MOUNTAIN COLORS. BROOKLYN WALLS.
THE LONDON & STONE / JOURNAL Nº 001
From the Mountains to Brooklyn An unexpected discovery in North Carolina, a beautifully considered paint brand, and a little inspiration for the walls of New York. There's something rather wonderful about discovering great design where you least expect it. Not in a Manhattan showroom or a London design gallery, but tucked away in a small independent store in Cashiers, North Carolina, surrounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains. Travelling through the mountains with Stacie Clark, we found ourselves exploring this charming little town, drawn to its independent shops, beautiful landscape and understated character. Wandering into Duck Hawk Provisions, we stumbled across something unexpected. Paint. But not just any paint. Bold typography, beautifully considered colours and names that sounded more like destinations, memories and experiences than shades on a colour chart. Road to Todos Santos. Supermoon. Saturday on Sunday. The brand was Backdrop. Founded by Natalie and Caleb Ebel, Backdrop has taken something wonderfully ordinary and made it desirable. A carefully edited palette, clever storytelling and an identity that feels as much at home in a design magazine as it does on a decorator's shelf. One line on the packaging rather perfectly captures the philosophy: ‘It's not just paint, it's your backdrop.’ And it got me thinking.
MOUNTAIN COLOURS. BROOKLYN WALLS. What would these colours look like several hundred miles away, inside one of Brooklyn's beautiful old industrial lofts? Imagine the warmth of Brooklyn Cowboy against exposed brick and reclaimed timber. The earthy richness of Ghost Ranch bringing a little of the American landscape into a converted warehouse. Or the dramatic depth of After Hours creating a more intimate space beneath soaring ceilings and steel-framed windows. Three very different colours, each capable of giving an old building an entirely new personality without taking away its character. That's what makes good design interesting. It doesn't necessarily need to change the architecture. Sometimes it simply changes how we experience it.
THE BEAUTY OF DISCOVERY Perhaps what stayed with me most wasn't the paint itself, but where I found it. A small store in a mountain town, introducing me to a brand that had me imagining interiors back home in Brooklyn. It's these unexpected connections between places, people, architecture and design that inspire The London & Stone. Because the most interesting homes aren't necessarily the grandest or the most expensive. They're the ones that tell a story. And sometimes that story begins with something as simple as a tin of paint.
