We all have tricky rooms that need a little “help” with color to manipulate its negatives into positives. Large, emty rooms that feel vacant and cold. Rooms with little natural light. Walls with cracks or damage to the sheetrock. Awkward shaped rooms or rooms with low ceilings. You know what I mean and probably have one so read on to find some solutions to help manipulate your room with paint color into a less troubled space…

Is your room is too large or vacant feeling? Try using dark or warm colors like warm chocolate browns or deep red-oranges to make a room feel cozy and intimate. These deep colors help a large, mildly furnished room feel more occupied.

Have a space that feels too small or confined? Visually expand a room by using lighter, airy colors like pale blues or soft mauves. Keep the depth of the floors and ceilings the same as the walls for the most impact.

If you have either too low or too high ceilings try this: For low ceilings, keep the colors in lighter, pale tones (like Mayonaise or Bone White)which visually recede, making the ceiling appear higher. The opposite for very high, cavernous ceilngs- use warmer, deeper colors which appear to advance and seem to “lower” some.

If you own anything other than a brand new house, one would assume you have some imperfect sheetrock. To hide cracked or damaged walls try two things. First use a matte or flat finish paint. These finishes reflect no light so you see less of the imperfection. Second, if you use darker or warmer colors, they tend to absorb light which will help hide the blemish as well.

These are just some of the common issues we come across.  There are others like rooms which lack a focal point (so try an accent wall with a bold peice of art) or rooms that have TOO much goin on (a fireplace, lots of crown, chair rail, baseboard and panel molding, etc..)that require a visually calmer feature by painting them the same, light-intensive neutral.

Color Inspiration

An easy way to determine a good color scheme for your room is to find what we designers refer to as our “central source”. That is the fabric, pillow, painting, quilt, rug, etc.. that exists in your room that has the greatest impact on you- what you love looking at. Use that to find the starting point for a color scheme. For example, use the fabric’s background color (maybe a calm blue/green tapestry sofa fabric entangled with soft browns) as your wall paint color (Benjamin Moore’s Beach Glass) or the fabric’s next most dominant color as your upholstery fabric color and the remaining accent colors as the stimulus for your accessories.

Not all inspirations need be soft obvious living room or family room fabrics. Artwork or accessories can also be used as motivators. Even in the kitchen you can find inspiration.  Your countertops or background colors in your dishware can define the wall paint colors. You can find the other various colors in your granite or dishes or artwork to carry onto wall spaces as accents or accessory colors.

Once you locate your central source, you just want to choose colors, fabrics and accessories that all work to bring out the best and make that inspiration color look its best. Don’t be afraid to move that central fabric or central color around the room. This creates flow and balance….

I love dessert!  Cakes, cupcakes, brownies, pies, cobblers, you name it — I love them all.  I love dessert almost as much as I love paint. As I savored the orange sponge cake with strawberry filling that I’d baked this afternoon, I thought about the colors and textures of desserts, and wondered why can’t we live with that kind of gloriousness every day?  Any designer will tell you to choose a painting or rug that you love and use it as the basis for your color scheme.  Very good advice. But the fantasy of living with your dream desserts around you every day is just too good to pass up. For my fellow lovers of dessert, I offer up these delicious palettes:

Bananas Foster.  Bananas, brown sugar, rum, and vanilla ice cream star in this legendary dessert.  This flambe’ masterpiece as a color scheme is warm and neutral. Bananas Foster could be a cozy family room, or a clean and contemporary living room.  For the warm yellow in this scheme, try Benjamin Moore, Soleil - AF-330; Try Benjamin Moore, Farm Fresh - AF 360 for your rum color, and try Benjamin Moore, Kona - AF - 165 for the rich brown sugar.

Brownie al a mode. Mmmm…. chocolate and vanilla.  Is there anything more enticing than warm chocolate and melty vanilla ice cream?  This Brownie Ala Mode color scheme comes pretty close.  Choose a clear and rich chocolate brown like Benjamin Moore, Classic Brown - 2109-10, and pair it with a creamy white like Benjamin Moore, Snow White OC - 66. For an accent, add that cherry on top (and like that dessert, the cherry red plays a very minor role.)  Try Benjamin Moore, Million Dollar Red - 2003-10. Do you have a dining room in need of some chocolatey drama?

Neapolitan Ice Cream. With hundreds of new ice cream flavors every year, Neapolitan, with its concise bars of brown, pink, and white, is all but forgotten.  It’s about time to bring it back, even if it’s just on our walls. Who can resist pink and brown together?  It’s playful, with just the right touch of retro.  How about using the neapolitan ice cream color scheme in your kitchen and adjacent eating area? I love Sherwin Williams, Pink Ice - SW1590 for the creamy pink of this scheme.  Try Sherwin Williams, Brevity Brown - SW6068 for your chocolate, and Sherwin Williams, White Flour - SW7102 for a creamy vanilla.

Not Your Mom’s Apple Pie.  When I think of Apple Pie, I’m afraid all I see is beige, beige, beige.  This modern color scheme uses apple green, raisin, and vanilla white.  Granny Smith apples, those amazing green apples in the produce section, are the inspiration for this scheme. They’re tart, crisp, and tangy.  Just perfect for a loft, a home office, or a guest room.  I love Benjamin Moore’s Wasabi - AF-430 for our apple green.  The dramatic raisin comes from Benjamin Moore, Caponata - AF-650, and the mandatory al a mode comes from this dreamy cream from Benjamin Moore, Collector’s Item - AF-45.

Hello Cupcake! For the young, or the young at heart! Why not choose yummy colors for a cheery space?  This palette is all about the frosting!  Any of these colors could be fun for your walls, in any combination. Blue on the ceiling? Try this adorable Disney, Thoughtful Spot - C3A-70-1. Try this pink for a window seat and in a curtain fabric, Disney, Fairytale Pink -  DC2A-50-2. Let’s add a sunny yellow to the room with Disney, Pooh Bear Yellow - DC1A-30-2. But perhaps you are a cupcake traditionalist. In that case, why not choose a crisp white like Disney,  Ultra Pure White - 7030 as frosting for the walls, and use your other colors as sprinkles?

Whimsical color schemes are a delicious way to fire up your decorating appetite.  I’m sure that you’re already dreaming up your own dessert-based color schemes. When you’re imagining your new color schemes, don’t forget to sample your paint colors before committing to your new fabulous new scheme.  Just remember that choosing a color scheme, like a dessert, should be all about immersing yourself in something you love.  Oh, and of course, all of these color schemes are calorie-free. Dig in!

See Diana’s Color Combinations on MyPerfectColor.com

What do they all have in common? All neutral colors? No. I think Nessie is probably a seaweed green which would make her a warm color.  Actually, they’re all figments of our imagination.

When I get that initial call for a color consultation, somewhere inside of me a little voice cries when I hear a request to find the “perfect” beige.  The idea of a perfect beige evokes fantasies of a color that is not too gray, not too green, not too yellow, not too pink.   A homeowner’s dream of that elusive color comes crashing down in living rooms all across America, when they realize that, of the 300 paint chips they’ve taken home from the warehouse store, none of the beiges are neutral or perfect enough for them.

That is a sad, sad, scenario. But, there is hope! There are secrets to finding that perfect wall color. At the risk of shaking up the faerie tale world, here they are:

1) Sometimes the perfect beige may not be beige at all.  Have you considered other neutrals? Greens, grays, and browns, can give you that simplicity and elegance you crave.  Try this green from ICI, Silent Fog - 884; Try this gray from Benjamin Moore Thunder - AF-685; or this brown from Benjamin Moore, Truffle - AF-130.

2) Pay attention to adjacent colors inside and outside of your home. I recently bought a house with emerald green carpet (what was I thinking?). Every paint sample I tried had a ghastly green cast. Until I replaced the carpet, nothing appeared as expected. If you have flooring with a strong  color, or dark or red-toned wood floors, take that into account when you choose your colors. If everything you believed to be neutral comes out “too something” over and over, look around the room and see what’s causing that.  You don’t have to  remove the influencing color, but you’ll want to take that into account when you make your wall color choices.

3) Every beige can be “too something.” Beige is a tone of brown, which is a mix of a primary colors. When you mix red, blue, and yellow together, something is going to dominate.  The key is to find a beige that has a hint of a color you can live with.  If you are a warm-color person, try this beige from Benjamin Moore, Standish White HC-32; If you like cool colors, try this: Restoration Hardware, Silver Sage; Love those soothing grays? Try this: Benjamin Moore, Clay Beige OC-11.

4) Test your paint colors. Seriously. Test your colors. I test colors for my own home.  It’s just not enough to hold those little paint chips up to your wall. To know exactly what a color will do in your house, you have to test it in your home. Purchase generous paint color samples so you can get a realistic idea of the color in your home.  While I’ve been known to paint test squares all around my rooms, against my better judgement, your best bet is to paint your samples on foam color tester boards so that you can move them around, and have nothing to paint over later.  I tell my clients to live with their paint samples for a few days, watch how the color changes at different times of day and in different corners.

5) Relax.  After spending days or weeks focusing on your perfect beige, the subtle nuances start to take on massive importance. People coming to your home won’t critique the cast of your beige, (if they do, then they get no dessert!)

Armed with these secrets, and access to almost unlimited paint color choices, your perfect beige will leave the murky realm of imagination, and materialize in the real world as your perfect wall color.

Visit MyPerfectColor.com for more information on paint colors and painting.

Color is on the move. The bold, saturated hues that have dominated palettes for the past few seasons are yielding to more complicated, toned-down shades. Our eyes are ready to relax and fall into dustier, more interest provoking undertones. Gray is the new MVP in the palette- it has an increasing role in cooling down our interiors by becoming the new neutral in residential spaces. When choosing paint color, designers and individuals are piloting toward these calming new shades of gray. For example, some fabulous muted blue-grays and green-grays like Benjamin Moore Smoke 2122-40 and Gossamer Blue 2123-40 can make any room feel like you are a step closer to entering that spa room you always wanted or perhaps feel like you are sitting in a beach chair by the ocean.

Grays can be gorgeous. Gray them selves range from barely there in warm, quiet tones like those found in the neutral landscape of the environment such as wood, stone and natural fibers (colors like Sherwin-Williams Wool Skein SW-6148) to cool, water inspired tones like Benjamin Moore’s Iced Slate 2130-60.

So don’t be afraid to use these wonderful tones and undercurrents to really soothe, relax and update your palette. They are not necessarily cold and icy- they can be warm and earthy and a nice, new update to your home.

If I could redo my room I would put cork board and chalkboard paint behind my bed, covering the whole wall. I would put a corkboard behind my bed because I am a Disney Channel addict! I would hang up all my favorite stars, for example Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus. I would also hang up pictures of my friends and I. Then even if they move I could still remember them. Lastly, I could hang up study guides so I can simply take down my study guides and study. Then, when I’m done studying I can hang my study guide without losing anything and with it get an A+!

After that I would paint the three walls. I would paint my walls a colors from the Behr paint color chart I like, for example purple , green, pink, or a turquoise. If I painted my walls purple, I would put designs on my walls with the other colors, like Hawaiian or tropical flowers, one of my favorite symbols like lol, bff, and ttyl (laugh out loud, Best friends forever, and talk to you later) or peace signs and hearts.  I would put molding surrounding the top and bottom of the wall and on the top and sides of my closet. I would paint the molding a white.

Now, its time to pick out a bed. If the cork board wall is a small wall then put a twin, but if its a bigger sized wall put a full bed. If you put a twin bed try to get a pull out bed underneath so during sleepovers you don’t have to be cramped in a bed or in a sleeping bag on an hard floor. The bed would be in a white color and I would center the bed in the middle of the wall.

I think all kids rooms should be fun and full of things that make us smile and feel happy. I know Mom’s dont love posters and crazy colors but we do and we change our minds a lot so pretty soon we wont like that stuff, either!

Chips. Salsa. Cookies. Crackers. Donuts. Soda….Did you ever spend WAY too much money at the grocery store when you shopped while starving? Me, too. Uncontrollable urges to eat poorly trump the logic of healthy eating when you are famished in the misdst of snacks in aisle 7.

One would say this rule may apply to all avenues of shopping. Especially when shopping for products that create, dictate, change or determine your mood. Like paint color. Its ALL about mood. And so selecting a color palette when your emotions are on high alert may not be a good idea.

I recently did a color study (more…)

We often get requests from people wanting to know the specific paint color used on a TV show, movie or magazine set. If you’ve ever tried to figure something like this out, it can be a frustrating experience. Typically the last thing on any studio’s mind is keeping track of the paint colors used on a set, let alone making this available for people who are interested. Can you say “Wild Goose Chase”?

The Break-Up

I recently watched this movie called “The Break Up” with Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn. I love the color that their condo is painted and have looked all over the internet to try to find the name/brand of that exact color. I was wondering if you would be able to help me find it. I would be eternally greatful!!

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Bring Hotel Luxury Home

Its the new bedroom trend- “Hotel Bedding”. The first thing I thought about when I heard of this new trend was of course that ugly, scratchy polyester Red Roof Inn bedding. Itchy comforters, rough white sheets, unattractive floral prints, etc… No, what I have learned is that Hotel Bedding is really recreating what hotel chains like The Westin and Resorts have done. Which is introducing its “heavenly bed” to guests who go home thinking it was such a luxurious look and sleep with fabulous materials that they want it at home now as well. It has literally sparked “bed wars” between hotel chains (good for US!).

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Did you ever try to obtain design ideas from decorating magazines or paint company websites? Ever notice how the showcase rooms are always unrealistally large, unique, architecturally detailed and nothing like what most people live in? Yeah- me, too.

As a designer, I can tell you that most people have the same simple, rectangular, odd-placed-window, standard type rooms. We dont have niches, built-ins, ready-made window seats and trey ceilings. So, what I want to talk about is how my in-the-field-design tricks can help to make smaller, standard rooms appear larger and more designer-esque.

First, think BIG. Instead of filling a small room with lots of little pieces, opt for overscale furnishings and accessories to cut down on clutter and make the room feel more spacious.

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