Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Gray is the NEW NEUTRAL!

Hi to everyone who is interested in COLOR...particularly color in home interior   design...color...everchanging...bold..soft...it makes you feel...it makes your home YOU...Recently invited to do a seminar for a wonderful Pottery Barn store here in Alpharetta, GA (suburb of Atlanta) and I had to decide how to talk about color in just one hour....and it had to simply be about the "color" gray...you know, that scary color that no one likes (they think!)  Everyone is changing their design direction...it starts out small...and then BANG!!!! CRITICAL MASS!!!!and everyone has too much...too much color...too much fabric on their windows...too much STUFF...and I hate to say it...but too much polyresin stuff and fake plants and anything else in your home that just takes up SPACE and doesn't have any value...not monetary value..but personal value...deadspace objects that do not recreate a memory...or doesn't make you smile...or doesn't just look beautiful because of its shape or texture or COLOR!!!  All of a sudden everyone is coming into Northside Decorating ( where Niche By Design resides and where the Color Jedi resides to select colors for your home interiors...all day  every day...where I see it all...) and asking for help in updating their interiors...how do they get rid of their red dining rooms without starting all over...or all that GOLD everywhere...We start by breaking up the heaviness of all their colors by interjecting some interesting neutralizers...those colors that give you breathing room...room to see your furniture, art, accessories...instead of being enveloped in heavy heavy color....Everybody's "neutral" may be different...but I am going to start with a few that work with about 65%  of all of my clients....Benjamin Moore OC-8 Elephant Tusk ( Same color as  Pottery Barn's 239 Ivory Porcelain...same color but another name)...a softer cleaner "off-white" taupe with yellow undertones with a taste of gray...works with the older golds like plantation beige and tobacco road...but is lighter, fresher and feels cleaner...put in your foyer with a dark black/brown color on your railing and back of your front door...throw in some fabulous REAL art...( check out SonStudios) and you are on your way....don't repaint everything at once...start to edit/change gradually....a color that looked too heavy make feel fine after you freshen up and lighten up the color in the adjacent room.  My favorite new gray neutrals...Benjamin Moore's AF-100 Pashmina...OC-14 Natural Linen....HC-172 Revere Pewter...and even OC-48 Hazy Skies (a little green undertone in this great off-white gray)...I'll talk about these grays later and then we will move on to those fabulous European blue-grays that you see on antique sideboards , etc. Gotta go now...Color Jedi

4 comments:

  1. AF-100 is the new neutral in our area! We can't keep it in stock because it's so hot! Love it Kathleen! Great going! keep it up! hugs

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  2. Is there any way you can actually post the colors you are referring to in the blog - a link would be adequate, a chip would be great.

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  3. This gray article is all about me. i thought that i didn't like gray. I HAVE EMBRACED GRAY. I love it b/c it's really not gray. It changes with the light, time of day, sun, etc...It's calming and soothing.

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