Thursday, August 19, 2010

How Is The New Neutral Woven Into Our Lives?

Yesterday I talked about the re-emergence of gray as a neutral in interior design....classic interiors never stopped using shades and variations of the theme...I likened the color gray as being a color that gave us breathing room...a place where your eyes can rest from oversaturated walls and actually enjoy what's in the room, i.e. art, fabric, rugs, and furniture...

Gray may not work in your home....and all shades of gray are not appropriate paired with all colors....but there is a "gray" that has been hot on the scene for over two years and its here to stay...the wonderful natural color of antique linen sheets....which has morphed into hundred's of shades of linen from white to lime green to brown....Today I am talking about the real deal of linen...that undescribable color that hovers somewhere between a warm gray with hints of red to that of a grayed taupe with undertones of green-golds....

What is so perfect about this color?...it simply goes with everything...Sure, when faced with dozens of linen samples with varying degrees of color and texture, there is one color/texture better for your interior than another....but the natural organic perfect color of linen cannot be denied....earliest documentation of the manufacturing of this product apparently goes back 4,000 years and is believed to have been around as early as 8,000 B.C.  Stories of linen are woven throughout biblical history...it's story is amazing!

Once a customer realizes that the color gray that I am suggesting has the "feeling" of linen on your walls, they usually relax.  Linen can be formal...mixing with silk and velvet or as simple as a covering on an old iron bed...you can dress it up or down and can vary the tones to fit into almost any interior.  Let's go over just a few of these now for you:

AF-100  Benjamin Moore's Pashmina...A wonderful medium strength color...that actually pairs well with muddy golds and yellows..Looks wonderful on walls of course,  but is actually particularly beautiful on trim with a lighter color on the walls...something a little creamy perhaps, like BM OC-8 Elephant Tusk and OC-7 Creamy white...Also looks wonderful with grayed blue-greens that are lighter in value than Pashmina...Lets work with these colors in the scrubbable matte flat for walls to aid in creating that soft non-reflective ( yet durable) feeling of linen and use in the new Aura Satin when Pashmina is used on trim...

Benjamin Moore's THUNDER...grayer than Pashmina, but still has a warm feeling to the color, coming from the touch of red in the gray...works great with so many colors...particularly all those retro muddy purples..rusty orange and acidic yellow green...perfect for mid-century modern furniture with finishes everywhere from chrome to cherry.

OC-14 Natural Cream and HC-172 Revere Pewter....Great colors for exteriors where you want to get away from the bright white and yellowed creams...OC-14 a nice softened trim color with AF-100...and for that lighter fresh look....try them as wall colors...

OC-48, Ben Moore Hazy Skies...Gray? Green? somewhere in between? maybe...love this color with toiles, particularly red and cream and black and white...with authentic linen antique sheets...Trim? OC-45 Swiss Coffee, my new favorite off-white...it has a little of everything...cream, yellow, umber...looks white up, but softer...used it in our Gallery in Roswell, GA, The Upstairs Gallery, where the artists from Son Studios is featured....

Benjamin Moore 1556 and 1557...classic...that perfect grayed blue where the blue has a slight green undertone....I use this color on all of my European Decorative Finishes..the traditional linen fabric I have been talking about is drop-dead gorgeous against this color!

Ceilings with all of the above? I love to use 2138-60 Gray Cashmere...a little gray to this blue-green...exact shade of Atlanta's sky...soft and just there...I consider this color a ceiling neutral...you do NOT have to have blue-green in your fabric to use this color....God picked a similar color for many of His skies and to my knowledge all different colors of trees, mountains, grass and even concrete buildings looks great against our skies...the only time I don't like to use this color is when using a brighter clearer color and then may switch to something like Ocean Air....

What's not to love about these colors...throw in your red's, Caliente by Ben Moore...do a kitchen in a bright green like Grasshopper or Agave , use bright teal pillows with orange and cream tiger stripes or wonderful antique french linens....do nothing but neutrals with huge dosages of cream and texture from shag rugs to coral and sea shells with driftwood coffee tables....Sisal rugs with cherry and/or black furniture....my point? It's a good starting point that will give you some flexibility to experiment with some adjacent rooms in your design journey yet knowing that you can always come back to the warm natural organic colors of Linen...Hope you enjoyed! ColorJedi

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