Lucky Numbers, Lucky Colors

We all have lucky numbers but do we have lucky colors to?

Many years ago when I was just a kid I was told, and I think the source was a future cookie, that my lucky colors are silver, gray and white. Really? Did they not know that I'd grow up to be a Color Specialist and silver, gray and white are really, really low on my totem pole of likable color?

Either way, we all have colors that we like or gravitate towards but can we put these colors in our homes? Yes you can! What's they you say? You like purple? You don't have to use your favorite color on the wall of course but you certainly can use them in smaller doses such as an area rug, pillow or window treatments but you knew that already right?

But if you had just a few dollars to spend and wanted to win big with the right color, what colors would you choose for your home? Let me make some suggestions and who knows, if you will the Mega Millions ticket and buy a new home, you'll have your colors already picked out. Here's some winners from the Color Stories Collections of Benjamin Moore.

For a neutral try:

Need a gray? Here's a unique twist on a trending color.

If you still love blue!

For a bit of green

and last but not least because this list just goes on and on 

So when you win your millions form Mega Millions and you just bought a new home that needs color, contact me and I'll be glad to help you choose a few more colors for your brand new mansion.

How To Choose Color For A Room

So you just went shopping at IKEA and bought a side chair. You chose this chair because the colors are timeless and it'll go with just about everything and coordinate with just about any wall color. Wall color? Oopps! You have the chair but still have Contractor's Beige on your wall. Now is the time you have to decide how to choose color for your room.

There are a few very simple ways you can choose a wall color using your chair as an inspiration piece and I'm going to show you how.

The obvious way is to just pull two colors right from the material. It's safe and you'll know it'll match because you already see it in the fabric.

You can either pull two of the lighter colors like the “safe” option or pick two of the darker hues in the same fabric for a more dramatic look.

Now pick two of the lightest colors you see in your fabric and choose two colors that coordinate with it. Here I chose a light pink and a pinky gray. You know these two colors will match because you have gray in the fabric just watch your undertones. These lighter colors are on the feminine, perfect for a girls room.

Here you'll do the same as choosing the feminine colors like shown on “C”  but you're going to choose colors that are a bit more masculine. Light, soft blues are a very versatile look for any room.

Still going for a more masculine or contemporary look, keep the colors cool with a blue and purple. You really have to watch you undertones here and keep these colors cool.

Still not sure what to do? Option “F” is for “forgo choosing your own color” and ask me - I'd love to help!

Granite: How do you choose the right color?

I don't have granite in my home and actually, I'm not a big fan of granite. Oddly enough, it's a little to 'hard' for me. I know your eyes are probably rolling right now but we Artist types are a little strange to begin with. Besides, I'm the one who has cork on the floors in my home because I find tile too hard as well.

If you've been following my posts on Facebook, you'll see that my husband and I are building our own bar.  So, guess what I'm putting on the bar top? You guessed it! Granite.

There is a reason I choose granite for the top of the bar. Like anything else, there is always a design or theme in mind when I design. This is going to be theme room and the style of the room is “Bordello - A step back in time” - don't judge - the room looks gorgeous so far!

So back to granite. The room to my bar is very dark (you can't tell by the Facebook pictures) and will have a lot of dark brown, dark red, leather, walnut wood and gilded accents. So, I have to choose a granite color that is lighter but still has character and a color choice that is not found in every other home in town.

Let go through the choices:

Uba Tuba - love that name alone but I can't use this dark, dark green/black granite - it would just disappear in the room.

The same would go for Chestnut - too dark and too typical.

New Venezia would be a good choice because the gold in the granite would pick up on the gold accents that will be in the room - but - way too typical. I see this granite in just about every home I go into.

Kashmire White is going in the right direction but it's just way too white for me - I need a bit more color.

So after dozens of samples and a lot of hair pulling, what color granite did I go with???

White Springs Granite. It has the white/gray background with a ticking of dark brown and burgundy. It is absolutely perfect!!! This is going to look great with the wood stain on the bar (I did a custom color blend of a Cherry and Black Walnut stain) the dark brown drapery, gaudy red and gold walnut sofa and to tie in, I have burgundy columns. 

This is an actual shot of my granite.
Look at the red - it almost looks like splattered blood.
Cool convo's for happy hour I'm sure!

This is the last picture I took of the bar with just a board on top. After the granite comes in - the decorating fun begins!

FINISHED BAR!!!!

If you need help choosing a granite color for your home, I most certainly can help you with that!! Contact me at DecoratingbyDonna@mac.com to set up an appointment for a color consultation. I have some samples I can bring to your home :-)

Full Spectrum Paint - new trend in Color?

There is so much hoopla about Full Spectrum Paints now that Benjamin Moore's Color Stories are available. I have to say, when I first saw the colors I didn't think that I would be able to use them with the lighting here in Charlotte, they just seemed so bright!

The color on the left is Contented by Sherwin Williams was HUGELY popular for the past two years - especially here in South Charlotte. I can't tell you how many times I've used it for the relaxing master bedroom and the spa bath to match. I know why - it's a great color however, it's competition just moved in - full spectrum paint by Benjamin Moore.

The coastal color wave has been so strong here in South Charlotte. The smokey, soft muted hues were a perfect fit for the large open floor plans that get flooded with Southern light - until now.

Pantone got it right when they said that Tangerine Tango was a much need bright, bold and festive color to lift the spirits. Are people gravitating towards 'spirit lifting' hues now? What does this mean? It may mean that the gray based colors will be replaced by clean, crisp color. Not as bright as Tango but certainly lively colors that really, really make you feel good. 

Here are colors that I say will be very sought after. They are blue. They are clean. They are even a bit trendy. They are full spectrum color and paint.

Color Stories for the entire home!

I am super excited to have just offered my client in Marvin, North Carolina, a beautiful palette for her home in the new Color Stories Collection. 

This particular client loves gray - how do I know that? Because her entire home was just about 90% all gray in some way shape or form which is fine but - he's where it got tricky.

Although she loves gray, she wanted cool grays and grays that weren't muted. Does that not scream the beautiful hues of the Full Spectrum Color Stories? Yes!!! I was all goose pimply as we were picking out the colors to suit both her likes and to go with the style and decor of her home. This is what I came up with.

How did I sell these very specific colors to my client? Easy. Not only are they beautiful stand alone colors but they looked sharp, crisp and clean in the very cloudy, dreary day we had this morning. 

I had some other muted colors beside the Color Stories collection to show her the difference. They were all great colors but as we all know, color can  sometimes be very Chameleon and change drastically as the lighting conditions change from day to night, light to dark. 

I normally do not schedule color consultations when it's raining or very overcast outside but now I will not have to worry about it. Even in cloudy conditions, Color Stories has a shine all their own!

Do you want to have these beautiful colors in your home?

Contact me to set up color consultation.

You're going to LOVE having these great colors in your home.

Equestrian Color in Waxhaw, NC

Even though my Twitter name says “Color4Charlotte” I actually live in Wesley Chapel. Since Wesley Chapel is unincorporated and doesn't exist on the GPS map, the closest town is Waxhaw, NC which is my mailing address. Waxhaw is one of the main surrounding towns about 20 from Charlotte. Ok. Now that you know where I live, I can bring you to my point about color this morning.

Waxhaw is also known as “Horse Country” and Cedarhill Farms is the place to be to show. I've been there myself of course not riding but snapping some shots of the magnificent horses. As I opened my Tweetdeck this morning I saw a new friend just called “Horze” and decided to take a look to see what Horze was all about. I found it interesting that I personally don't have anything to do with horses but then realized I posted some photographs on Pinterest that I took, hashtag #horse. So there you go. Mystery solved.

Prints for Sale

Of course everything I write about has to somehow tie in with color so you're probably scratching your head right now trying to figure out how I'm going to do this. Well when I opened the website of “Horze” and I always check out my new Twitter friends, and this is what caught my eye.

So THIS is how I tied in color with horses today! See how there are color choices for EVERYTHING in life and not just the obvious? 

If you need help choosing color for your horse blanket, and yes, I can help your coordinate your horses riding apparel, you most certainly can contact me. Keep in mind, you'd want that blue ribbon to coordinate right down to his tendon boots!

Everything else for your horse can be found locally at The Waxhaw Tack Exchange.

What color should I paint my front door?

Bet you thought of a red door first!

Breaking out of the norm is always such a challenge. For some reason, when it comes to choosing a color for the front door, red is usually first color that comes to mind.

Red is a great accent color for the home but it's so overused already, much like the red dining room. For some reason if your dining room needs to be painted, it's red! Looks beautiful but just so typical.

I understand that you have to be really careful when choosing a color for your front door. It has to match or coordinate with your home, your neighbors will have to look at it, your HOA may not like it and you have to be in love with it because you'll be seeing it every single day. How do you choose just one color for your front door when there are so many to choose from? There's a lot to consider. 

Roofing - what color is your roof? You can always pull a color from the tile to have a nice coordination.

Siding - do you have vinyl, stone, wood or brick? Your door color has to make sense with the largest part of your home which is your siding.

Neighbors - what colors do your neighbors have? I'm guessing either red, black, white or green. Go with a color that they don't have.

Shutters - Your door can either be the same as your shutters or coordinate with them.

Age - try to keep the color appropriate for the age and style of your home. Perhaps a yellow door may look ridiculous on a historic, older home.

COLOR TIP: When you finally do decide on a color, and you know it's going to be a semi gloss, paint out a sample board and see how it look in the SUN before you paint your door. The sun will really bring out the true undertone in your color. 

For example. My front door is Antique Burgundy by Valspar. When dry and in the shade, the color looks very much like the color chip did as shown here in the top photo. However, look at the bottom photo. The paint looks TOTALLY different when it's wet and in the sun. I didn't paint a board first because I knew how it was going to turn out but I must admit, when I saw that purple, I did get just a wee bit nervous. So - sample first!!!!

Here are so other colors to consider. Have fun with your front door. Make it an exciting color and if you happen to choose a color that's just not the right choice, paint over it! It's only a quart of paint and 30 minutes of your time. Here are doors colors I'd love to see more of. These are from the Benjamin Moore Affinity Collection

AF-225

AF-400

AF-270

AF-650

AF-505

AF-270

What to keep it neutral?
AF-95

Please contact me if you need help choosing your front door color.

What is Contractor's Beige? Why is it bad?

What is Contractor's Beige?

Contractor's Beige is the color that the Builder uses as a generic wall color. Sometimes you see it beige like in this photo and sometimes it's white, Contractor's white.

Is Contractor's Beige a bad thing?

Yes and no. The builder has to put some type of “paint” on the wall but yes, there is sooooooo much that I don't like about this “paint” and I'll get to that in a minute.

The homes where I work (and live) in South Charlotte are very large. For the most part, the majority of the the homes have this beige color in them. Can you imagine walking into 4,000 square feet of white walls? Hello hospital! Anyway, it's at least nice to see that there is a neutral yellow beige on the wall. Once in a while, you see it a pinky beige which is a total nightmare and very difficult to tie in the rest of your color scheme with. You WILL have to paint your entire home.

Do I have to paint my home if it has Contractor's Beige on it?

I say YES of course you do but I've seen people who have been living in the home for YEARS and STILL have Contractor's Beige on the wall. That is frightening to me and gross.

Gross? Why is it bad to keep Contractor's Beige in your home?

Well, in defense of CB, it is a good basic beige to put in your home for the people who are pigmently challenged. But the thing that I really don't like about CB is the way it feels. Run your hand across a home that just has CB on it and tell me it doesn't feel like an emery board.

When I first moved into my home five years ago this week, it too had CB on the walls. Of course I had it painted within the first week of moving in but let me tell you what happen before I painted it. 

Since it was Spring time and the doors were open most of the day from the move, some undesirable flying insects had gotten in the house. I was able to smash a few flies that were slow enough for me to swat. Here's the problem. Like I just said a minute ago, CB feels like an emery board.  What makes it so rough? I guess because they spray it on and it's really just a contractors level of paint, doesn't have a sheen and contains a fair amount of primer in it. What does this all mean? It feels like sandpaper, looks like a sponge and it's a bear to clean! Needless to say, I was unable to get all the bug smash out of the nooks and crannies of the surface and wound up just painting right over it, sealing in it's fate forever.

Tell me again why I don't want Contractor's Beige on my walls?

1. It's not really a paint. It's a sprayed on primer based pigment just to cover the walls.

2. It's VERY porous making it impossible to keep clean.

3. It's VERY porous and feels really gross to the touch.

4. It's boring to keep your 4000 square foot home all the same color.

5. When you do decide to paint your home, CB will suck up the entire first coat of paint that you apply. It's imperative that you use a primer first to seal the wall before you apply your paint.

I don't want to paint my large home. Contractor's Beige looks fine.

Ok. So you want to live with a beige home - that's fine. I had clients that really like the neutral, monochromatic look of just beige. However - think about this. It may change your mind.

For your bathroom: Do you really want a porous, non cleanable surface by your toilet area? Think about that for a minute.

For your kitchen: Cook a lot? Not every home has a back splash. Try getting oil based sauces off your wall. Now if you try to paint over it, your latex paint may not stick to the oily sections of your wall.

For the kids rooms: I almost don't want to go here but I need to finish my point. We all know what kids put on their walls. From nose contents to other stinky stains that may be lurking behind that chair in the room.

Have pets?: Mud. Dirt. Fur. Slobber. These are all everyday assurances for those of us who have pets. It you have CB beige on your walls, these “grossities” will NOT come off your walls!

Isn't flat paint the same surface as Contractor's Beige?

Good point! It can be - somewhat. If you use a poor quality flat or matte paint, yes - it will be similar. However, there are washable flat/matte paints that will be sheen less but you will be able to wash or scrub the surface. Just about every paint company will have this type of paint.

I have Contractor's Beige on my walls. Can we set up an appointment to choose color for my home?

Yes!! My name is Donna Frasca and I'm a Color Specialist in Charlotte. I also know a TON about paint and paint products. If you'd like to set up a Color Consultation with me, you can email me at DecoratingbyDonna@mac.com  - only if you live in South Charlotte otherwise we can talk about a virtual color consultation.

How to use coastal colors in your home

A soft blue gray on the living room wall goes with most home furnishings.

This green was pulled out from the area rug that is under the table. There's usually several colors in an area rug, choose one to tie in the look of your room. Try not to make your dining room red - that's just such a typical color to choose. Pick the color in your rug that is NOT the dominant color. You'll see how it'll change the look of your room.

Use a soft purple has become a new consideration for bedroom color. It's not the typical blue or green and it's very relaxing - like the coastal sky at dusk. I've seen this hue painted dozens of time and it's very striking. Try it.

Gray is the hue to have now. This gray is cool and clean but look how modern it looks when used with black, white and silver! This room is crazy beautiful!

Like these soft coastal colors? Call me, I'm a Color Specialist in the Charlotte area and would love to help you!

Can dark colors go in small bathroom?

YES!!!! Dark colors CAN go in small bathrooms!

Wilderness Cabin, a beautiful Benjamin Moore color, can really make a small bathroom cozy if you use it on all the walls. Want to keep it lighter? Just use it as an accent feature like it did here.

Self Priming Paint - really?

I'm not a big fan of the primer and paint in one. Hopefully I can make my point without writing a small novel. I'll use Valspar paint as an example.

My thoughts: Primer is primer. Paint is paint. Primer is less expensive than paint and has a completely different chemical composition and function than paint does. Mixing the two has it's disadvantages.

When you combine the two, I find that more paint has to be used verses using the products separately. For instance. Valspar has a tinted primer for $20. Great product, used it a million times. You tint it 10-20% to the desired color you need so less paint is required to complete the job.

Valspar has a paint, Signature , self priming at $32 a gallon. Here's the problem. Since you're using your paint as a primer, you actually wind up using twice as much paint needed to cover your walls and doing so, this obviously costs more.

Buy the tinted primer at $20 a gallon. Buy Ultra Premium Paint for $28 a gallon. Total cost? $48. If you use a tinted primer, you don't need the extra thickness of self primers. Besides, the first coat of "paint" gets soaked up anyway - that is why you need a primer! Don't use paint as a primer I say.

So, if you use your tinted primer you don't need their more expensive Signature paint. I used Signature in my small office and it barely covered 3 walls. I had to go out and get another gallon. It cost me $64 to buy 2 gallons of their self priming paint. If I had used a tinted primer, and went with their regular Ultra Premium paint, I would have spent just $48.

* prices will vary on the sheen that you are using. These prices are for an eggshell finish.


What are you thoughts?