Colors to Consider. Peach and Green

Peach has gotten such a bad reputation of being very old fashioned. You really don't see that much peach or even light orange in homes today. Well, I'd like to change that!

Choking out beige with Artichokes

I've been talking, blogging, tweeting and writing a lot lately about how beige is really bugging me. The funny thing is, I see it bugging my clients to. What does this mean exactly? People are just getting bored with beige. It seems that beige is the color people gravitate towards when they just don't know what else to choose. Today and probably for the rest of the year, I'm going to show you alternatives to beige and even colors that you wouldn't think would work in it's place.

Penne For Your Thoughts!

“Penny for your thoughts. What are you thinking about?”

Color doesn't have to be perfect

We all know that nothing in life is perfect. Like this cupcake. It looks great but the fact that the icing is slipping off will really bother some people. In the long run, the cupcake still tastes good no matter what it looks like.

My point is that not every color scheme is perfect. Even some of the palettes my Designer friends create can leave me with a question or two. Do those two colors really go together? Are you still using sage green in your designs? Oh no! Not another red dining room! 

Having said that - how do you find the perfect color scheme? And once you find it, how will you know that you chose the right colors for your home?

So what is perfect color anyway?

This?

maybe …

This?

perhaps …

This?

could be!

Some people may look at the color scheme from the grapes and hate it or say that the light blue really doesn't relate to the rest of the color scheme.

And in the sea shell color scheme, people may say that peach is too 80's and they don't want it in their home. Maybe.

Look at those really bright colors in the butterfly pin palette! Who would want those colors in their home? You'd be surprised!

What I'm trying to point out here is this. This is no perfect color scheme! There are color palettes that I like and are pretty darn breathtaking but will YOU like them? Probably not.

Just keep in mind that color doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be colors that you love or that you'd want to see in your home. 

• Do you want a red dining room? Then pick a red YOU want. 
• Love a purple kitchen (don't laugh, I had a client that had a VERY purple kitchen and loved it) then have a purple kitchen.
• Love peach for your home?
• Want to use really dark colors in your teens room? Than do it!
• 
  

When it comes to choosing color for your home, don't worry about what the Jone's think. Be creative, choose colors that are unique - not dated. Personally, I'd rather see someone have a odd color in their home than the typical or dated colors that everyone else has.

If you really get stuck or don't feel comfortable choosing the perfect color scheme for your home, I can help you! Either way, look through magazines and even my blog to be inspired to get the perfect color for you!

The Color of Bacon

We all love bacon for breakfast, lunch or dinner and now you can like it on your walls!

The color palette of bacon is rich and spicy! These hues are very typical of what you may see in an Autumn palette which happens to be one of my favorites. It's a little strange to be talking about Fall colors now but color is great all year long regardless of the season.

The color in the center is very, very close if not identiacal to my office color. It's called Paprika by Valspar. Here's how it looks on painted on the Valspar website.

So what sparked the color post about bacon?

Well …

I recently held a photography contest on Fine Art America where I sell my art and the subject was Bacon. This was all for fun of course but the winner would get a color  post on my Color Recipes blog. So, without further adiu, I present to you Warren Sarle with 'best in bacon'.

A bit about Waren:

5 years old: Wanted to be a painter
7 years old: Realized I was no good at it
12 years old: Became a photographer
Later became a statistician and software developer.

As a photographer, I like my pictures to be really sharp, except of course when they are intentionally blurry. When you look at my images, please make liberal use of the full-resolution previews--that is, move the mouse over the image until the green square is over something interesting and then click. This is one of the best features of FAA! (Except for the fact that it's not really full resolution, just higher resolution.)

For close-ups, I often use focus stacks, which are a series of photos focused on different parts of the same subject and then combined in the computer to produce what I call 'deep focus' images. I also use stitching, which is another way of combining multiple photos into a single image. Stitching is most often used for panoramas, but I also use it to increase resolution and for deep focus.

I also like nonrepresentational art, which I usually create by combining multiple photos in such a way that the original photos are not recognizable in the composite.

Favorite photographers: Yoshikazu Shirakawa, Stephen Shore, Edward Weston, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Jerry Uelsmann

Favorite painters: Wassily Kandinsky, Pierre Bonnard, Claude Monet, Jackson Pollock

Favorite digital artist: Afanassy Pud

Thank you to Waren Sarle! Please feel free to look at his photography, it's really beautiful!


Second runner up was Alisha Workman with a very similar photo of this crispy, stripy delight with:

New Home Guide To Color

Just bought a new home? With all the things you have to worry about like unpacking, sleeping arrangements, worrying if the cat will know where the litter box is and where is the nearest Chinese take out, color for your home should be the LAST thing on your mind.

With my Color Recipes to guide you and Benjamin Moore Color Stories, I'm about to make choosing color REALLY easy for you. So sit down, grab a pencil for notes and feast your eyes on a beautiful color palette.

Since I just mentioned Chinese take out, let's use Shrimp Lo Mein as a color inspiration for your home. So from foyer color right to the living room - I'll serve up great color for you! Let's dig in!

I've mentioned before that I choose color mainly for the homes in South Charlotte. These homes are very large and have open floor plans.  See in the photo below, you can see the living room, hallway and some of the upper rooms. You can also see the kitchen from this room to but it's not shown in this photo. It's so very important that ALL the colors are extremely closely related but also, a bit different. Although having beige throughout your entire home is safe, it's also not very exciting.

Come see how the Shrimp Lo Mein color palette can help this room look gorgeous and will be far from boring!  Don't you think these three colors really capture the dish? 

• The pasta is the foyer color and I chose Short Bread.
• The shrimp can be the dining room color which is Warm Sunglow.
• The scallions would be perfect for the living room which  is Lilanna.

 It's that simple!

I would keep the Warm Sunglow, the shrimp color, away from the kitchen because there's a good possibility that your cabinets have the orange undertone which would be way too much for the kitchen.

Here's how you'd place the color (dining room not shown)

These colors would make any home delicious! If you need help choosing color for you new home, contact me, my email is on the right side of this blog. I specialize in choosing color for the homes in South Charlotte, particularly Providence Downs South.

Goody Goody Gumdrops! Great color for a girls' room

Need to choose color for a girls room?

You've come to the right place! Todays' color inspiration - gumdrops.

When I see gumdrops, I think of gorgeous colors for a girls room. Pink, orange and yellow. There are more colors available in gumdrops but today, I'll show you how to use pink, yellow and orange to brighten up your little girls bedroom.

Here we have a typical girls bedroom. You already have a great bed set and drapery so all you need is some color suggestions. This is what I'd do in this room.

I would paint all the main walls with that gorgeous pink, let's say Benjamin Moore Royal Fuchsia and then use the yellow for the ceiling color, try California Hills, also a Benjamin Moore color.

Can you see how the drapery will pop against the fuchsia wall? And since you have a large tray ceiling, adding a substantial color there will make this room very dramatic but fun.

Now this room is a bit different. I really dislike rooms that have those dormer bumps. They are just so distracting in a room. Whoever painted this room actually did a great job. They made the entire room one color and made the bumps disappear so to speak but I'm going to do  the opposite.

Instead of trying to hide them, I'm going to highlight them with beautiful color. They're there so you might as well make them look good right?

Having said that, paint them both orange and make the main wall color pink. Try Cranberry Ice and Golden Cherry for this room. Don't want pink walls, just flip them around. 

Need help choosing color for a girls room?

Contact me in you live in South Charlotte, I'd love to help!