Color Therapy

The accent wall has been a “thing” for a long, long time. More than just a way to save on money and time when painting, adding an accent wall to a room in your home can be a way to add life to a dull space. It can be a way to introduce a bold color — but not overwhelm the rest of your decor. But even more than that, adding an accent wall can be a way to make rooms appear bigger or smaller than they are.

I was about to start a piece on my latest painted floor — a checkerboard — and I realized I have enough pictures of past projects at this point to do a review of all the possibilities. Painted floors need not look like the deck of a battleship. Do a quick Google search and you’ll see the broad variety of what other people are doing: stars, dolphins and whatnot, though my tastes run to the classical. Personally, I look to ancient Rome for inspiration.

The annual Kips Bay Show House has been open for a few weeks, and I finally had a chance to run by. It’s being held in the Villard Mansion on Madison Avenue, and that alone is reason to take a tour and see real architecture, in the classical sense. As you know, these show houses are fantasias. They’re meant to seduce and to sell by exaggeration, and since the designer is footing the bill, they can do whatever they want, without being tied to a capricious client.

I’ve dabbled in what I call my birds and flowers phase for a few years now, but this is my most adventurous project to date. For me, these projects always start with the composition, finding little vistas and tableaux to place around the room and on which to rest the eye in a completed room. And in terms of color, I started pulling hues directly out of the Chinese prints on the walls — harvest gold, the right greens and that mysterious blue for the bamboo.

Here’s a fun way to get a little zip in your life — why not paint stripes in your home office? Architecturally, this was once a big closet. And though there’s a skylight above, the room has no window on the world to speak of, so this is a perfect opportunity for some uplift in the decorating department. By adding stripes here, we’re making this space special in a private way, like opening a small jewel box.

Here’s the situation: I’m a decorative painter, I live in a rental, and I largely wouldn’t change a thing — except for these dreadful floors. They’re 30 year old contractor-grade linoleum, and as dry as cardboard. I first noticed how sad and sullen they were when I shot my studio for these pages a year ago, and it’s been bothering me ever since. It was the one element in this place from toe top to crown that I haven’t had my hands on.

Here’s a fun little blast — a quick exercise in building a brand, complete with video. I still don’t know whether to call this forced perspective or op art. This painting project was for innovation firm Fahrenheit 212, and the idea was to float the company logo over a room from a single vantage point, which you would see only from that vantage point. The elemental components hover in air as you move towards that point and break apart as you move away.

我们有一些房子参观的人不怕color this week. Rich, soothing and energizing, these colors would complement a lot of styles. And as evidenced from the gorgeous real-life spaces that accompany these hues, you know they work. Grab wall paint color inspiration from these actual rooms for your own color project this weekend.

Instead of commenting on everyone else’s colors of the year, I’m going to do something I’ve been threatening for years — pick my own. Each year paint companies put out a set of color recommendations for you, dear consumer, that indicate trends and suggest options for you and your home that will make you feel comfortably in style.

Anyone else spend a good portion of today in bed wondering how it’s going to be possible to step out into the cold? Even if the weather’s warm right now where you live, weekends were meant for snuggling in bed and contemplating warm, cozy spaces. Scroll through the ideas found in these rooms — they won’t actually raise the temperature, but they sure might make you feel a bit warmer today.

I have a project I’ve wanted to paint forever, and I finally found someone to pay me to do it. He’s European and she likes French antiques, so it was a match made in heaven. Let’s take a look… But first, let’s back up and review our history of decorative painting. In the 1480s the Domus Aurea was rediscovered.

Here’s one for the “Why Not” file: why don’t you paint a squiggle on your wall? I painted the squiggle above so long ago I forgot about it — I wasn’t even sure where to file it myself. Then last month a client asked if I ever painted a squiggle on a wall, and I dug up this old photo. I’m pretty sure I did this in a moment of whimsy, and copied something out of a decal catalog (I’m a painter, not a decal applicator).

What bland optimism. Just look at all those smiling, happy white people. If there was ever a more striving crawl towards generic homogeneity, I’d like to hear about it. And if this utopia was built in the 40s and disintegrated in the 60s, then for a moment it existed — for some — in the calm center of the storm of the world, 1950s America. Let’s look at the colors used to sell this story.

A few years ago I wrote about a distressed glazing technique which has a distressed feel to it, a way we developed to add visual texture to your walls that doesn’t like a stock rag rolling. Here, we take this process one step further. The look is both soft and contemporary, works well in urban environments, and is still livable. It’s unique every time, and in this example we’re emphasizing a linear quality, as if the “concrete” was poured into a wood formwork.

A client recently asked if I could paint over furniture — he was sick of the look, but the piece was functional and he didn’t want to throw it out. Why not?You could take your furniture to a shop and have it sanded and sprayed and spritzed in a dust-free environment and perhaps it would last for all time, but that sounds a lot like expensive restoration to me. Or for Plan B, try this:Give your sideboard a light sanding (220 grit), dust it off and paint over it in an oil-based paint.

I lived with buttery yellow living room walls for several years and loved them; somehow they took the edge off even the chilliest Chicago morning. If you are considering adding this bit of subtle sunshiney warmth to your home, look no further – here is a palette of perfect pale yellows and creams. One is sure to suit your personal taste; some a bit brighter, some warmer, some more neutral, all pretty.1. Farrow & Ball: Pale Hound 712. Benjamin Moore: Little Dipper Classic Colors 3243.

Upon hearing this question, our minds probably jump to white. It’s a color commonly used in messy areas, given that it allows one to immediately notice dust and grime. But after two years of living in an all-white apartment, I realized that white kitchens and bathrooms also mean constant cleaning since white shows every molecule of dirt.

I’m sure some of you understand: often, keeping up with my blogroll feels like a full-time job. With so many great sites out there (and only so many hours in the day), isn’t in nice when you find one that always delivers? A blogger who leaves you feeling not just inspired, but smarter, too? For me, Maria Killam does just that.I discovered Maria’s blog Colour Me Happy about two years ago, when I was first considering a career change into interior design.

我一直永远写分析一系列表达意义ing popular uses of color by decade, starting with the 90s and working backward to the Victorian or Federal eras, but the prospect always seemed so daunting. Then suddenly last week the key to opening that door appeared before me: what better place to start than the perfectly accessible and iconic home of the Brady Bunch?

You may know your color wheel — you may even know your ROY G BIV — but when it comes time to talk about color, do you know your hue from your value? Your shade from your tone? October is all about color at Apartment Therapy and whether you are in the middle of a color crisis or paint chip madness we are here to help!Let’s establish some basic definitions of words that are commonly used to describe color.

I’m about to be quoted in a certain issue of a certain magazine about the uses of gray for interiors. Without scooping any exclusives, I thought I’d share some more detailed thoughts here and rewrite my notes and can also we can do the thumbs down-up thing where readers trump my suggestions. I’m all ears.For starters, I always prefer gray in it’s lighter shades to beige, linen or cameo.

The trouble with writing an online column is that it never goes away — it doesn’t become puppy litter or fish wrap the way a newspaper column does, it’s out there in the ether for the rest of time. Words come back to haunt you. I find my old points of view being quoted verbatim from earlier stages of my development; case in point:I started a series of “best-of” posts a few years ago— best red, best yellow, best brown (where did that idea go?

The Torment of Saint Anthony, MichelangeloUnveiled last year at the Met — a painting ascribed to Michelangelo and one of only four known to be of his hand. According to The New York Times announcement, one of the telltale characteristics distinguishing his authorship was the palette, which suddenly made me appreciate the Sistine Chapel more, but now I’m running before my horse to market…Michelangelo painted The Torment of St.

名称:沿海雾AC-1Brand:本杰明摩尔为什么我们uld anyone with a color column write so frequently about gray? I think it’s important to point out the subtle beauty of a seemingly random neutral as an element within a larger design scheme. When used deliberately it can be an essential component in a smartly colorful room.Coastal Fog is perhaps what my friend Benjamin would call French gray, or a warm gray like wet cement.

“What can I do with my rental apartment to give it a face lift? It looks like it was dipped in glossy paint and rolled in lint, but I don’t want to spend a fortune because it is a rental…” If you’re lucky enough to be able to paint, the answer, once again, is color.Paint is cheaper than wallpaper, drapes, furniture or art, and is the first place you should go for a bang-for-your-buck upgrade.

“What color can I paint my big boxy loft other than white? I want it to feel less industrially cavernous and more human-scaled.” Good question. Why not try a few neutral colors in a variety of values? Let’s take a look.Different types of architecture sometime require different types of color. Way back when I was young and uncertain, and “Tribeca loft” meant just one thing, lofts were painted white—off-the-rack white.

This little post almost deserves two headings: the first would be as a guest room painted two years ago, the second was an addendum of decorative painting recently completed once it was made clear that baby was due.Guest Room before Red EarthI’m always looking for a good red, and when considering color for this room, I think we landed upon this spontaneously. There was red in the photo, copper in the lamps, pillows and silks.

I confess…years ago, Apartment Therapy posted an image my business card on the internet (above), and I still get emails about the color “blue” I used. That color wasn’t blue at all, but Benjamin Moore’s Knoxville Gray, a mysterious and amorphous neutral that changes color throughout the day — greenish at night, bluish in the morning and more solidly gray in full sun.

Faux malachite — who knew? The idea for this grew so organically I can’t even remember what the original impetus was, but I think the architect was intrigued by the stone’s jade green color. I see as per an article in the latest Elle Décor that gemstones are the dernier cri, so I count ourselves as prescient on this point.My father was a geological engineer and had semi-precious stones laying all over the house, so things like the pattern of agate are in my blood.

It’s been said that the human eye can perceive an average of 3 million colors, with some highly sensitive or artistic types able to detect 7 million. Yet, I’ve noticed over the years that every decorator with whom I’ve worked gravitates to the same 25 colors repeatedly, which is how specific color palettes, or color languages, are born. Allow me to introduce my own.For example, I have what I’ll call a “Chamberlain Palette” regarding my watercolors and oils.

一份新的套装博物馆模式way across my desk, and I couldn’t resist. The Victoria and Albert Museum in London is one of the world’s great museums of design, and the book catalogs the patterns from the museum’s collection. This first boxed set is made up of four slim volumes each contains a CD of high resolution images that will provide sources of inspiration along the lines of décor, design, textile, pattern, tone — and of course, color.

I mentioned Verdigris a few weeks ago as a color prized by the nobility during the Federal period, and then these pictures flew over the transom — shades of the same thing, though updated for the 21st century.Make no mistake about it — I had nothing to do with this project, though it dovetails quite well with my interests on several points, especially the dark greys. But I know the client and I wanted to scoop this one by Kishani Perera for myself before somebody else did!

I slipped into the Bauhaus 1919–1933: Workshops for Modernity exhibit at MoMA over the weekend, in need of inspiration and sick of my own work. In part, I was curious as to the color language of this movement and if in fact this was the death of color and the beginning of the all-white interior. Not quite, I think.The Bauhaus school began in Weimar in 1919, a post-WWI period for a defeated Germany and a good time for a clean break with the past.

I first saw Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange when I was in high school and found it to be extremely subversive and most enjoyably provocative then — and have seen it in eight-year intervals since. Based on the 1962 novel by Anthony Burgess, it was filmed in 1971 and set in the near future.

As you may recall, I had Flame-Stitch Fever last spring, and painted zigzags large and small everywhere I went. Well, you can never get sick of a good thing, and I’m continuing along my merry way with a triangle and cork-bottomed ruler firmly in hand.The wall in question is the first thing you see off the elevator in a large, new, floor-through condo.