Welcome to the weekly Perfume Chat Room, perfumistas! I envision this chat room as a weekly drop-in spot online, where readers may ask questions, suggest fragrances, tell others their SOTD, comment on new releases or old favorites, and respond to each other. The perennial theme is fragrance, but we can interpret that broadly. This is meant to be a kind space, so please try not to give or take offense, and let’s all agree to disagree when opinions differ. In fragrance as in life, your mileage may vary! YMMV.
Today is Friday, May 7, and it is Day 7 of my “May Melange Marathon.” Thank you to the Perfume Chat Room regulars who approved that name for my annual blogging marathon! I’ve been having a lot of fun with it, check out my daily posts!
The house repairs and updates continue: plumbing and plastering are done, next come tile and trim repair and painting. Painting is really the fun part; most of the rooms will be repainted the same colors, but some will have different shades and two will be an entirely new color. For instance, the pink bathroom that our kids shared for many years will remain pink, but now it will be a more sophisticated shade with some grey undertones, called “Proposal” (though I’m still debating another shade called “First Light”). The blue bathroom off our son’s room will be a darker blue than it is now, a wonderful shade called “Wedgewood Gray.” That bathroom is also getting new light fixtures, a new medicine cabinet, and new mirrors and shelving to go with the rebuilt shower. I’m excited about it, small as it is; it will look great when it’s done.
Now that my house is coming back together, and the school year is almost over, I am feeling way more motivated to tidy up my perfume collection, which has slowly spread into all available space in the bedroom I share with my patient husband — and some space that’s not really available! I have two weeks of “staycation” coming up, so I hope to get a lot done. I have some great IKEA storage boxes I use, but they need reorganizing. I’m thinking of using some of those storage labels with QR codes one can associate with photos of items or keywords — have any of you used those? Thoughts?
Serenity Now Scents and Sensibilities 
Houses are always works in progress. Your plans sound wonderful and I also enjoy paint. I am in the process of selecting a color for my home office. Last fall we painted the majority of our house a soft gray called “Whiskers” and master bedroom and loft one shade deeper on the color card called “Sharkskin” gray with a hot of green. I think I will paint a light gray on 3 walls of mud office and a darker color for contrast on the wall behind my desk. And my light fixture just arrived for the office!
Two-week staycation sounds like bliss! Have fun perfume organizing. I have a large armoire in my basement where I store my perfumes; cooler and dark.
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Thanks! If you like blue-green-grays, take a look at Wedgewood Gray, it’s a Benjamin Moore color. When we built an addition some 15 years ago, a decorator friend of mine highly recommended it and we love it. It changes color in different lights and looks great in all of them. Here’s a good description: https://www.thecreativityexchange.com/2017/04/benjamin-moore-wedgewood-gray-color-spotlight.html. We have it in our master bathroom, which also has a lot of white; but I’ve seen it in a fancy hotel’s dining room that had floor-to-ceiling windows, and it was breathtaking.
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Wedgewood Gray is beautiful! I can imagine it gorgeous in different light. It has more blue in it than what I decorate with, I’m all about earth tones and veer more greige and green based gray.
I’m considering my darker accent wall to be Sherwin-Williams’ Color of the Month “Messenger Bag.” Paint is so much fun, makes such a difference in a room to create ambience.
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Your choices sound lovely! And I agree, I love paint colors. I’m lucky that I have a friend who is truly gifted in choosing colors; she has recommended several that I would never have thought to use. We have a sunroom that is almost entirely windows, very little wall space, with white trim, facing northeast. She suggested a color called Rural Earth, which is a very dark, warm brown. OMG, it looks amazing.
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You are very fortunate to have a friend who is gifted with selecting paint colors. A second opinion or lead would be very welcome! Your Rural Earth sunroom sounds gorgeous.
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I am, and it is! The dark color really enhances the white trim and the windows that look out into a very green garden, and it sets off the small pieces of art we are able to hang in the limited wall space. It was one of those things where I would NEVER have chosen that color from a swatch book, but as soon as she showed it to me, I knew it would be perfect. Similarly, when we bought our house, it has been owned and partly renovated by a couple who were both artistic (he was a graphics editor and she was an actual artist). The living room was (and is) a gorgeous dark red. I would never have had the nerve to do that, but every time we’ve had to repaint, deep red it is. The colors in the other rooms are less bold, but I love them.
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Your home sounds lovely, both your interior colors and your garden.
Sometimes we need someone else’s perspective to break out of our comfort zone, right?
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‘Whiskers’ oh I love the sound of that.
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Even better if it were called ‘Kitten/Cat Whiskers!” The color is a very soft light gray, and I love the name as well.
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I adore grey tones. That sounds particularly nice.
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Yay for home improvements. I love when it gets to the painting stage. I repainted most of my house last year and neutralised some walls. My house is now a uniform soft white with the odd wall picked out in taupe. It lends itself well to soft furnishings and artwork of any colour. There is only one room that has a dark grey wall. That’s the sitting room where I like to listen to music and read, it’s very calming. You’ll have a busy staycation putting the finishing touches to your home. Hope you really like the result. SOTD Gucci Bloom, still the best mainstream release of the past few years- not that I’m really trying anything new lately😉
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I agree that Gucci Bloom is wonderful! Do you like any of its flankers? I’ve tried a few and they’re all pretty.
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Yes, I’ve tried one flanker, also wonderful.
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Which one did you like? I thought Nettare di Fiori was lovely.
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Nettare di Fiore is it. Snap.
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I have a sitting room to listen to music and read as well, your gray wall sounds perfect for your special Agreed your soft wall color lends itself to highlight your artwork and furnishings.
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We just upgraded our backyard landscaping – it has been a multi year process but it finally looks decent. Right now it seems like most of our inside projects that will actually get done will just serve to ready our house for sale after my son graduates from high school next spring. Our house is definitely too big for two of us and our school district is planning on major tax increases which will mean it makes no sense for us to stay. Perfume wise, I’m still trying to decide what my favorite for today will be. Maybe SJP Covet?
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Covet is great, another bargain beauty! Or at least it was until it became harder to find … I think it’s still possible to find it at a good price, though. The landscaping sounds like quite a project, we’ve done a lot of that this year too. Our son finished high school last year but we’re planning to stay in this house for at least several more years. I hear you on the property tax increases, we just got a whopper too.
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I did a QR code/NFC tag-related project at work (the software that works with those), but I didn’t find yet any use for them at home. Would love to hear if you do anything interesting with them.
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