Willowbrook Park: Which White 2.. Beyond Cream!

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Which White 2.. Beyond Cream!

In choosing the interior colours we finally settled on Alabaster for the ceilings (instead of double alabaster, which was too creamy), with 1/8th Thorndon Cream for the cornicing (crown molding), skirting boards, and the window and door architraves. We decided on the lighter ceiling to increase the apparent height of the rooms, and the slightly darker, off-white shade for all the trim as we felt is lent it a certain solidity (if you look at the cornicing in the photos above and below you will see that the sightly darker shade for the trim makes it look less like plaster and more like stone or wood: more solid and in keeping with a traditional home.

Also, much like the photo above, we have chosen a wall colour called Chamois (I'm sure pronounced Shammee, but tongue-in-cheek we are pronouncing Sham-Woir). It is a darker off-white derived from a lighter shade of the exterior colour (a Resene custom colour - Willowbrook), so that for consistency the walls in the common areas will have sandstone tones.

This post is all about the colour cream. People have declared that beige and cream are over. They use beige as a term to describe things that are bland and boring. But I don't think that in-offensive and boring are the same thing. I find shades of cream and beige peaceful, gentle, elegant, as well as being simply inoffensive. And let's face it, in-offensive is good for public spaces. People may not share One's impeccable sense of drama that comes from blood-red or emerald green walls. Cream does not date. It is timeless...

Above and Below: More Off-white ceilings with cream trim and beige walls.

Another popular colour, not entertained for WBP, is "Tea" which has a more magnolia/gray/purple shade to it than beige...

The shade concept however still applies: Ceiling lightest, trim darker and walls darkest.

The colour in these photos most closely resembles 1/8th Thorndon cream and Chamois. I believe they are both shots of the same house. I really like the solidity of the cream architraves. The cornicing is darker than I would choose, but it does prove the point that darker tones look more substantial.

We will also pick out the plaster medallions and tracery on the ceiling in the 1/8th Thorndon cream, to provide slight contrast to the alabaster, perhaps a little more subtly than the example below...