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| ON DECORATING | | | COLOR CHALLENGES IN HOME DECORATING
Warm vs.cool? Neutral — but not beige? Color choices for an open plan home? These are some of the most challenging issues when selecting colors and fabrics for our homes. Our color experts take on these questions to help steer you toward a happy solution, whether you crave color — or not!
Read more |  | THE LANGUAGE OF COLOR
If you don't know the difference between a tint and a shade, this little color primer will bring you up to speed quickly! You'll be more confident talking the language of color when you understand a few widely used terms.
Read more |  | | ________________________________________________________________________ | | COLOR CHALLENGES IN HOME DECORATING
Selecting colors and fabrics for our homes should not be fraught with angst — it should be fun. Color Marketing Group member Jan Jessup shares tips to help deal with three common color challenges. |  | WARM VS. COOL
Years ago I learned an important lesson about color when I went on a two-week vacation, leaving my house painters with instructions to repaint the downstairs while I was gone. They didn't begin until just before I returned — and were still in the middle of the job when I showed up, suitcases in hand, stepping over dropcloths. Their delay turned out to be a very good thing. I quickly realized that the linen white that was perfect for the back of the house was completely wrong for the front, where they had just started. Linen white has a yellow cast — and it was too warm to work with the paintings in the front rooms. The art featured lots of blues and greens — and they needed a cool-cast color on the walls, not a warm-cast color. The painters were perplexed, but it was perfectly clear to me! Once the wall color was changed to a tint of white with a cool pink cast, it was perfect. Almost any color can be warm or cool — even blues can be warmer if they have a red tinge, moving toward lilac. Greens can be warmer with a touch of yellow. Reds can be cooled with a tad of blue. Browns can be warm and chocolatey with a red cast — or cool like wenge woods with a blue cast. The lesson for me was to pay attention to the cast of the color: Is it a blue cast? Is it a yellow cast? Knowing this has helped me make many happy color decisions over the years — from trying on clothes, to selecting makeup shades, to finding fabrics at Calico. If you're changing your home lighting to compact fluorescent bulbs, that may also change the perception of color in a room. Fluorescent light historically had a blue-green cast (called 'Cool White' for a reason) — but is now available in warmer color bulbs, too. Think about the color cast of your lighting; it will make all the difference in how you read the colors and fabrics in the room. | NEUTRAL — BUT NOT BEIGE
If you want to use a neutral color in your home — whether on a sofa or walls or carpet — but don't want beige or taupe, consider shades of green. Green is the most prevalent color in nature and can be very neutral. Today there are many sophisticated green fabrics in the marketplace: with colors from subtle lemongrass and wasabi hues tinted with yellow, to celadon shaded with blue, to limed greens, herbal greens, plus deeper olive, palm and spruce greens. |  | | Lemongrass Fabric Collection | | COLOR CHOICES FOR AN OPEN PLAN HOME
Should you carry the same color scheme throughout your home — especially when rooms flow together in an open floor plan? The answer is yes and no. No, when rooms are not that visible from one another — bedrooms, or a den, office or laundry area. Powder rooms also fall into this category — and you can go a little wild here with wallcovering or paint color, since so little time is spent in a small bathroom. Yes, rooms that share sight lines should "talk" to each other, but you don't have to use exactly the same colors or materials. You might have a bedroom with blue topaz walls, ivory carpet and white bedding, for example. The adjoining bath might reverse that scheme, featuring white walls with blue accents in towels, art and accessories. Or carry forward a pale color on the walls of your living room to a deeper version of that color in your dining room. Recently I saw such a dining room on a house tour, with deep taupe walls, white woodwork and a dramatic blue/white toile fabric used for draperies. With indigo blue dining chairs, it was a very dramatic, sophisticated room. |  A room with fabric from the Naturally Stylish palette could lead to the stronger colors in the Eastern Influence theme. | | ________________________________________________________________________ | | | | THE LANGUAGE OF COLOR
If you don't know the difference between a tint and a shade, this little color primer will bring you up to speed quickly! You'll be more confident talking the language of color when you understand a few widely used terms. |  TINT is the addition of white to a saturated color. All pastels are tints. | HUE is just another name for a color, such as red, blue, green and so forth. |  SHADE is the addition of black to a saturated color. Muted colors are shades. | | VALUE refers to how light or dark a color is — deep spruce green is a strong value color. Colors of the same value work together well. For example, dining chairs in four different colors of Sensuede — lilac, aqua, pear and buttercup — don't fight because they're of similar color value. Colors with high contrast in value are more dramatic (for example, ivory, midnight navy and mid-tone coral red). |  | | |  PRIMARY COLORS are red, yellow and blue. It's as simple as that. |  SECONDARY COLORS are orange, green and purple. These colors are mixed from the two primary colors that flank them: red and yellow make orange. Blue and yellow make green. Red and blue make purple. It's all in the mix! |  TERTIARY COLORS are blends of one secondary color and one primary color closest to it on the color wheel. For example, yellow-orange is made of yellow (primary) and orange (secondary) while red-orange is made of red (primary) and orange (secondary). The other tertiary colors are yellow-green, blue-green, blue-violet and red-violet. Tertiary colors have more of one color than another — they're not half and half blends. | | |  | COMPLEMENTARY COLORS are opposite each other on the color wheel: orange and blue, green and red, purple and yellow, teal and coral, lime and magenta. These high-contrast colors in their most intense form are often used in product packaging to demand attention. Think of the Tide® box: it is brilliant orange and bright navy blue for a reason. When toned down slightly, complementary colors are a great way to punch up a room using pillow fabrics or other accents. | | Complementary colors aren't limited to the literal hues on the color wheel — they include updated combos, such as kiwi and raspberry or aqua and mango. To illustrate the latter, see designer/author Bunny Williams' beautiful room for the Kips Bay Show House in New York City that will be featured in the August issue of House Beautiful magazine. The mango chairs and pillows, plus other orange accents, enliven the aquamarine walls and upholstery and keep the room from feeling too frosty. | | |  | | MONOCHROMATIC COLORS are variations on a single theme: multiple shades of orange, for example, from salmon to tangerine to rust. |  | | ANALOGOUS COLORS are neighbors on the color wheel and they will happily marry in a room scheme — for example, blue, teal and lime green with a pop of bright yellow for an accent color. |  | | | |
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