. Resale of the house would be harder than if we selected neutral colors.

For eight years I lived with browns, beiges, tans that I intensely disliked. That's when I finally realized, "Choose what you want, not what the real estate agent recommends."

Why did I ever think a male real estate agent had a better sense of style than I did?

I had forgotten that my first-grade report cards listed E+ in Art... and in Mathematics. I had also forgotten S's in other categories, not to mention the one N in following directions. (E for excellent; S for satisfactory; N for needs improvement.) My mother gave me some of my childhood items while cleaning her closets, and my first-grade report card was in that box. I'm sure Mother took care of why I had an N and made sure there was only one N.

Could that be why I followed the real estate agent's directions? Haha...

See that beige striped French chair? It was a great price at Tuesday Morning, a local discount store, but the verdict is still out on whether or not it remains beige and white striped. No interior decorator input needed. I don't want another N.

Of course, that tract house did sell before it even showed up in the multiple listings... record time. So fast that the listing realtor placed one of those little signs under the For Sale sign that told in how many days the house sold.

Did beige carpet do that? Don't think so, because after eight years that beige carpet was worn and had stained traffic patterns in it.

When my neighbors decorate for Fall with reds, browns, oranges, and yellows, I enjoy seeing their yards and porches with the traditional Fall colors.

And the glorious Fall foliage in the mountains and the northeast is breathtaking. Nothing compares to it. Red leaves in New England really are brilliant red. Not reddish brown, or orange-y red, or almost red. When mixed with clear yellows, the combination is... breathtaking... stop in your tracks breathtaking.

All across the blogging world, interior designers and talented self-taught stylists create beautiful table settings and Fall tours that capture seasonal colors and themes, including striking black and white Halloween decorations. I am inspired by the creativity I see everyday on the internet.

Yet, in my house, a rustic blue box filled with a pale pumpkin and white pompom chrysanthemums is my choice for a Fall arrangement. The colors blend easily with the existing blue and white checked sofa.