Down the Rabbit Hole of Repainting. Again.

Our house looks like an earthquake hit -- you couldn't find any survivors in here if you tore up the house with a crane. Perhaps I am waxing a little heartless and cruel (what with all the natural disasters going around of late) but I think you catch my drift. It's rully messy in here. Why, you ask? Because after a record shattering eight glorious hours of sleep, I decided in a fit spastic energy that we should convert our guest bedroom/Ike's nursery to Ike's nursery/playroom.

Doesn't it look like a kid lives here? No? You obviously get more sleep than me.

The whole conversion thing is really a pretty easy leap to make (unless you are very very tired), but it did involve lots of moving. And throwing away. And then... I decided to ditch the old cloying Smoke color and repaint the entire room. And now the sleep buzz has worn off but the mess is still here.

I am a walking natural disaster.

Anyway, finding the perfect gray is like finding your soulmate: get as close you can and then compromise on the rest. Sorry, HB, I'm just saying that a good relationship takes effort. I still like you.

Most of my house is painted Benjamin Moore's Abalone Gray:

So I thought to myself, slam dunk! This is going to be MF awesome. But, no. Gray is a bitch. She is a hooker by night and a puritan by day -- a chameleon in gekko's clothing. Who knows what that's supposed to mean, but I think you catch my drift. Maybe.

While lovely in no less than five other rooms of my home, Abalone looks like lavender crap in Ike's room. So today I'm going to visit Sanders again and pray that the god of paint (that would be Sanders) can help me solve this riddle wrapped in an enigmatic conundrum of a cookie. Or however that hackneyed phrase goes that I can't even properly recall. Guess it's not that hackneyed after all...

To sum it up: my house is a mess. I am busy. Please, occupy yourselves with the AMAZING transformative properties of paint, as evinced by Christiane Lemieux, the creative director behind Dwell Studio:

One room, three Benjamin Moore colors: Wrought Iron, Gentleman's Gray, Winter Orchard. I am completely totally obsessed with all three colors. The plan was always to do three of Ike's walls in Abalone, but since it sucks I'm hoping Winter Orchard will take the gold medal here. One focal wall will be in Wrought Iron (I think. Or I could change my mind entirely...). I would KILL to paint the entire room in Gentleman's Gray (or perhaps that Major Tom wallpaper I keep kissing when I think HB isn't watching?), which is oh so close to the ever popular Farrow and Ball Hague Blue:

Miles Redd kills it.

But it's really too dark and just doesn't make sense for this house. Next house. Promise.

Ok, now it's time to get busy and work my everloving ass off. See you when the rubble clears.

If you catch my drift.

Yes or No?

Black toilets.

Also, let's talk about that gold utility light. Spraypaint, anyone?

I Just Got the Best Present Ever

Yes -- the best present ever, because when I opened the link Raina sent me I almost stroked out from the insanity of it all. I love art, I love houses, and when the two get together and do the horizontal mambo, they make beautiful, very expensive babies. Just how expensive?  Well, if you sold every organ in your body on the black market, you still couldn't afford any of the art in this house (plus you'd be dead).

I mean, you know you're rich when Warhol's rorschach paintings don't even rate a mention in the listed "pieces of note." And that's just the office.

Or maybe the author simply tired of referencing Warhol 8,567 times, since the home of fabulously wealthy psychiatrist Samantha Boardman and her real estate mogul husband Aby Rosen has more Warhol pieces in it than a museum.

Apparently they are also nonplussed by the proximity of so much fragile cash to two tiny toddlers. According to Boardman, “We have taught the kids how to live with [art]  and how to learn from it, but we have also taught them how to respect it.” That's code for: the nannies steer them around it. Because even the best kid will wait until you turn your back and then drive their Big Wheels into a temptingly towering stack of cardboard boxes... by Andy Warhol.

Still, you have to give the Boardman-Rosens respect for using their superrich powers for good and not evil. They probably could have single handedly bailed out Goldman Sachs, but instead they bought art. Really good art. Francis Bacon is perhaps my favorite painter in the whole universe, and that Damien Hirst sculpture ain't shabby, either. But that's not to say that I would have made exactly the same curatorial choices if I were obscenely wealthy.

William de Kooning + Richard Prince = Yes. The table is gorgeous, too, but that terrarium-as-art thingie confuses me.

Cy Twombly = hell to the yes, but Jeff Koons will never be my favorite artist. I know it's conceptual and all, but it still looks like they decided to hang the kids' pool toy next to one of the greatest painters of all time. The rug, however, gets my seal of approval (as if they need it).

Taxidermy may be out, but Maurizio Cattelan is the original gangsta. Props.

Check out the rest of the Vogue sildeshow, where you will learn that the kids are adorable but perhaps a wee bit spoiled (not judging -- I'd happily move into their life), the library is a hot mess (judging), and outdoor space is at a premium in NYC even for the uber wealthy.

Thanks again to Raina at If the Lampshade Fits for the tip!