My Colour Skills in Action Part 1

A client recently purchased an investment property and needed it painted desperately.  He wanted to get it on the market ASAP, so he asked me to come see it and choose the new colours.  He really didn't care what was chosen, he just needed it done.  Dream client -doesn't question my choices and gives me full authority. LOVE. THAT. Anyway, he did make one comment and that was when he was talking to a real estate agent about the house he said that the agent told him to pick neutral colours.  I rolled my eyes at that comment and muffled under my breath.... really and what does that mean "pick neutral colours"  in context to what?  Does it mean beige? Well, what beige?  A beige with an undertone of green or maybe it should be yellow or what about red?  Saying that to the untrained person would make them go to the paint store stand in front of the colour chips and cause them to rip their hair out.  Not to mention that the average person wouldn't even probably think that far as to consider undertones... they would just think beige and pick one they liked.  A trained colour expert, like myself, on the other hand would go through the house and look at all the, as Maria would say, "bossy" elements - counters, flooring, fireplace, interior brick, etc. and determine the undertones of those elements and then pick the right colour to create flow and enhance the space and not fight against it.

The previous owner was wild in her colour and decor choices, to say the least.

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Where do you look first, there is so much going on from all the different finishes to all the tchotchkes and art on every inch of wall space.  Look there is even a picture placed under the window.

Photo by SilverLining Designs

 The visual clutter is removed.  Having an empty kitchen is better already. 

Photo by SilverLining Designs

Can you see all the different finishes in the room?  How many can you count?

When deciding on what to do with this room, I really wanted to paint out the natural cherry cabinets, however, the client did not what the extra work, expense and time that went into that, so even though I wanted to paint them I knew they would work the way they were because they related to the floor and colours in the granite and brick wall.  The one cabinet I could get away with painting and knew would made a huge (improved) difference was the cabinet seating between the counters under the window seen in the picture above.

The walls where the cherry cabinets are are wallpapered and under normal circumstances I would always tell you to remove the wallpaper, but since time was an issue and the wallpaper was in good condition - it was on the wall really good with seams quite hard to see and there wasn't a lot of it, we opted to paint over it.

With my new found knowledge I knew Indian Summer would be the perfect choice to relate to the brick and compliment the orange tones and pull the whole room together.

 cc-186 Indian Summer

Can you see how already in the pictures that the colour has pulled the room together and the cabinets are not floating on a stark wall?
When I went to see the room after it was finished, if I didn't know any better I would have never guessed that there was wallpaper under it.  It was quite amazing.

Photo by SilverLining Designs

Look at what a difference it makes to have that cabinet under the window and between the counters painted the same colour. It was painted OC-90 Vanilla Ice Cream and it matches perfectly to the kitchen cabinets.

 

Photo by SilverLining Designs

The only other thing that I would have loved to do was to change the hardware to either a brushed nickel or bronzed copper.

Come back to see the continuation of how the colours were chosen for the other rooms.