Vancouver Colour Consultant - Comparing Colour is Everything

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I have two mentions to share with you today. The first one is at Simplified Bee, I was invited by Cirstin to participate in her ‘What would you do?’ series along with some of my very talented blogger friends. When you get there, just scan through them first and see if you can guess which one is mine. . .

Last year I mentioned here, that I helped Penelope Trunk with her colours and furniture selection when she first moved in with ‘the farmer’. Anyway, today she wrote a post called ‘How to Answer the Question, What do you Do?’ and she mentioned me again (thanks Penelope).

She said “I learned about color theory and practice from Maria Killam who spent hours on the phone with me until I understood when orange on the fabric swatch will look red on a sofa (and why you should never do color on your wall without a consult from an expert).

 Penelope’s Kitchen

In case you’re wondering what she’s taking about, here is the explanation: Penelope loves strong, bright colours, so after we had chose the sunflower yellow walls for the kitchen, blue for the living room and raspberry for the dining room we then worked on picking out furniture for her new house (and since she’s in Wisconsin everything is purchased on-line). 

Wallpaper source

So if you chose BM Raspberry Pudding 2004-30, it looks pretty pink where it sits in the fan deck, but if you take it and compare it to Peony 2079-30 now it looks orange because Peony is even more red (these are wallpaper samples I found to show what I mean, they are not the actual colour).

Wallpaper source

Therefore, it goes back this post where I talked about warm and cool and how you technically cannot call a colour cool or warm unless you compare it to another colour.  Yes, anyone can personally define any colour as cool or warm however, be careful how quick you call it because I have selected many beautiful warm grays and taupes in my day because comparing a taupe (BM 983/094) which looks gray all by itself on the chip suddenly looks beige and fabulous when I compared it to a colder gray like 1605.

source (blue and taupe together)

Of course, now that the gray trend has arrived, I don’t get the same ‘that’s cold’ reaction when I suggest a taupe or warm gray like I did in the past.

Which colour leaves you cold?

If you would like your home to fill you with happiness every time you walk in, contact me for on-line or in-person consultations.


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The House of Blues

When Robin Dow, CEO of Galahad Metals Inc. called me to help choose colours for his new house in West Vancouver, I immediately tried to talk him out of all the blue grays he showed me. In fact I’m pretty sure I can only take credit for one blue in the whole entire house, he chose the rest of them. I just consulted on where they would look the best and showed him all the options.

Photos by Maria Killam

I have seen way too many battleship gray houses in my time so I automatically steer away from the coldest blue grays in the deck that I suddenly found myself looking at during this consultation. Robin’s house is located very close to the water and this is the view from his living room. That is Stanley Park and you can see the city behind it. In actual fact the view relates really well to the colours we ended up with.

By the way the colour in the bedroom above is BM 1641 Blue Porcelain. I stood in there for 5 minutes when I toured the house afterwards I loved it so much. Robin picked it from the BM colour viewer on-line one evening when he was watching the sunset from his hotel room prior to taking possession of the house.

This is the living room with another sitting area on the other side of the arched opening which is where his home office will be located. He wanted the dark blue to start on the window wall but with so much light coming through I recommended he keep the darker colour on the fireplace wall. Otherwise it creates too much contrast when you are looking towards the windows. And is another reason why dark colours also work really well in darker spaces.

The accent wall is 2129-30 Blue Note and the lighter blue is 2134-50 Gull Wing Gray.

Here’s the view (above) into what will be Robin’s office.

HC-159 Phillipsburg Blue on the left and in the back bedroom and the rest of the hallway is 2134-50 Gull Wing Gray.

This is the kitchen dining area and it’s also 2134-50

The entry and stairwell you can see the darker blue (this view is still from the kitchen). There was a renovation still in process which is why you are seeing only strategically photographed walls.

This basement bedroom is HC-159.

And here’s another photo of the stunning view from the master bedroom!

The lesson of the day? Context is everything. Never judge a blue gray too harshly and don’t let your colour bias kill off an entire palette of colours. Robin said the part of the consult that was valuable to him was the process of walking through all the other possibilities that I presented. It helped him see that the colours he loved would work and this way he wasn’t making the decisions inside a vacuum.

Speaking of gray, Joni from Cote de Texas just dedicated an entire lengthy and always well-researched post to gray. Check it out here. My favourite photo from her post is this one:

Interior design by Gerrie Bremermann

Is gray the new brown or what? Are you in love with gray yet?

If you would like your home to fill you with happiness every time you walk in, contact me for on-line or in-person decorating and colour.

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Colour is Context

What Everyone should know about Gray

White-on-Gray-on-White by Kelly Deck

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Pattern or Solid: Yay or Nay

You read my blog because colour really and truly affects the way you feel every single day in your home. When I am hired for a consultation, many times I’m clear it’s because it’s not easy to decide what there is to change because each change then creates another change. It opens a can of worms.

Just like renovations to your home. You change the carpet and suddenly the tile that connects to it looks old and dated. You move into a new home that seems 10 times better than your last one but then the kitchen starts looking old and you start thinking about a new one.

Sometimes a client will call me because they need validation that their colours and the direction they are going with their decorating is working.

Photos by Maria Killam

My lovely client Lisa in Seattle has a beautiful, brand new home with a lovely private drive leading up to it. The exterior colour is Pratt & Lambert Wendigo. It’s 3 years old but Lisa and her husband are still installing the finishing touches. She had found so many stunning chandeliers and light fixtures on ebay for a song (which I now wish I had photographed) I seriously need to figure out how to do that, I have never shopped on ebay before!

Sorry the picture is dark, the light from the windows always creates that with a snap and point camera!

Lisa’s primary concern was the great room. She had a sectional and antique chairs that carried the theme from the rest of the house. Since one of the main focal points was the great room which you could see from the entry, I suggested changing the simple contemporary sofa table for one of her antiques (below). We carried it down and I tweaked the great tablescape she already had by adding some framed photos and filling in the area below the desk.

I also recommended switching out the existing solid, cut and bound rug for an oriental one that would tie in the green chairs and gold/yellow sectional. The room needed a unifying element. Lisa confessed that she gets tired of pattern easily which is why she doesn’t readily purchase it for her home.

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Here’s an example of a room with three solid colours in the upholstery which are unified by the area rug. If you decide pattern really isn’t for you, then you need to reduce the number of colours in the space to one or two maximum.

Barbara Barry

Here (above) we have a monochromatic palette which works well without pattern.

In the above photo the charcoal sofa and cream area rug and drapes act as a neutral along the pale blue chairs and ottoman. Her living and dining room which flanked the entry were painted in Pratt & Lambert Raven and the main colour which carried into the great room and the ceilings are Pratt & Lambert Petaluma.

The ceiling in the entry was separate which allowed for a different colour and she had it painted the same colour as her living/dining room which added high drama to the space. Since all the ceilings were the same colour as the walls throughout the main areas of the house I suggested repainting them a lighter colour since the same colour goes darker on the ceiling. She liked this plan over changing the colour in the dining room to reflect the accent colour which was also one of my suggestions.

I had to snap a photo of how she displayed her kitchen utensils! Such a great idea for a large kitchen, it looks like a bouquet of flowers! Thank you Lisa for allowing me to show your beautiful home!

What about you? How do you feel about pattern? How much is too much?

If you would like your home to fill you with happiness every time you walk in, contact me for on-line or in-person decorating and colour.

Related posts:

Are your Colours Married?

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2 Questions to ask before you Renovate/Decorate

“What do you think?” is not Advice that Helps

This post is for designers and the people that hire them. As a designer, have you ever had the peanut gallery [your husband, wife, friends who are not designers] try to give you advice on the business of design? How many of you roll your eyes [inside] when you hear it? Why? Because the design world is a different animal than almost any other kind of business.

Credit

It’s why my coach/consultant Mary Knackstedt (who I’m going to see in New York this weekend by the way, for anyone that might be around to have a drink with) is a designer. There are so many questions that a non-designer would not have the slightest idea how to answer. Which means if you are a designer and you don’t have a design mentor/coach that you work with, you better get one, and here’s why I think you should.

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I was in a consultation on Friday and one of the first things the client said to me when I arrived was “I don’t want you to ask me what I think, I want you to tell me what is going to work”. She had her dining table spread out with hardwood flooring and countertop samples, brochures, colours, etc. (below) and was about to renovate her apartment. I was there to make sure all her choices were going to work together!

Remember in this post when I told you about what it was like to be a new colourist and how I used to hold up colours (like Vanna) and say “What do you think?”. Well if you are a client and your designer says “What do you think? a few too many times—be concerned.

House Beautiful

As a new designer, when you’re not sure what the right answer is, you give your opinion and then add ‘what do you think’? Before you get all depressed cause you are reading this and you are new, here’s what you do. If you are not sure, it’s better to call up your mentor right on the spot and ask (or say you’ll get back to them) I have done that many times in consultations when I was starting out. The client is happy because they get that you really care that you are giving the correct advice and then you are happy because now you have the answer for the next time.

Of course there is a fine line between bulldozing the client with your design opinion and giving them a look that works for them based on their likes and dislikes and the current style/architecture of the space. I definitely ask ‘What do you think?’ if it’s a situation where the answer could be one or the other, or when fine tuning colour and style preferences. I cannot read my clients mind so I ask a lot of questions. It’s a collaboration. So remember, context is everything, I’m not saying take “What do you think?” out of your vocabulary!

In this consultation, my client wanted to introduce blue to her living room. She had ordered the sofa and 2 identical slipper chairs from a local furniture store 5 years before and had always thought there was something wrong with the combination of fabrics (above).

When my client mentioned this to the designer helping her at the time, her response was “We don’t want to be matchy matchy.” Personally I believe there should be a relationship (especially when working with pattern) between the major pieces of furniture in the room, but I don’t like coffee tables to match (for example) so I think context of ‘matchy matchy’ was missing in this conversation.

Since the sofa already has essentially 3 colours in this fabric without a spec of blue in sight, I would not introduce a blue wall colour into this space. If we painted the walls blue we would need to repeat it in the toss cushions, chair fabric, accessories, etc, to make it work. As you can see by the above photo, the colour on the left is working the best with this fabric.

The darker shade on the right (above) is a perfect match to the leaves on the sofa (but the photo didn’t come out well, there was too much glare from the window I see now, I should have adjusted the blinds further). I’m showing a gray on the left because she (like everyone right now) wanted me to consider that shade as well. We ended up doing the darker gold on an accent wall to the left of the sofa. My recommendation was that she replace the current greeny/yellow chair fabric (that in no way worked with the sofa) with another pattern (maybe a stripe) that picked up the yellow beige we chose for the walls as well as the colours from the sofa.

The yellow/gold beige is still in the same family as the sofa fabric which is why it works even though it cannot be found in the fabric. I specifically chose this image (below to show) because it’s the same dark gold colour which I personally think is too muddy to work with the clean bright blue of the chairs, but at least they are both solid (instead of one having a pattern with colours that do not in any way go with the chair), and I’m guessing there are more of both these colours in this space to make it work. This blog is my opinion after all so take what works for you and leave the rest here :)

House Beautiful

As a client on the receiving end of design advice, if you are hearing too much “What do you think?” from your designer, and most importantly the advice you are getting isn’t resonating with you, find someone else. My favourite quote I recently found is “If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional, wait until you hire an amateur”.

And if you are a designer and you find yourself saying those words a little too often, find a mentor or hire one. ‘You can do what you already know how to do. The reason you get a coach/mentor is to do the things that you cannot do.’ T. Rauffman.

If you want your home to have atmosphere including colours that flow to fill you with happiness every time you walk in. Contact me by email for on-line rates or call me directly if you are local.

Related posts:

3 Steps to Finding a Mentor in the Design Industry

Have you made these Decorating Mistakes?

Why you can’t Afford NOT to hire a Colour Expert

If you are new to this blog, click here to see the Best of Colour me Happy

Is your Flooring Bossing you Around?

Years ago I was at a colour consultation where the entire house had (like new) mint green carpets and my client informed me that her husband would not change them. The living room furniture was entirely a dark pinky beige, just like BM CC-330 Hillsborough Beige or SW 6094.

Image source

What were the wall colour options? Either a mint or darker green to relate to the carpet or a lighter shade of pinky beige to relate to the furniture. Or leave it what it was, a pale cream colour. When her husband got home he wanted me to come back because he was upset that those were the only options I had given my client (darn, that mint green carpet was still there).

However, there was no colour in the world that would have made that bossy carpet magically go away. Sometimes a client will hope that a colourist has that ability and I am so sad that many times I can’t wave a magic wand!

Image source

Like today, when I arrived at a restaurant that had pinky beige tile, pinky beige and black granite countertops and very red cherry tables and chairs—and their corporate colour was RED (and no changes other than colour and fabric where being made)! I truly wished I had some pixie dust!

So if your tile or broadloom is bossing you around! Better to bite the bullet and get rid of it now, rather than work around it or worse, ignore it for the next 10 years!

Related posts:

Eeeek! It’s Mint Green!

10 things I learned (so far) from my Designer; by a Happy Client

The Colour of Wood vs. Wall Colour; How Important is it Really?

Vancouver Colour Consultant; How to choose the right Beige

Call me. I know, I sound like a total self promoter, but here is the thing; my client (in this house below I’m about to show you) spent months knowing there was something wrong with the colour in her kitchen/great room, and as soon as I pointed it out, she saw it and now she is happy.

And I want everyone to walk into their home and be filled with happiness because you KNOW that your colour is right. This is the entry [above] to her home with the fall colours of her landscaping!

This house is in West Vancouver and has the most stunning view, I wish I could have shown it to you. Here are her gorgeous flower pots right outside the front door! We started the consult in the actual living room--as is usually the case. This is generally the room that sets the tone and the flow for the entire house, we usually spend the most time here because sometimes accent colours need to be chosen and many times (certainly if the room is empty) we need to do some space planning. Can’t buy furniture until you know which pieces and where to put it. Some people go for years without living room furniture because they don’t want to make a mistake. And what do people do when they don’t know and don’t want to make a mistake? Same as me, nothing.

Anyways, this living room did not require my help, I loved the way the toss cushions tied in the artwork! The entire house was painted Bleeker Beige HC-80. She was re-painting a few rooms so I was there to make sure that if we were leaving this colour anywhere it’s because it was the right one.After running through a few options, it became clear that she did have the right colour in her living room, entry, and hallways. This photo [above] was taken by my client towards the end of the day so it’s darker in the room, but you can still see that the colour works nicely with her sofa in addition to the fact that her fireplace tile was also a greeny beige which tied in with the colour there as well.

Here is her kitchen. This was also taken at night so it’s [the colour] not as obvious as it would have been otherwise (when I was there during the day there was work being done nearby so the counters were dusty, etc).

Here is the great room attached to the kitchen. My client had bought this beautiful sectional, and the fabric which was a tweed; close up looked yellowy brown but overall the read of the fabric dictated that the wall colour have a pink [red] undertone. You can easily see in the above photo that the beige on the walls (still the Bleeker Beige) was too green. The solution?

On the screen it certainly doesn’t look right and I wish I had a photo of the large sample sitting behind the sofa but you’ll have to trust me that it was perfect. And such a happy coincidence that this same colour tied in with the kitchen cabinets. Currently the green undertone simply made the cabinets look pinker than they needed to. Red and green are complementary colours so green next to pink makes it look even more pink.

Pinky beige is not always bad by the way (anyone reading this blog knows it’s not my favourite colour) mochas are warm and a lot of people love them. It’s all context with colour and in this house, it was the perfect colour to tie everything together.

When I work with clients that have been reading my blog, it’s really great because they immediately understand my lingo when I start talking about the undertones of beige. People feel like they already know me before I get to their house. It makes the consultation that much more fun (well for me anyways).

Email me (or call me if you are local) for more information if you are interested in an on-line or in-person consultation.

Question in the comments: You didn't tell us how to choose a beige? The answer; it takes years of colour specifying (or at the very least, a course with me) to be able to see all the undertones of beige. That's why I said 'call me' when I started this post. Bottom line, we think beige is boring when it clashes with other beige colours in the room. You cannot mix different undertones of beige and as another commenter said, they are the hardest to get right.

Related posts:

What Everyone should know About Beige

The Difference between an experienced Colourist and a Novice

The only time to use a Personal Colour Viewer

5 Designer secrets that will Make or Break your Paint Colours

Should you pay for a room to be re-painted if you Chose the Colour?

Vancouver Colour Expert; The Three most important Words in a Consultation

The most important word is because.  Really. That is what you are paying for when you hire a designer or a colour consultant to help you with your design decisions. If you hire a colour consultant to help you select colours for your home and all you have at the end is a bunch of colours and that's it? You have paid too much.

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I get emails all the time asking for a quick opinion on exterior colours (and it’s okay if you keep emailing me, I love getting mail from my readers) but if I just fire a colour or two back, here’s what happens. Nothing. You simply add them to your poll--you know the one you are doing with your aunt, your uncle, your friends, your painter, your dog and your cat? And why is it basically meaningless?

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Because it still doesn’t give you the answer to the question, Why? Why is your colour the one? Why is it better than all the 2,000 colours in the fan deck? That’s what you are paying for, the Because. And it's working with a professional that gives you the confidence to move forward. After all, its expensive to paint the exterior of your house. The cost of the right colour is the most inexpensive piece of the entire bill!

How about interiors? When I worked at store level, people would walk in asking for a consultation, certain it would only take about 20 minutes; “How on earth could it possibly take even one hour?” was a question I was asked all the time. And you are right. The colour is the fastest part of the whole thing. You know what takes all that time? Decorating. Yup, that’s the second most important word. Going back to the statement I made earlier; if you are left with a pile of colours and no PLAN to pull together the look and feel of your home ? You have paid too much.

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Or you are renovating, (that’s the third one by the way) and you need to know if you are making the right decisions, especially when you are doing-it-yourself. Very important at this stage, that you have the designer in to validate what you are doing, otherwise you might end up wasting a pile of money.

I was recently in a kitchen with honey maple cabinets from 1995 with black granite countertops and cream and gray 12 x 12 tile.  The client asked if she should continue the same granite up on to the backsplash. 'Not if you are keeping the cream tile. it will look way too heavy to have that much black granite on your backsplash'. Problem solved, and a lot of money saved on granite that was not necessary in the first place.

So, if you are on a budget, you have no budget to waste! This is what we do all day, that’s why we know what's current, what’s dated, and which finishes or furniture will give you the look and feel that works for your home!



When you have an empty house or you are buying new furniture (and telling me, please ignore this stuff, it’s toast) you need to have a colour scheme for your upholstery. Otherwise, without a plan, eeeeek, you might just buy leather, read my opinion on that here. Without a plan, ladies and gentleman, you will just flail around and stare at those colours and second guess them all day and all night. Why? Because (there’s that word again) it doesn’t relate to anything in the room.

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I was at a colour consultation a few weeks ago where the client showed me the chart she had from another designer who had paid them a visit months before. I looked at the chart, and asked why she had chosen a gray green (Clarksville Gray) because that colour was no-where to be seen in her decor. My client said “I don’t know, I just assumed she was the professional so I went with it, she didn’t even ask me if I liked it?”

At the end of our consultation, my client had a plan for her living room (and the rest of her home), she knew exactly what colour her sofa and chairs should be and the wall colour she ended up with? HC-115 (Georgian Green) which made way more sense as she had existing white vertical blinds (that were staying) including 80’s white cabinets, which would look way better with a fresh green, then a gray green.



After all of these decision have been confirmed, or validated--together with your designer--the colour choice then becomes so obvious, you will wonder why you spent so much time agonizing on your own.

Can this be done on-line? Yes (in many situations it works well), email me for details of what it looks like.

If you would like your home to fill you with happiness every time you walk in, contact me.


Related posts:

When to buy Leather Furniture
Hiring a designer; Luxury or Necessity
5 Designer Secrets that will make or break your Paint Colours
How to get the most out of your Colour Consultation

New to this Blog? Click here ; Subscribe to my Monthly Newsletter; Become a True Colour Expert