Working on color for an interior recently. A good-sized place with many rooms. New construction! This means my client “Monica” is making a million decisions a day, from lighting fixtures, to tile patterns, to drawer handles.
It’s high quality stress, but still stressy.
In one room, we are working off a carpet sample that has a thin stripe of blue in a field of deep gray. We were down to 3 shades of blue for the walls.
Blue #1 is a deep ocean blue with probably 5 drops of green in it. This is a favorite color of mine, personally, as I’d like to sail the Seven Seas. This blue brings out the depth and the green in the carpet stripe and looks lovely with the gray and will work well with the bronze-y light fixture. But this blue doesn’t create a visual thrill for my client, so we crossed it off the list in spite of it’s beauty.
Blue #2 is still a jewel tone blue – a royal with maybe 2 drops of green and a drop of gray. Not as oceany. Brighter. Still works well with carpet and lighting. I watched my client talk herself into this color and thought to myself, ok, this will work just fine. But then she said, “Ok, this one. Let’s get it over with.”
RED FLAG! I know it’s not the right color and we are not done yet when I hear a weary aquiesence, even if I know the color is good and is in harmony. The color is RIGHT when I know the color is good and in harmony AND I see that the client LOVES the color.
Blue #3 is a bright royal blue. Not even one drop of green in it. In fact, it could be said that it is on it’s way to periwinkle. It’s a true clean royal, brighter than any other color chosen for the interior of the house. But it’s gorgeous and I know it’s a bit of a stretch for client only because it is unexpected that so much brightness could look so good and fit so well both in the room with the carpet and light fixture and in a house of mostly earthy warm grays. Do we dare paint it this lovely, joyful color?
Yes, we do.
ADVICE ALERT: Keep at it until you find the color that relaxes your eyes and body, and that creates a feeling of excitement at the same time. Please don’t stop at weariness or compromise.
Color creates feeling and it’s the Happy-and-Relaxed-yet-Energized feeling that we seek, seek , seek and then find.
Onward,
Barbara
Paint and Color 
Excellent advice.
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Yes! That feeling of relaxing and being embraced by the color. That’s when you know it’s right.
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