'Patina Farm' authors discuss paint colors, fabrics and pets

Architect Steve Giannetti and interior decorator Brooke Giannetti, who co-authored "Patina Style" and "Patina Farm," joined Washington Post staff writer Jura Koncius recently on the newspaper's Home Front online chat. Here is an edited excerpt:

Q. Your California farm is gorgeous. How can we on the East Coast achieve a similar indoor-outdoor look?

BG. We are actually helping a client in Connecticut right now. We are bringing the outdoors inside by using garden elements as well as potted boxwoods inside. We are also using a color palette that is inspired by the beautiful greenery in their garden.

If you have a lot of glass, you may want to use dual-glazed windows to keep the heat inside. Expanses of glass are best kept on the south of a house, where they will let the most light in.

Q. What are your favorite warm white paint colors?

BG. We tend to use Farrow & Ball paints, specifically Wimborne White and Pointing. We always recommend putting up large samples in the actual space that you are painting so that you can see how the color interacts with the light in the space.

Q. What kind of finish do you use on your wood floors?

BG. We prefer a flat wax finish. Stay away from varnish or polyurethane, as they tend to make the floor yellow over time.

Q. Do you think velvet is a practical fabric? It's beautiful, but is it durable?

BG. Like all of the materials we use, we prefer how velvet looks over time. I have no problem with it getting crushed. There are also many eco-friendly products that can be used to protect fabrics from staining.

Q. Do you use a lot of indoor-outdoor fabrics? What brands do you like?

BG. We use indoor-outdoor fabrics quite a bit. They have really come a long way! We tend to use DeLany & Long, as well as Perennials.

Q. We have a ton of books, but we also use our bookshelves for office stuff, such as extra printer paper, notebooks, binders, etc. Do you have any suggestions for making that kind of stuff look prettier?

SG. I use natural-colored cardboard notebooks and folders by guidedproducts.com. Cardboard-colored banker's boxes are also great. I use a stencil to label them. (You can see an example on Page 68 of our book "Patina Farm." It's a picture of my shelves in my office.) Baskets can also be used to store stacks of printer paper.

Q. My 1950s home has the original bi-fold doors on some of the closets. I'd love to replace them with regular doors, but I'm not sure how to achieve this. (We looked at Home Depot, but our doors don't appear to be standard-size.) Who would handle this? A carpenter or a general contractor?

SG. We used linen draperies instead of closet doors. They still hide our clothes but are much less expensive than doors. See Page 97 in "Patina Farm."

Q. I don't have any outdoor space, but I do have a sunny windowsill in the kitchen. Any recommendations for a happy little plant? I don't mind watering daily.

BG. Try herbs in small terra-cotta pots. You can use them when you are cooking, and they smell wonderful. They are also inexpensive, so you can replace them if they die.

Q. I love old lighting fixtures, but they are so much trouble to get rewired and put up safely. Is there a source for chandeliers that look old but were actually made in the 21st century?

BG. I like Aidan Gray chandeliers. We have one in our dressing room. We also used many fixtures by Schoolhouse Electric that have an old-school vibe.

Q. How do you feel about blankets with top sheets vs. a duvet and no top sheet?

BG. This is a bit of a regional preference. We live in a very temperate climate, so we tend to use natural linen bedding and duvet covers. I usually just add a cotton blanket (or cashmere in cooler locations) at the foot of the bed, just in case someone has a chill in the middle of the night.

Q. I love your colored plaster walls. Any tips on how we can achieve that look?

SG. Our walls are actually not colored plaster. We used a product called California One Kote. It is applied directly on top of drywall. It can be tinted, but we used the untinted white color right out of the bucket at Patina Farm.

Q. I have knotty pine cabinets in my cottage kitchen, with clunky black wrought-iron hardware from the 1950s. Do you think it's worth updating them?

BG. You can paint the cabinets white or pale gray (we like Farrow & Ball's Pavilion Gray), including the hardware. You could also paint the cabinets and replace the hardware with something simple from Restoration Hardware. If you paint the cabinets, you don't need to worry about finding hardware that has the same hole spread, since you can patch the original holes.

Q. Is limestone tile durable enough for a kitchen floor?

BG. Limestone would make a beautiful floor for a kitchen. The French have been using it for centuries. We have limestone all over our house, including in Brooke's office, where the dogs hang out.

Q. How do you deal with all the dirt and mess that comes from having pets?

BG. We designed our home to be pet-friendly. All of our furniture is slipcovered in washable natural linen. The wood floors are washable with just water. We also don't mind a little wear.

Q. Do you think color-coordinating books is a good idea? And are you okay with ripping covers off old books to get the look you want?

SG. If the books are going to be on display on shelves, we always color-coordinate them to create a calmness and consistency. Books always look better with the dust jackets removed. We also design hidden storage for items that are less attractive.