Color us yellow. As in chicken. As in fearful.
"If you want something in lipstick red, it's better to buy a box in that color to go on the coffee table rather than a lipstick-red sofa," says Peter Romich, accessories manager and fashion coordinator for Bassett Furniture Direct in Fresno, Calif. "Make bold statements with accessories: artwork, frames, floral arrangements, pillows, throws, rugs. You can change them more readily than a sofa."
OK, it's spring and we're ready for change. We want to do some sprucing up. Add some color here and there. But if not lipstick red, what?
Romich likes neutral shades, but not just beiges or whites. Architectural color consultant Donald Kaufman, author of Color: Natural Palettes for Painted Rooms (Clarkson Potter, $50), agrees: "A neutral does not have to be a shade of white, beige or gray. It need appear neither pale nor colorless. What it does require is a balance of warm and cool tones so that it can, in context, function as a color from either end of the spectrum."
Figuring out what colors to select really isn't hard. Romich suggests collecting colors that grab you when you're looking at ordinary things: a seed packet, a blanket you love, a piece of ceramic tile that makes your heart stop. Assemble these items and you should see a pattern.
Color selection can come from most anywhere. Kaufman advises picking up leaves and pebbles and scraps of tree bark. He believes that "elements of a space can and should be colored to create the same enriching and luminous atmosphere we experience in nature. Rooms have touches of nature; the garden has touches of art."
Barbara Richardson, director of Glidden Paints in Cleveland, says color trends are influenced by an awareness of the earth. Colors are driven by nature: flora, water, air, light, sand.
And chickens, if you're Martha Stewart. One of the three color collections in her high-end Martha's Fine Paints comes from the colored eggs laid by her araucana chickens.
The other two collections are called Garden and Skylands, totaling 87 shades. There are 256 colors in the Martha Stewart Everyday Colors paint line and a card system to help customers find which colors complement one another.
Some stores, including Wilshire Paints in Clovis,Calif. offer a computer program for matching paint. If you take in a painted cabinet door, a piece of wallboard or paint on any opaque surface, the computer can tell what formulation should be used to match the paint.
Jerry Welch, assistant manager of the store, says the off-whites that have been so popular locally are giving way to earth tones.
"Color trends are so much more sophisticated than they used to be," says Richardson, who has worked at Glidden for 30 years. "There is something in every palette, in the whole spectrum. Even when particular colors go out per se, such as mauve and gray, new colors come in that will complement those colors so someone doesn't have to throw out everything mauve and gray to still look trendy."
Glidden offers Color View Kits with peel-and-stick color chips that you can adhere to walls to see how you like them. The kit contains a selection of colors in vibrant, warm and calm categories.
Romich will follow his own advice about paint when he moves into a house he recently bought. "When you find a color you think you like, buy a quart of the paint, apply it on a piece of wallboard or butcher paper, about 3 feet square, and live with it for awhile. Look at it in different lights, at different times of the day. Get a feel for it before you do the whole room."
Richardson thinks it's important that you know what you want in a room before you paint it. Do you want to relax in it or have fun in it? Is it for the whole family or a private retreat? Do you want the room to look bigger or smaller, cooler or warmer?
"Color can extend walls, raise ceilings, elevate corners," Kaufman writes. "Walls may be fixed but painted surfaces can appear to move. Unbound by the rules of conventional placement, color creates an architecture all its own. Color need not be noticeable to have a noticeable effect."
Richardson thinks people should have fun with color, no matter what color they use. "If you like it, use it," she says. "If you decide later that you don't like it or are tired of it, change it. Painting walls is not terribly expensive. You can even apply faux finishes over the old paint if you want to."
According to Welch, an average-size, 9-by-12-foot room will require 1 gallon of paint. For the ceiling, 2 gallons are needed. Cost is $10 to $25 a gallon.
OK, but what if you live in a rented space and the landlord wants to keep the walls off-white or beige? "Add your color in framed posters, artwork, pillows and rugs," Richardson says.
Romich has a closet of accessories. He changes pillows and throws to warm colors in cool months and uses the cool colors when it's warm. He also likes to change artwork from room to room and change furniture around, just to give his place a different look.
And you can do the same. If you do, color yourself creative.
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