Back in time with The Spirit Factory

Photos by Donna Frasca

I met with Rhonda Ferguson Jones today from The Spirit Factory and felt like I stepped back in time … literally about 50 ago which is when her house was built. As I drove to her home where she sells her custom jewelry, I was in awe with just the front porch alone. Now keep in mind it takes a lot to thrill me when it comes to homes but Rhonda had me charged with just her front doors. Hmm, I forgot to ask her what was the name of that gorgeous red she has on the doors. I'll have to find out.

Look at these warm colors! I would have to say 'Butternut' and 'Carnelian' from the Eddie Bauer Home Collection by Valspar.

Rhonda graciously gave me a grand tour of her home even though I was just there to pick up a necklace. I right away got the feeling of days gone by that is why I have the photos tinted with sepia, so you'd get the same feeling I did.

From the beautiful wood work (they don't make homes like this anymore) to the bubble lights on the garland, this house made me feel like I should grab some warm fuzzy slippers and sit by the fire - it was very cozy and inviting. Rhonda did an amazing job decorating her home.

If you would like to order some custom jewelry from The Spirit Factory, and here's a picture of the necklace I bought, you can contact Rhonda or go to her website to design your own. They make great gifts!

If you like the look of this home and want to have similar colors for that warm, cozy feeling, contact me to schedule a color consultation.

Please visit my  main website at 

www.DecoratingbyDonna.com

The Colors of Haskell Eargle

All photos by Donna Frasca

I recently had the pleasure of attending a fund raiser for the Museums of the Waxhaws. The program was 'The Holiday Floral Decorations with Haskell Eargle a world renowned floral designer.

I don't have a green thumb by any means but you know me, if there's color involved - I'm there! And color there was!

I had the opportunity to chat with Haskell before he started his program. I asked the obvious questions 'Do you have a favorite flower or color?' With a very generic "I love them all!" I figured I was disturbing his quiet time he needed to get his program in order. Note to self; don't quit my day job to become a reporter. He probably heard that question a gazillion times. 

His program began and he peaked my interest with the first sentence by saying he wanted to talk about the color of the seasons. Good. We're off to a colorful start.

As I sipped by spiced tea and watched as he assembled his arrangements, I saw the colors of autumn flash before my eyes. Yellow, red, white, green, orange, pink - there was a cornucopia of color! With the dark green foliage as a backdrop to his creations, which came from his own garden, the warm hues of fall just popped in every arrangement. Some of his color culprits were:

• red carnations
• white pumpkins
• colored candles
• berries
• red grapes
• green apples
• oranges
• goldenrod
• orchids

As he created his masterpieces, the colors were just stunning. From the home-grown flowers right from his garden to the unique vases he selected for each arrangement, Haskell make it look effortless. Someone in the room asked him 'how do you know when an arrangement is complete?' He replied "when it's tastefully gaudy". 

Haskell then concluded by saying that you can easily transform any of these arrangements from Thanksgiving to Christmas centerpieces by just changing the colors of the flowers. He said you can add red carnations, pine cones and holly to make them more Christmasy. He also said that the color of the container will guide you as to what color flowers or edibles to use in your arrangements.

At the end of his presentation he took some questions. One question was 'where do you get your color inspirations from?' I thought that was a great question. Obviously Haskell uses his bountiful garden as inspiration but he then added that he often looks at upholstery for new color combos. 'You'd be surprised to really look at fabric and see all the colors that make up a pattern. Use those colors in your next floral arrangement and don't be afraid to pair two colors together like a coral and red."

Now that's great color advise from an expert in the world of flowers. So much fun!

The Colors of Currier and Ives

Like these colors? Try 'Chambourd' and Glacial Till' both are Benjamin Moore Affinity 

I always loved the paintings of Currier and Ives. I'm drawn to the outdoorsy themes and the subdued, unique hues of days gone by as seen in this "Morning in the Woods".

There are so many places to look for color inspirations. You can of course find inspiration from nature, the foods that we eat, fabrics and artwork. If you're looking for unique colors schemes, I would consider the prints of Currier and Ives and look deep into the art for fabulous colorways.

Let's say you love this 'Morning in the Woods' print. I've pulled two colors (Chambourd and Glacial Till) that I like but you can really have a free for all with color combos. Here's some more to consider and they're all found in this one print.

You can go with softer colors like these:

Or you can pull out the more dramatic colors and use them to make a statement or just as accent colors throughout your home.

Don't worry about pulling out colors that don't match. If they all look great together in the painting, they will look great on your walls too! For example, look at just these eight colors I pulled out. You can mix and match these as well. Why? Because the artist chose colors in his paintings that look good together. The work is already done for you. Just pull the colors that you are attracted to in paintings and use them in your home.

I you have an inspiration piece that you love and still need help choosing colors, contact me and I can help you turn your home into a masterpiece!

Best in Show and in Color

' Cayenne' • Valspar Ultra Premium

The Irish Setter won first place in The National Dog Show 2010 today. I happen to love this color - it's 'Cayenne' a Valspar Ultra Premium color. I had to get a brief color post in today but since it's Thanksgiving Day, I will leave the rest of the post to just pictures. Enjoy.

Thanksgiving Dinner Color Collage

designed by Donna Frasca

Thanksgiving, a time to be thankful for what we have. I would like to take this moment to list a few of the things I'm thankful for.

• Life
• Love
• Family
• Children
• Friends
• Laughter
• Facebook Friends, Twitter friends too!
• Color and how's it's such a HUGE part of my life
• Coincidences
• Talent
• Art
• Education
• The new people in my life for you will make my life better
• The people of my past for you've altered my life and influenced me to be who I am today
• My beautiful home for it's not my first and know it won't be my last
• Nature and it's animals
• The small things in life
• The big things in life
• The things I don't have for it makes me strive to get them
• Ambition
• Goals
• Fun, games and playfulness that keeps me young at heart
• Visions  - for it allows me to see and feel the place I need to be in life

As you all see, this list can go on and on and it does. The point is, I'm thankful for EVERYTHING in life; the good, bad, big and small. 

I hope all of you make up list of the things that you are thankful for. Happy, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Accenting Benjamin Moore's Vintage Wine 2011

By now most of us heard that 'Vintage Wine' was chosen for Benjamin Moore's color of the year for 2011. How do we feel about this color and how will we use it in our homes?

Benjamin Moore

For the brave designer, Vintage Wine can be used in abundance but for most of us - it's just going to be an accent color if used at all. I'm not really fond of this color. To me, it looks lifeless, drab and a bit depressing - just saying. I would have much rather seen the color that I'm sooooo hoping for to be 'the one' which is a spicy, salmon color similar to this:

So let's say you decide to use Vintage Wine in your home, how do you tie in the rest of the room with this dramatic color? Here's how Vintage Wine looks on the wall:

Benjamin Moore

Going back to the colors I thought would be in were posted in my blog 'The Color That Will Be Next'. If you take a look at that blog you'll see that I have a picture of a cameo pin and the colors that I thought would also make an appearance.

These are the colors I chose and actually coordinate well with Vintage Wine.

Vintage Wine

So knowing the colors that we have to work with, and you can look at the Benjamin Moore website for coordinating colors,  what else can you add to your home to liven Vintage Wine up a bit and tie in your decor? Let's see, how about:

LIGHTING. Keep it bright and I would stay with gold accents. I LOVE this pendant lamp!

Lighting

SEATING. Vintage Wine will look amazing with contemporary seating. Keep it light and bright otherwise your room can take a twist to the gothic side in a heartbeat.

Seatings

FLOORING. I'm a HUGE fan of cork flooring - I have it in my home and love it! Cork would liven up the room, add warmth, texture and softness to this room.

Cork Flooring

RECAP

In conclusion, just because a color is dark and a bit lifeless, doesn't mean we can't make it work. Don't give up on a color because you don't like it. With the right accessories, lighting and paint color as shown here, Vintage Wine can be very striking!

Black Friday • A Day That Has Its Own Color

A day that has it's own color assigned to it - how fun, at least for the people who will be hitting the stores that is. Black Friday is the official start of the busy holiday shopping. I may be wrong but to me, shopping is a good thing so why was such an ominous color choice to represent a shopping day? 

When you stop and think about it, the reason black was chosen was to allude profits in the world of retail which is fine. Although 'being in the red' is a bad thing in the retail business but I just like the color better. Let's talk about black.

From black widow spiders (I love the touch of red) to luxury sport cars to the famous 'little black dress, black makes a 'look at me' statement.

credit

Think you want this striking, statement making color incorporated into your home? There are so many factors to consider before you do. First, think about if you would like it on all the walls or just as an accent color. Personally, I would start off using it as accent on just one wall and see how you like it. That may be all the 'statement' you need in your home.

credit

So when you decide to use black as a color for your home - somewhere - now you have to decide on the black to get. So many paint brands have black of course but I've found that the truest black can be found in Valspar's Ultra Premium paint and the name of the color is Dark Kettle Black.

Eye Popping Color

I was going to check my mail on Yahoo and I found this burst of color on the homepage. I know it's redundant to talk about how nature inspires us for color but really?

This photograph was entered in a contest by Olympus and it's actually "Eyes of Daddy Longlegs". Who knew the "Harvestman" is so good looking? 

Lesson learned? Not only do we have to keep our eyes open for the obvious color inspirations in nature like the beach, trees and landscapes but we also need to keep an 'eye' out for the inspirations we can't see.

Here are some other photographs that appeared in the contest. Enjoy the colors of our microscopic world!

If The Beatles Were a Color

I'm not a Beatles fan by any means but I happened to come across this photo of them on the Apple page and noticed it was in black and white. Of course I can't be happy with just black and white so I thought to myself, 'what color would the Beatles be if they were a color?'

So I suppose I could do some research and look at the blog page of a die hard Beatles fan and probably would find out there but I decided to guess.

John just looks like a green to me. Paul a blue, George a psychedelic purple and of course Ringo is screaming red.

So how did I do? Ok, what colors would you say they should be? Here are some of their songs that have a color in the title:

• Blackbird
• Baby's in Black
• Blue Jay Way
• Mailman, Bring Me No More Blues
• Blue Suede Shoes
• Yer Blues
• Maxwell's Silver Hammer
• Yellow Submarine
• and of course the 'White' album

… just having a little fun with color! Enjoy :-)

Zahra

The Color That Will Be Next

After reading a post on Color Me Happy, about the “next color”, I was thinking about the color Maria referred to as “Pinky Gray”. At first I though of the “band-aid” color going through my mind then I thought of the “Oyster Gray”. What is pinky gray????

There's a big color pow wow going on now at the CMG Conference to determine “the one” and I guess the rumor mill is leaning towards a gray of some sort. I'm wondering what exactly does pinky gray look like? I did a post on my color forecast a while ago and came up with these possibilities.

I still felt like a salmon/peach color would be coming in hot and heavy along with a warm green. I also thought that the soft grays would be popular as well. Here are the color swatches that I came up with. You can see the another blog post on the color I predicted to be popular for 2010.

These are the gray/neutrals that I felt would be popular next and actually have used these quite a bit already this year.

Also

The Salmon/Peaches with warm greens. 

So, whatever the newest member of color trends will be, I'm sure the pros have thought about it long and hard and chose the best. 

I can't wait to see “The One”.

How to Choose Color for A Kitchen

So many choices! Let me show you what your options are.

OPTION A: BACKSPLASH

Let's start with OPTION A which is taking a color from your backsplash. Unless you custom design your backsplash, many spec homes come with a neutral beige/tan tile backsplash very similar to the one shown in the first photo. If you design your own backsplash than of course you have the freedom to choose whatever color scheme you want but for the most part, it'll be in the neutral family as well but the design may be more intricate. You can bring color into accent tiles or listellos but make sure you carry that color out to other parts of your kitchen and surrounding rooms.

Having said that, OPTION A will be a neutral to match your backsplash and also matching any other color that you put in the surrounding rooms of your home. If you use a beige for your kitchen color, you can always use accent colors such as the apple green tea kettle shown above to add some interest to your kitchen.

OPTION B: COUNTERTOP

You can choose a color and match your countertop as shown in OPTION B. This is a great option depending on the size of your kitchen. If you have a large kitchen with a large surface area of countertop, than choosing a color to match the granite would look nice. For example:

However, many of the colors that are found in granite are dark to medium hues. Keep in mind the AVERAGE kitchen really doesn't have that much wall space. It's mostly taken up by cabinets, windows, a refrigerator and doorways. So ask yourself this question. 

Do you want your walls to be the first thing you notice when you walk into your kitchen or do you want them to blend? 

If you want the walls to blend, go with OPTION A and choose a neutral. If you want a little pizazz, use OPTION B and go with a medium tone chosen from your countertop.

OPTION C: COMPLEMENTARY COLOR

Kitchen cabinetry comes in an array of stains such as these.

Again, if you own a spec home, you get what the builder gives you but if you are able to choose your cabinets or are replacing old ones, here is where you can make a HUGE difference in how your kitchen looks.

Using the photo of the kitchen that I have in this post, we'll work with what I call 'orange' cabinets - not my favorite but very common. Since we know that blue is the complementary color of orange, OPTION C, blue, would be your color choice if you choose to go this route. If you don't like blue or that color won't match the rest of your home, onto other options. FYI  - good Designers always have options!

OPTION D and E: COLOR!

I would have to say that in most cases, OPTIONS D and E would be my favorite. Although the above options will work perfectly, in the case of my home I chose OPTION D.

OPTION D 

would be to choose a color that you just love but also tying in this color to coordinate with the rest of your home. Again, take into consideration the color stain you have on your cabinets. If you have the 'orange' cabinets, choosing a color that has a warm undertone is a great way to go. 

Last but not least, 

OPTION E. This option is to go with a monotone look for your kitchen. It's one that I wouldn't recommend but that doesn't mean it wouldn't work for your home or be the look that you want. I've seen this look before in clients homes and it's actually quite warm and a very striking look. You can of course, accessorize to bring in other colors that will compliment this look.

If you want to read more of my "How To" series, you can read about them here:

How To Choose Color for a Boy's Room

How To Get Sensational Color For Your Home

How To Choose Color for a Bedroom

If you would like help choosing color for your home, you can contact me to schedule a color consultation. 

How To Choose Color For A Boys Room

This handsome room from Pottery Barn Kids is a very typical color theme for boys. You of course have various shades of blue, a neutral to break it up and the color of the furniture which in this case is a brown. We all know that blue and brown are a great color duo.

As you can see the walls in this room are the lighter blue which is fine. Most young boys love light blue and it goes with most of their toys and room accents. It you wanted to add a little interest, you would use the darker blue as an accent color.

The window treatment, a Roman Shade, in this room already has the navy as an accent which shows a nice contrast to the lighter wall. You can continue the navy accent color in your lamps, throw pillows, accessories such as picture frames and books.

Still not sure how to choose color for a boys room? Here's a real easy trick. Purchase sheets and bedding that will go into the room. Look at the colors that are in the fabric.

Pottery Barn Kids

Look at all the color combinations you can create with just some of the colors that you can see in the sheets. The possibilities are countless!

It's nice to see that you can choose color using bedding as inspiration but you still have to pick specific paint names and brands. If that's challenging for you, contact me and I can create the perfect color scheme for the little boy in your home.