How to binge-watch Sarah Richardson shows in the U.S. + new paint colors to love

It has been completely cruddy here this week. So much so that I haven’t really had the will to go outside and cut flowers for The Garden Appreciation Society, so that will wait for another week. How long do you think we can keep this thing going? It’s getting difficult to be creative with fading flowers.

Anyway, I leave you today, with my tip for the day. You probably know that I am a Sarah Richardson addict. I pretty much love everything she does. OK, not everything (I’m still a little flabbergasted by the lavender living room in Sarah’s House 4) but damn near everything. She is my win-the-lottery interior designer.

Have you noticed that there are some great Canadian blogs out there? Well, there are. And now I know why a lot of them seem to be a cut above some blogs from the States. Canadians can watch Sarah Richardson whenever they want. There are episodes of almost all her shows on the Canadian HGTV website www.hgtv.ca. And if you are in the United States and you go to that website, you will get a message saying that the content is not available in your area. I mean, really, the nerve.

But alas I have found away around that pesky message. It is an application for your computer called Hola Unblocker. Basically, you install it and, in Google Chrome at least, a little icon shows up in your tool bar. When you go to a site that is blocked, you just go up to that icon and select a different country for your IP address to flow through. It seems to know the best one, so it will likely pick Canada for you, but if not you just pick Canada. The Hola icon will change to the country flag you have selected and
voila! You have Sarah Richardson on your computer.

The quality of the video is lacking a little bit, but who am I to get picky. I’ve been doing marathon sessions of all things Sarah. One of the best things I’ve found was a Design Inc. episode when they redid the Design Inc. offices. So fun.

So there’s my tip for you. Enjoy a bit of binge watching this weekend!

Oh, and one more tip. Benjamin Moore has a new color collection out called the Williamsburg color collection. I heard that name and immediately thought, oh, that’s not for me. I think of Williamsburg and my first thought is a dusty blue found on scratchy couches. But this is thoroughly modern group of colors and there are so many good ones in there. I’m not sure how it’s possible that there can be more paint colors invented, but who am I to care when these are so good.

I’m actually already painting something in Cornwallis Red, which is a super orangey red (or reddish-orange, I’m not sure which) that I’m way into right now. I am loving this color. It’s a little side table for the living room. You can see it with one coat on in this photo (with the bright orange chairs from the other day).

I’m also loving Galt Blue, which I think is similar but lighter than the ever popular Wythe Blue. I’m actually considering this for the walls in the back room because the test of Wythe Blue seemed very dark.

And check out Parrot Green. I love it because it’s not too bright but still fresh without going too avocado.

There are also a whole bunch of great grays. I know, just what we all needed: more grays to further complicate our search for the perfect gray. This one, called Bruton White (why can’t we call grays gray instead of blue, white or black?) is a really pretty looking light gray.

So there’s one more thing to check out this weekend.