Devine Color's Blog

Color Destination: You had me at Qigong

I recently did a clients home and she mentioned that a room she had downstairs was a Qigong room. I said, "are you kidding, Qigong?...I love Qigong." I felt like I was Jennifer Aniston in Office Space when she says she loves Kung Fu.  Yes, I do Qigong and love it. I do color and love it. This was new construction. I will be posting "after" pictures later. In the meantime, here is how the color story goes...

At the end of the day, she was beside herself with great Chi.

Ceilings: Finish the thought, or should I say the box?

From one room to a whole house, Devine Color makes every paintable surface to look meant to be. These rooms are like beautiful boxes that need a beautiful color "lid" on top! This Devine palette is artist-proofed, by me. This means that any color goes on walls, trim, or ceiling to give you choice and freedom to personalize your home...think outside the box! Want more colors, add Devine Steamer and Paprika.

What if no one loves it but you?

My daughter (who goes to Oregon, Go DUCKS!) played a prank on me the other day. She sent me a picture of her new short hair doo with a fun green (U of O color) strand, and pretended she had cut her hair. She had actually pinned long hair strands under with bobby pins. She went on and on how everyone hated it and wanted to know if I liked it.  I like her with longer hair. But I know that more than honesty daughters want their mother’s approval, so it was tricky. I said to her, ”what if the whole world hates it but you? The only thing that matters is that you love it. If you love it, you will make it beautiful.”

I have a life philosophy: when we love something or someone, we care for it, protect it, live with it confidently.

When we love a color, and choose that color, it is hard to know what to do when it goes out of style because color trends in the market change, making it hard for the color to look fresh and current. That is where Devine’s trend-proof perspective comes in. i believe personal choice is a good thing as long as you LOVE it!

This client plans to sell her home and knows that her carpet and kitchen countertop color is dated. Yet, you can see that that color, along with several others in different variations in her art, fabrics, and accessories. This means that these colors are beloved colors and they belong together.

  

Once she went through the Devine Color process she was able to visually see not only the colors she loved, but also how they continued to be a personal choice in everything she owned. There are several things I wanted to accomplish: make the tile floor look fresh, make the kitchen cabinets pop, make the teal green recede and have a proper place among other colors. To enhance light, and balance the sheen of the tile floor I recommended Devine Delicate for walls and Devine Canopy, to absorb light and visually smooth out texture for the ceilings since parts of them  were popcorn.

Option A: Devine Cashew, Shade, Shimmer, Feather for walls and ceilings with a splash of Devine Pinot, Cabernet, Shiraz, Blush, and Cayenne (see a cool variation of red at the far end).

 Option B: Devine Bavarian, Cappuccino, Mist, Stone, Ash for walls and ceilings with a splash of Devine Pinot, Cabernet, Shiraz, Blush, Steamer, Moss. (see a cool variation of green at the far end).

So here is the deal: regardless if you change the carpet color or not, Devine will still deliver a trendproof look that makes you happy with what you love, so you can have a choice!

ps. there is something personal about the teal that makes you miss it once it's gone!

 

 

 

Pictures don't lie, unless you want them to! I keep it real.

When you look at pictures of rooms in magazines, like this beauty in House Beautiful, colors look picture perfect, and they are! They are photographed under the best lighting, then tweaked and Photoshopped to look perfect. Just like fashion models get airbrushed, decorated rooms get made over in photos with lighting and staging to inspire ambiance. Color and lighting are key in this process. But when you take pictures of a room with your camera, without lighting diffusers, or spotlights, what you see will be most likely be what you get.

I love to Photoshop pictures that have been taken by homeowners with Devine Color to show the possibilities I can think of for the room. I artistically adjust the wall color to what is real about the room, and what's real is the picture.  The picture becomes a piece of art that I can paint a perfect background to. Sure, I can't duplicate shadows or light reflections, but I am in full control of the color adjustments that change other colors in the room, making it a pretty picture.  Here is an example of a room I did that went from a real photo, to Photoshop, to photo-real!

 

Here is a before picture of a home that had everything in perfect place but the wall color. The beautiful furniture and accent pieces required either a neutral background, or a colorful one. But the original neutral background that had been chosen had gone drab, dingy, too warm, making the atmosphere "muggy" rather than fresh, crisp, and contemporary. This was a result of dark warm wood and lots of cool variations of grays making it hard to know what temperature the walls should be. The following were Photoshop suggestions I painted, and last picture is photo-real!

  BEFORE
I suggested a crisp white like Devine Icing or Pique with a hint of gray on the ceiling like Devine Glass, Beluga, Fog or the new Devine Lino, to maintain a neutral contemporary balance.Notice that having a gray on the ceiling connects the fire place and creates great contrast on white on the wall and the accent rug on the floor.

My next suggestion was a bold blues like Devine Swell, Pool, BLue Silk, or Current to open the possibilities and usher in a traditional, exotic, or French flair. This makes the whites and reds POP! The black looks rich, and opens the palette to bring in yellows, greens, and more colorful art.

Another suggestion was Devine Guava for a retro chic look; think South Beach meets Urban West. This would allow vintage to come in: Think English rose, 1950's flamingos, 1960 Hawaiian print, 1980 Negal...

This is how the Devine Guava looked on the walls after it was painted.

Next time you are going to paint a room, take a picture. See what you own with the current wall color and take a look at what the wall color is doing to the room, how it's greeting your guests, or what it says about you. Is it pulling everything together to make the room look like a beautiful composition, picture, expression, or extention of your life? Is it giving it the atmosphere you want to be in? Or is it feeling chilly, drab, harsh, spotty, murky, or wrong? Remember, those magazine rooms have the help of lighting experts, set designers, and high budgets. You have Devine Color.

 

Carpet Color: There is no magic carpet ride.

Next to wall color, carpet color is the second most difficult color to choose for a home, and here is why:

1. Carpet manufacturers struggle to provide interesting choices knowing that most customers want safe choices.
2. Safe choices are often boring, and lead to subtle mistakes due to other unforeseen colors that pop-up in neutral carpet, such as: purple, pink, or green casts.
3. An ocean of carpet patterns, that all look the same, is daunting.

But let’s face it; most of us need carpet to step on, not look at.  This makes the choice even more of a “have to” than "I can't wait to". And unlike paint, once the carpet is down, and you hate the color, it’s expensive and frivolous to redo—especially because you can’t even do it yourself!

In the carpet world, there are enough patterns to meet every functional need you have! I tell my clients to step it up with color when it comes to carpet. If they are going to step on something, it might as well be a color they love. There is no safe choice or best choice when it comes to carpet. The only choice is a beautiful color, even if it’s a neutral. Functionality is a given—trust me.

 

This homeowner is about to be done with her remodeling project. She has an innate design sensibility and a creative personality that saturates the rest of her house.

But when it got down to choose carpet and paint colors for the basement, she was stuck. She was going to install a neutral carpet to go with a large neutral sectional sofa and paint the walls a Devine Color “green”. There were tons of “safe” neutral carpet choices, but for some reason, they felt wrong! Yet, she felt she needed a neutral. This feeds into my theory that good carpet color is hard to recognize among so many choices that are meant to avoid color.

Magic, however, did happen the minute I changed the direction of her carpet choice from neutrals to color. So much beige made it hard to choose paint colors. The wall colors looked either too much of the same or totally disengaged. Now the clear paint color choices were Devine Glass and Devine Georgette. 

Once we were able to connect the basement floor as an extension of the rest of the house, choosing carpet colors became fun, exciting, and easy. Because of how you enter the basement, the new carpet color is the first color you will see coming down the steps from a bright and beautiful kitchen floor.

 Her confidence returned and allowed her to follow her instincts.  Her innate design sensibility and a creative personality spills over, even into her garden!

Stay tuned for after shots!

Is There Such A Thing As A "Woman Cave?"

Is there such a thing as a Woman Cave?

 OK, Man Cave (mybadpad.com)…let’s see if we can agree on the definition, here is what I have: a place for men (in their home) where there are no expectations from him other than to: play games, drink, watch sports, and unwind…why, we don’t call it a Boy Cave, is a mystery to me. The idea of a place that lets you express your personality and pleasure: enjoyment or satisfaction derived from what is to one’s liking; gratification; delight, sounds great to me!  I have colorized many terrific Man Caves….but how come I have never gotten a call to do a “Woman Cave”…is there such a thing?

The Picture Says It All....

I think Unhappy Hipsters is on to something....

Trying to express ourselves through design can often leave us feeling inept ("without skill or aptitude for a particular task or assignment"). Maybe it has to do with our need to keep up with those darn magazine "Joneses." Who are these "Joneses?" People who hire rock star designers and create beautiful interior rooms that are then photographed, published, and presented to us in a "see what one can do", casual manner, which isn't very casual at all.

Painting Reduces Stress During The Holidays!

 
Stress over the holidays can get to all of us! The expectation of serving the right dish, give the right gift, or have the right amount of cocktails and calories becomes a non-stop burden the time we see that first Christmas commercial on TV. These days Holloween seems like the eve of the Holiday season. However, here's a secret: if you paint, you will feel better.

That’s right! Add it to your list. Painting is a perfect way to release stress in the middle of all the hustle and bustle.  Why? Think about it: who doesn’t want to cook in a new toasty kitchen, eat in a dreamy new dining room, or be excited about a new exotic guest bath during an ornament exchange party? What about an entry that says "WOW" to neighbors and friends who drop by and stay till the wee hours?  Taking three hours on a Saturday to recoat the walls of a smaller area in your house with a color that changes the mood can change your level of stress instantly!

Color Glazes, Color Washes, and Color Faux Textures

Adding a color wash, glaze or texture over other colors adds appeal and versatility to walls. Here is a stunning example of how a glaze was used to create a sophisticated feeling (the example above features Devine Almond with a Devine Truffle Glaze). But let's face it...back in the 1990's, the "sponging faux effect" made all of us eventually cringe every time we saw thickly painted coral reef-like textures or muddy and bruised color blends.

Energy Efficient Light

The right kind of light bulb makes the difference between light and death! Light affects our mood deeply. Living in the Northwest, with gray skies for most of the year, inspired me to create an alternate world of rich color so I could cocoon inside over the winter months. Your world of color, inside your home, should look like a great, big, piece of eye candy!

But when colors go sickly looking on you, due to bad lighting, they look like they have the stomach flu, and it will feel contagious, to you and everyone. As long as you have eyeballs, you have color chemistry happening, and, the sooner you accept color causes emotional reactions, even if you don’t want to react, the sooner you will want to run towards the light—the right kind of light.