Traveling to Germany and not knowing German, I wondered how easy it would be to read the signs and get around. I laughed when I saw this sign my first day in Heidenheim, Germany. The language of color spoken internationally! Photo credit: ©Cristina Acosta

Color communicates. Any color expert, designer or artist will agree with that statement. But ask those creative types what exactly a color is communicating and the answers you get may have surprisingly little in common.

Here’s why: Color is a language that continually evolves with the cultures that contribute the shades and tones of meaning each of us sees. And, each individual brings their personal biases and perceptions to the mix, further complicating things.

Yes, you can open most any home decor magazine and read at least one color experts’ opinion based on a study about the calming effects of green – or beige – or . . . whatever the next color may be. But the truth is, the focus group that decides green is calming one year, may decide that mauve is calming next year. And, one more thing to keep in mind,  the experience of an individual and the particular mix of individuals in a focus group is always changing.

Consequently, the meaning of a color is a moving target. One person’s irritating red is another person’s energizing red. It’s all about time and place, people and perception.

So what do you do with this information when you’re standing in the paint store looking for an idea or some advice? Here’s a few tips:

• The first thing to do is to choose a group of colors you love that you think might work for the project. For example – If you’re choosing exterior home colors and are looking for 3 colors, pick at least a dozen that you think will work.

• Then (ideally, take some time with this step) clip the color samples into individual pieces and spread them on the table. Start choosing your favorites.

• When you’ve narrowed it down to at least 4 choices, THEN start choosing where the colors go. Such as this color for the body, this for the trim, this for the gable trim, etc.

Remember that when you are choosing colors, you are bringing a lifetime of experience to the process. Respect that first with a little exploration, then listen to the advice you get from friends and professionals. You’ll have a better feel for the color choices that are right for you.

www.CristinaAcosta.com

Sherwin Williams, Benjamin Moore and Pittsburgh Paints are the top 3 National paint brands. There are also excellant specialty and regional paint brands available. Buy the best quality paint you can afford for the best results. High quality paint has more solids, consistent pigmenting and better wearability.

Here’s why. There are at least 3 parts to how a latex house paint color looks: Base tint, pigment and sheen. House paint isn’t just white paint with colors added. Depending upon the color, the paint store selling the brand uses a particular (there can be several choices) tinted base color to which  they then add measured amounts of their color pigments. Each company has their own group of pigments. And some companies such as Benjamin Moore, Pantone or Divine Paints use very particular pigments.

What this means to the homeowner trying to match a paint color from one brand to another (usually cheaper) brand of paint is that there will be differences between brands.  Sometimes you can’t tell the difference, and you’ll be happy with the result. Other times, differences may include subtle things like sheen changes, and sometimes (especially when using Divine Paints) the difference between the actual brand and the cheaper copy results in radical shifts in how the color actually looks on the wall. Depending upon the skill of the paint store professional who matches the color, the differences between the color specified and how that color looks on the wall can range quite a bit.

So what should you do if you want certain colors but want to save money? The first thing I suggest to clients is that they buy a cheaper product from the line of colors they like. That way, color consistency will be the same across the product line with some exceptions. Benjamin Moore for example, won’t sell their Affinity colors in their lower priced product lines because they can’t deliver the exact match and paint qualities.

If purchasing the color sample paint brand isn’t going to work because of availability issues or some sort of arrangement with a painting contractor, then ask to see large samples (dried) of the colors so that you can be sure the color match is acceptable between brands.

Recently a painting contractor asked me about matching Pantone Colors from the Pantone Matching System (PMS). He said that the professional paint stores he worked with were hesitant to match the colors. When this happens, it’s likely because the paint store personnel does not have a clear sense of the base tint that will yield the best result.

The bottom line is that if you’re not willing to buy the brand of paint consistent with your color sample, you take a risk that you won’t get exactly what you want. Buy the best quality paint you can afford from a professional paint store, and  it’s often not a problem. If you’re trying to save money on house paint it’s important to  make an informed decision that works for both your sense of aesthetics and your wallet.

www.CristinaAcosta.com

The yellow loft roofs the dining area and juts into the space of the living room of this home. The shape as well as the color act as a bridge between the red dining room walls and the green living room walls.

One thing leads to another. That’s as true in life as it is for interior design. It’s especially true if you’ve ever started remodeling or redecorating just one room of a home, then stood back when it was done only to realize that other areas of the house need updating.

And in the same sense, one color leads to another as you walk through any building. Creating a paint color scheme blending good color design with the architecture of your home is like putting together a 3-D puzzle. One part of that puzzle changes and everything changes. And change can be complicated.

It’s easy to think about home color as mostly about the walls, but the reality is that the walls, floors, ceiling, trims and decor are all design elements that combine within the open spaces of the home. Now add to that the thousands of choices you have in most any tile, furniture, lighting and paint store and the puzzle pieces of design that seemed so easy to sort are now in danger of becoming a pile of confusing shapes and colors.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by color, you’re not alone. Putting together entire interior design color schemes can be a lot to think about. But, mixing colors around your home gets a little simpler if you think about those color combinations as a master color plan.

Creating a master color plan is what I do for my clients. They choose the paint colors they like and I help them make those choices (or similar choices) work with the rest of their home decor as well as the architecture of the home.

Here are a few tips I share with color consulting clients to help them organize their interior paint colors:

• Identify the colors in your home that you aren’t going to change, such as the flooring, kitchen cabinetry, window coverings, countertops, etc., and be sure that the paint colors you choose complement the colors of those things.
• Look at the paint colors in natural light and at night under artificial light to be sure the color looks good 24/7.
• Sample your color choices in several places of the room so that you can see the effect of light on the paint color.

www.CristinaAcosta.com

Painting the garage door and garage door trim the same color as the body of the home subdues the attention the garage door gets (despite it's size) and encourages the eye to travel to the interesting trim color around the windows and entry door.

Put a red tomato on a white sand beach and your eye will instantly focus on the tomato. The color difference (even if you know nothing about tomatoes) will be enough to capture your attention. Not only does this visual attribute help you find a snack or your socks, it’s an important concept to keep in mind when you’re painting your house.

When color consulting with clients who are choosing  exterior paint colors I often suggest they don’t call attention to their garage. This advice doesn’t work for every house or every client, but it’s worth considering. Here’s why:  Many American homes have garages that visually dominate the entrance side of the home. I presume this architectural phenomenon  reflects the reality of most Americans’ relationship to the car.

If you have a home like this, your garage is near your front entrance and the garage door or doors will (all together) visually dominate your entry way. Not only is this iffy Feng Shui, it puts your front door entry way into second place. True, most people will figure out where your front door is and  won’t be knocking on your garage door to get in your house. Even so, downplaying the garage doors in this situation will amp up your home’s curb appeal.

So, how are you going to magically shift attention away from the garage doors and towards the entry door? The answer is a relatively easy and inexpensive  home redo. Here it is: Paint your garage door trim and/or the garage doors the same color as the body of the house. Before you whip out the brush (or google painting contractors), I do have a few guidelines to help you make an informed design decision.

• Paint the trim around the garage door the same color as the body color (exterior wall color), regardless of the trim color around the windows and other doors.

• If the garage doors are ordinary, paint them the same color as the body color.

• If you have beautiful natural wood garage doors that enhance your home don’t paint them without careful consideration. They may be a valid design element, especially if the natural wood is repeated in other areas of the home such as the soffits, trim, shingle accent areas, etc. If you are in doubt, paint the entire home exterior first, then after looking at the result make your decision to paint the garage door.

www.CristinaAcosta.com

This vintage craftsman home has a red body color, deep green trim and natural wood door and other accents. The natural wood acts as a "orange" against the red. It's a very appealing and classic original color scheme for this era of home.

Exterior paint colors can change the way you perceive architecture, and it’s the least expensive “remodel” you can do! Artists know that color “moves” visually in space. Colors recede or advance depending upon where they are in relationship to each other and their surroundings.

If you are a homeowner choosing exterior paint colors to create color schemes or a color plan for your home, here are a few color tips:

• Check to see if your neighborhood has any restrictions regarding exterior color use. Often titled Covenants and Restrictions these rules will limit the choices you have. If your neighborhood is in a designated historical area, check with the local Historical Society or Building Dept., to learn if certain house paint colors are restricted to historical colors typical to the era your house was built.

• Choose at least 3 and possibly 4 colors for the home so things don’t get too dull. Please don’t think that painting the whole house one color will make it “blend in”. The result is usually very “lumpish”. In a typical home the colour scheme can applied like this:
• • Body Color (main part of house)
  • Trim Color (around windows and Doors)
  • Fascia Color (trim around the roof and possibly the belly band (6″ – 12″ wide plank trim that separates 2 stories, or the body of the house from the peak of the roof).
  • If the home has gables (usually in a different type of siding), seriously consider an additional color for the gable area.
  • Door Color
• Buy the best exterior house paint you can afford and make sure it has a UV blocker in it.

• Remember that natural wood (with a protective finish) is a “color”. If you are fortunate to have natural wood, consider the color of that wood as one of your paint colors. If you’re having trouble with this idea. “Match” a paint color swatch to the wood until you have color most like your wood. Though you have no intention of buying this color as a can of paint, add it to your collection of color combinations so that you’ll be sure that your real paint colors enhance the color of the natural wood.

• Whether you are painting it yourself or having it done, make sure that the prep work is well done. A good foundation of prep work will make your final paint colors last years longer.

• If you have a strong prevailing wind/sun direction, put an extra coat of paint on those sides of the house. The entire paint job will last years longer.

Contact me to schedule a color consult for your project.

www.CristinaAcosta.com

Best Ever You magazine has invited me to be their Paint and Color Expert. The editor, Elizabeth Hamilton-Guarino along with her team has put together an anomaly in the current publishing business climate; a successful and growing magazine. Kudos to the staff at Best Ever You!

Readers are encouraged to send in their color and paint questions. Though  I’m not able to answer questions individually, I will  include design and color solutions in my monthly column whenever possible.

I look forwards to working with Best Ever You. Check out the on-line magazine, you’ll be sure to find something that inspires, informs or entertains.

www.CristinaAcosta.com

White is not a common color in nature unless you're looking at snow. Nature mostly gives us accents of white as surf, clouds or rock.

Painting your ceiling white is not necessary or even always a good idea. White paint will not always make your room look larger, cleaner and more fashionable. Sometimes white will seem to expand the size of a room, but sometimes it’s a big mistake. Mostly, people paint their ceilings white because they don’t know what else to do.

I’m not exactly sure when white ceilings became fashionable, though I suspect the country’s fascination with white paint began in 1893 at the Chicago World’s Fair. The famed White City at the World’s Fair included a complex of buildings and streets over an area of hundreds of acres. Buildings were finished with white stucco and brightly lit with the new-fangled street lights. Acres of radiant whiteness must have been an entrancing alternative to the dark countryside and dimly lit city streets filled with dark tenement buildings.

Then, about thirty-five years later, the Great Depression hit the country and nobody was painting. Whitewash, a type of paint coating made with calsomine (from slaked lime) was a very cheap alternative to colored paints. It could take days to dry and usually rubbed off easily before it flaked off after a long winter. Often used as an exterior paint coat, whitewash was a stop-gap paint until a durable (and more expensive) paint could be purchased.

After World War Two and the resulting Baby Boom, suburbs of homes sprung up on the outskirts of cities all over the country, especially in the West. Cheap and fast construction of ranch style homes (often referred to as tract homes) dominated the scene. White paint was an inexpensive choice for the developer or builder, requiring no color mixing or color changing during the assembly-line like painting process necessary to get an entire tract of homes painted inexpensively.

The 1970′s famous white plaster splatter ceiling (sometimes mixed with glitter) was ubiquitous in many Western tract homes of the era. I’m guessing that a significant population of Americans alive today grew up looking up at white ceilings.

Times have changed. Current paint and coatings technology has resulted in paint with amazing qualities our grandparents wouldn’t have dreamed possible. Some paints dry in a hour or so, can be easily scrubbed, are available in different sheens and they have little to no odor. And, there are literally thousands of colors to choose from.

Here are some tips to keep in mind when considering a ceiling paint color:

• Use white or a light color on your ceiling when you have a lot of poisonous insects that you need to see. (No joke — in a tropical environment this could be an issue).
• When the ceiling is a different color than the walls, the area where the  ceiling and walls meet (line of demarcation) becomes a focal point. Unless your ceiling is interesting either architecturally or because it’s accented with beautiful moldings or beams, consider painting it the same color or a different color that is in a similar color value as the wall paint color.
• If the ceiling is low, paint the walls and ceiling the same color (a mid-value or lighter) so that there is no color change line (line of demarcation).
• Use a paint sheen on the ceiling that has some reflective qualities so that it bounces light. An eggshell sheen is a favorite.
• The only reason to use a flat or matte finish on the ceiling is to hide surface imperfections or to reduce reflected light.
• If the ceiling is particularly beautiful or interesting and it works with the design of the room to emphasize the ceiling, vary the colors, color values and sheens on the ceiling to complement the wall colors.
• Your local paint store professional can give you additional guidance after you’ve choosen your initial colors and explain your design ideas.

www.CristinaAcosta.com

Contemporary home with ho-hum exterior colors

Contemporary Architecture New Color Plan with Addition of Gray & Blue over the Yellow

Are you ready for a home makeover but you don’t want to break the bank? Have you ever painted your house and when it was done, wondered why the paint job didn’t look as good as you thought it would? Changing paint colors doesn’t have to be a complete re-do. With a few strategic changes of color you can get the look and pizzaz you want by changing only the colors or areas that make the most difference, rather than repaint the entire exterior of your home.

The clients who built this contemporary residence engaged the architecture firm, Rainbow Valley in Oregon. The house, edged on one side with a grove of Oregon Oaks is a beautiful interplay of warmth and light that rests lightly on this hilltop in a Western Oregon Valley. The homeowners chose colors for the home under the duress of the final push before the home was completed. Though they liked the colors, they felt that something was not quite right. After they’d moved in and had a chance to live with their new home, they hired me to help them create a new color plan.

I asked my clients what they liked and didn’t like about the colors and listened to their answers as I looked at the intersecting shapes of the contemporary architecture.  Together we put together a color palette or plan that accentuated the lyrical aspects of the architecture while bringing more of the landscape colors into the mix.

Walking around the home I noticed how well the house integrated with the lot and the surrounding nature. Despite the often overcast skies in the area, subtle color was present everywhere. The beautiful gray trunks of the grove of Oregon Oaks, the many shades of green ranging from brilliant emerald to gray green changed under the movements of the cloud cover. Occasionally the clouds parted to reveal small patches of blue sky.

Keeping the existing green body color and the taupe trim color, we added a gray and a light blue to the exterior color story. Those two colors eliminated the existing yellow paint. With the yellow gone, the green appeared more vibrant. Adding the light blue color to the small front structure was the final touch that gave the front of the home a light-hearted lift.

Choosing colors for a home or business is more than just a few samples of  colors that “look good.” The best color plan is one that enhances the building, the surroundings and the lives of the people that live and work there.

___________________________________

www.CristinaAcosta.com

For color consulting, contact me for both remote and in-person consults.

Dear Cristina, (via my website

I am having a difficult time finding the right color for our great room. It is fairly large, 20′ x 30′, with a cathedral ceiling 22′ high. On one wall there is a floor to ceiling stone fireplace, taking up the entire wall. The ceiling is a honey tongue and groove wood and the floor is a natural oak hardwood. The furniture is a southwest design. Is it okay to paint just one wall a dark color and the rest a lighter shade? Is a brown too much with all the wood?

Thanks,
Marti
_______________________________________________
Dear Marti,
Sounds like you have a beautiful room. I can’t tell you which color to paint, but I can give you a few ideas to think about that may help you with your decision.

• Painting one wall a strongly different color than the others creates an accent wall. Only do this if there is something on that wall or the architecture in that part of the room that you wish to emphasize. Click here to read more about accent walls.

• How much brown is too much? When you have a lot of brown wood and still want more brown, I suggest that you choose an accent color that has brown (or a warm base color) in it, but is different from the wood. Examples are: Deep eggplant, Terracotta Reds, Deep brownish Greens, or even a Deep teal or Navy that is brownish in tone. (The paint store professionals can help you identify these colors.)

• If you insist on a brown accent wall, then choose something strikingly different in value from your existing woods, such as a deep chocolate brown wall.

Send a before and after when you get the room painted. I’d love to post the results.
www.CristinaAcosta.com
If you’d like to read about my color consulting services, contact me and put the words, Color consulting, in the text box. I’ll send you a link to my FREE E-booklet explaining my service.

www.CristinaAcosta.com Call me to schedule a color consulting appointment in Bend, Oregon or a phone appointment if you don’t live in Oregon.

PHOTO: Subtle golds, browns and brownish gray complemented the natural stone materials in the master bath suite area for this client in the “Johns” photo. ©2006-2009 Cristina Acosta

I was wondering, how do you know which wall to use as an accent wall? I have an oblong living room and I am having it professionally painted soon. I am trying to decide which wall would be best for an accent wall. I was told to use the first wall you see when you come in the room is the accent wall. I was also told that I should not make the wall behind my TV the accent wall. (This is the first wall you see). I am so confused now. Please help. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Much thanks!!
Michele M.

Dear Michele,

Accent walls are especially popular because it’s a way to add a colored wall to a room without having the color define the entire room. Painting an accent wall also save spending time and money repainting the room to update it with color. The best accent wall is one that reinforces a focal point in the room.

A focal (or focus) point is an area of a room that catches your eye. A focal point area could be a wall, window, item of furniture (like a piano or TV), an architectural accent (such as — ornate trims, a niche, fireplace, a unique ceiling) or fixture (such as lighting or appliances). A room will have a primary focal point, secondary focal point, etc.

How those focal points come to be is a combination of architecture and interior design. And, it sounds as though in your home the architecture makes the TV wall the focal point of the living room.

A painted accent wall can enhance or create a focal point. Because your living room is also your entertainment area I recommend you work with the TV. Put in cabinets and shelving that are attractive and cover or minimize the appearance of the TV. The cabinetry should include shelves to display art, memorabilia and decor items that enrich the focal area so that the TV is not visually dominant – an important factor when the TV is not on. The idea is to reinforce the natural visual dominance of the TV wall but at the same time, subordinate the visual importance of the TV.

With the above concepts in mind here’s what to consider when you choose which wall to paint as your accent wall:

* A colored accent wall would look great behind built-in shelves. The accent wall color would reinforce the focal point created by the cabinetry.
* OR, if the TV wall is also the longest wall in the room, AND after you have the cabinetry designed, IF that wall is too dominant you’ll want to consider emphasizing a secondary focal point to create a little asymmetrical balance.**
* You could choose to accent a secondary focal point, consider a wall behind the seating area or a wall that frames a visually significant window.

Read more about accent walls on my website, www.CristinaAcosta.com.
When you’re done with your room, I’d love to see photos.

Warm Regards,
Cristina

**Yes, this is a conditional answer, but it’s the best I can do with the information I have. You’ll need to consider these concepts when you make your decision.
See examples of my color consulting portfolioAA and articles on my website.