White, Light, and Color Go Together
September 18, 2008 § Leave a comment
I’ve said this in older posts, but I think it’s worth mentioning again. Nothing makes colors pop (pardon the over-used expression) like white. Whether it’s in your garden or in your home, adding white will make colors crisp and clear. You can add white trim, white linens, white curtains, white slipcovers, but whatever you do, add some white to your space and see the colors you’ve chosen for walls, furniture, or even your flower bed come alive. This photo of an HGTV Dream Home shows how white can also serve as a resting spot from intense wall color.
Remember this when you’re decorating kids’ rooms. All those hot pink and chartreuse wall colors need lots of white.
The other crucial element to using color is light. Poor light will muddy even the most beautiful colors and will turn whites to gray. Anyone with white walls can test this out. Look at your walls at various times of the day and see what colors your white walls become depending on the light in the room, whether it’s natural or artificial. Plan on updating your lighting before you start any redecorating plan so you are happy with the end result.
See older posts: Decorating with White and Before You Color Your Walls, Check the Lighting.
Update on My Responses to Your Questions
September 9, 2008 § 11 Comments
Hi Bloggers,
There are a lot of you out there with lots of questions about everything from room colors to exterior siding. I am going through all the questions from first-time visitors. If you don’t see your question pop up on the blog for a day or so, that means I’ll get to it soon. I’m off working with clients in my local area.
If you have a followup series of questions to my initial suggestions, please email me and we can work out a reasonable consultation fee. I’m afraid I won’t be able to answer follow-up questions on this blog as I’m trying to respond to everyone’s basic questions in a reasonable amount of time and they’re starting to pile up.
If your photos don’t go through to my email, just let me know, and I’ll give you another place to send them.
Thanks for visiting my blog and I hope we can solve your decorating dilemmas together.
Most sincerely,
-Barbara
Your Home & Color Coach
My Old House is Just Not Me
August 20, 2008 § 25 Comments
Many of you have a modern aesthetic. You like clean lines, unfussy details, neutral colors, and minimal furnishings. You probably should have moved to a downtown loft space, but you are now part of suburbia. You write in that you’ve decorated the inside of your new home to reflect your taste, but the outside is a disaster.
If you are stuck in an exterior from another era when brick facades were popular and split levels were all the rage, or if some weird architectural detail haunts your house, the easiest and cheapest solution is to paint. For example, if you now own a split level with one-half brick and the other half siding, it’s okay to paint the house all one neutral color to modernize the appearance from the street and actually make the house look bigger since it’s no longer broken up visually.
NOTE: If you own a home that is either listed on your town’s historic register or is in an area of period homes, then do not alter the exterior except to maintain its historic value. Chances are that if you live on the main street in your town and have purchased an older home, the town’s historic commission has already contacted you — they will tell you exactly what you can and more importantly cannot do to your home. Before you renovate the exterior, be careful of “upgrading” to cheaper materials, styleless features, and “modernizations” that will come back to haunt you when you try to sell.
Changing a color palette, however, may be a relatively safe way to modernize without destroying the home’s history. If you live in a colonial but have modern tendencies, you can reflect your modern taste in your house color palette. Choosing three or even four colors off the same paint chip for your siding and trims or painting your house and trim all one color reserving a vibrant shocker for the front door can give even a “boring” (to some) old colonial a modern personality.
Camouflage the Neighbors (and other eyesores)
August 19, 2008 § 1 Comment
Despite your attempts at diplomacy, your neighbor has decided to park his rusty old camper on your end of his front yard. This predicament is particularly significant if you are trying to sell your house, but it is not pleasant at any time. What to do. If he really will not haul the camper to the rear out of sight, then move on to plan B. Your landscape.
The old saying, “Good fences make good neighbors,” may apply in your case, but if you think that a stockade fence might be a bit aggressive, hedges are the next best thing. Lilacs, forsythia, or a traditional row of arbor vitae will form a quick-growing visual barrier between your property and your neighbor’s.
Eyesores in your own yard can be camouflaged as well. Fencing around a large air conditioner and garbage cans, lattice work around the perimeter of the deck to conceal the yard machinery underneath, a garden of sunflowers between the house and the aluminum shed, and the list goes on. Stand back on the curb or the edge of the property and pretend you are a visitor to your house for the first time. What do you notice in the yard that’s not so great? That’s what needs to be either removed or camouflaged.
Bring Your Summer Vacation Home: How to Achieve the Cottage Style
August 18, 2008 § Leave a comment
If you own a cottage or rent one somewhere, you know what the cottage style is all about: old painted furniture, vintage fabrics, mixes of woods and different styles of furniture. It’s all about care-free and comfortable living because that’s what vacations are for.
To bring that feeling and more importantly the lifestyle home with you, all you need is a relaxed attitude about your furnishings. Instead of upholstered furniture that warrants surveillance when your children and their friends are around (say nothing of the pets), just invest in some washable custom slipcovers. White is actually best since you can always bleach out the jelly stains if necessary. Cover the expensive sofa and chairs and just feel your blood pressure lowering. You’re relaxing already. And who says wicker is just for porches. A good coat of spray paint will freshen up even the most weather-beaten wicker and make it presentable for your living room.
If you haven’t inherited a cellar full of old furniture that would be perfect for your new relaxed cottage look, then let the furniture hunt begin. Plan what you need, of course, to avoid coming home with impulse purchases, but start the search for the perfect old coffee table, end table, console, buffet, china hutch, whatever you need to create your cottage lifestyle. Visit consignment stores, yard sales, thrift shops, and flea markets. The point is: If you like the piece and it fits, then buy it. If it fits and you don’t like the look, buy it anyway and paint it.
Cottages are typically dumping grounds for old furniture that’s replaced in the permanent home. And to make the furniture look better, it’s often painted. Time and wear rough up the edges on these cottage relics, but you can recreate the look with paint and some sandpaper. You don’t want things to match. Furniture and other items are acquired over time, sometimes decades, so if the piece has a function, it works.
The best part about the cottage style is how comfortable your guests will be when they visit you. No pretense. No uncomfortable questions about where to sit. Your home will feel warm and inviting to everyone.
Updating Old Furniture
July 17, 2008 § 9 Comments
I love a bargain. And if I can get something for free, all the better. I got this wicker settee from a friend moving to a city condo and the chair was a consignment store find. Both original pieces were not so great-looking. The chair was a dingy “white” and the settee a pretty banged-up natural wicker. All it took to update this furniture was two cans of dark brown spray paint and a tarp to cover the grass in the backyard. Within an hour, the furniture had been rescued.
For cushions, I used an inexpensive cotton (even covered some buttons) and splurged on a few new pillows.
Don’t overlook old furniture that can be spruced up with a little elbow grease. It’s really fun and rewarding to take what might have gone to the dump and make it fresh and usable again.
Back from Family Reunion at the Cottage
June 21, 2008 § 14 Comments
New windows
Hi Bloggers:
I’m back and what a culture shock. Nothing like two weeks gazing at sunsets and listening to waves on the lake to make you relax but getting back into the swing of things is challenging. There are TONS of queries waiting for me and I will try hard to answer everyone’s questions. We’re working on getting DSL up at the cottage — that will help keep the blog going even on vacations.
I’ve included some photos — my sons and I painted some lawn furniture and the new windows are finally all in. Next comes a fresh paint job on the cottage and maybe a new roof. But that’s enough for this summer. We’re just going to enjoy it.
Thanks for your patience! I’ll start with the ones that came in first and work down the list.
Check back periodically and I hope I’ll have your question answered.
-Barbara, Your Home & Color Coach
Reviving Old Furniture with Wall Color
May 13, 2008 § 16 Comments
Do you have a sofa from the 80s that looked great back then but kind of looks sad at the moment? Of course, you can slipcover it, but how about punching up the color behind it. We took a living room with blah beige striped wallpaper and pastel patterned upholstery (in good condition) and brought it to life with a soft blue-green paint color (Benjamin Moore’s stratton blue HC-142) and some new pillows. What a difference. All of a sudden the sofas looked intentional and the room came alive.
The trick here is to pick a wall color that is rich but subdued. You need a greyed down shade for this effect to work. Otherwise, a bright wall color might just make your furniture look even older. But a nice tasteful splash of wall color will give your furniture a few more years of life. And in this age of recycling, re-purposing, and reusing old stuff, it’s all about making what you have work.
Before you drag your old furniture off to the consignment store, try painting your room.
Green Decorating: Shop your local consignment stores
March 17, 2008 § 10 Comments
Okay, I admit it. I have the consignment bug. I find it incredibly exciting to hunt for and find an item that is not only reasonably priced but also has a history to it.
I recently purchased an oval mahogany solid-topped dining table that was, admittedly, a little beaten up on the surface, but the base was unbelievable. Personally, I find the scratches and gouges rather charming, much like the wrinkles on a wise old woman. But I may decide to apply a little loving elbow grease (or a simple table cloth). Regardless, I now have a gem. It took two burly men to haul this solid piece of craftsmanship up the deck stairs and into the dining room. And it’s not going anywhere.
The best part is that there’s a wonderful karma that comes from knowing that perhaps another loving family sat around this fabulous table before ours. It’s not a perfect specimen; it’s been around here for a couple of generations, at least. And I find that history a wonderful addition to our family. Not only that, but by purchasing something that is already here, we are not only saving thousands of dollars but we are decreasing that carbon footprint that everyone is talking about. Purchasing antiques and other gently used furniture and accessories is considered “green.”
Garage Doors Have a New Look
February 13, 2008 § 41 Comments
Garage doors rival the front door for attention these days as the look of the garage door becomes increasingly sophisticated and worthy of notice. This particular garage door even has lights trained on it to show off its beauty at night. Who could imagine that the old standard garage doors whose plain and often tennis-ball-dented faces needed camouflaging would be replaced by such distinctive architectural specimens.
Having said all that, please note that if you have one of these carriage doors or plan to get one or two or three, go ahead and show them off. But if your garage still has the garden variety garage door, you are best to paint it the house color with trim color around the outside and refrain from highlighting it. Continue to focus all eyes on your front door.
Your Home & Color Coach 
