Dark and Lovely

Dark walls have this ten­dency to ren­der peo­ple stul­ti­fied with fear.  As a designer, I’ve learned a thing or two about what they can accom­plish for a space.  Our offices at HighStreet are a suc­ces­sion of small spaces, bor­dered on one side by a very long hall­way made of con­crete.  We have win­dows on the other side that allow for view­ing down onto the floor of our lifestyle store.  There is a lit­tle nat­ural and some un-natural light that moves from the store into our suc­cinct lit­tle stu­dio spaces.  So, we decided to paint the offices black.  True, many less dar­ing would cringe but it was one of the best deci­sions we ever made.

Dark walls are an inex­pen­sive way to bring sophis­ti­ca­tion, drama and warmth into an oth­er­wise stale, stuffy room.

Painting the walls of an oth­er­wise unspec­tac­u­lar space ebony, navy or char­coal adds depth and sub­stance to a room that a lighter shade could not achieve. Therefore, you may want to con­sider trans­form­ing your com­fort­ably tra­di­tional space into a dark, lux­u­ri­ous retreat.

The key to mak­ing this look work is to have enough light in the room to bal­ance the dark. Strangely, this is not at all dif­fi­cult. Working with a room that has at least a small amount of nat­ural light can be help­ful, while too much may ruin the effect.  Investing in qual­ity light­ing from mul­ti­ple angles will allow for a very par­tic­u­lar, almost con­tem­pla­tive ambiance. Strategically placed lamps cre­ate a soft glow that bal­ances the mas­cu­line with the fem­i­nine. Floor lamps, pen­dants and halo­gen track light­ing can high­light acces­sories or art hung on the walls. Which brings us to your art and accessories…

Dark walls do won­ders for your prized and even not-so-prized pos­ses­sions. Anything that is light in color, (which is alot…) will look down­right ele­gant on your deep, dark can­vas.  You can have so much fun with color against a dark palette because the ground­ed­ness of the back­drop bal­ances per­fectly the friv­o­lity of exu­ber­ant color.  A world of color opens itself up to you in a new, rea­son­able way and acces­soriz­ing a room such as this becomes a sin­cere and easy plea­sure as opposed to what can be a some­times dif­fi­cult Math equation.

Conspiring what to place against your dark walls can be lib­er­at­ing, and a real thrill if you are into the aes­thetic rush.

If you decide to pur­sue the temp­ta­tions of the darker side then con­sider also cov­er­ing your ceil­ing or floor a light shade if this is not already the case.  Lighter, neu­tral col­ors and pat­terns mov­ing through the dark space is another great way to bal­ance and brighten the room. And let’s not for­get tex­ture.  Texture in design is always good but against the dark back­drop tex­ture takes on a whole new level of excite­ment much like it’s col­or­ful counterparts.

So con­sider wield­ing some sexy dark paint. Experiment with the reac­tion when you use white, yel­low, fuch­sia or cobalt.  See for your­self how almost all vibrant col­ors look ter­rific against espresso brown, dark navy or com­plex char­coal. It’s hard to go wrong here.  At HighStreet we painted our long, con­crete hall­way and the ceil­ings a vibrant, true yel­low.  This gives our black offices a lift and glow that makes every­thing feel and look ter­rific and, I have to say, I do enjoy com­ing into my office each day to find that my work space is not some stale lit­tle box, but instead a sump­tu­ous, infi­nite, warm and com­fort­ing envi­ron­ment that inspires me to set­tle in and con­jure some seri­ous creativity.

Leah Spurrier. Katherine Tyznik.  HighStreet