Room Colors

When suburbs exploded here in the eighties, the builder market boomed, and suburbs were blanketed with builder white. It was a clean slate, a blank canvas that everyone could start with. And that's the problem with white canvases. Most people don't know where to start. My clients had lived with their "builder white" for a long time and were ready for a new color in their office — as long as it was white. I said it was not a problem as long as he recognized that the room was never really going to be white; it was always going to look gray. Let me shed light on this matter. Color does not produce light. It is a reflection of light and therefore needs light to be seen. People paint rooms white if it lacks light because they want the room to be light. I told him white needs light to be white. Where there is little light, there is a lot of gray, which shows up on white walls. There was not enough light in the room to be white. The small window and shady trees outside made the existing white on the walls look about 30% gray. The way to see light colors in low-light rooms is to put darker ones beside them. If all the colors are the same value, all light, or all dark, you will not be able to see, let alone feel, anything.  It's the yin & yang of life; opposites sharpen differences so we can appreciate both. We needed to clean up that unmanageable unintended dirty gray cast. We replaced it with a beautiful shade of color and made our own light. The office became his favorite room, and you could feel why. When he hung up all these beautiful coastal prints, it was clear that the magnetic dynamic created by the wall color expanded the room into a coastal dimension where he could feel the fullness of life in that room. He was aligned with his color baggage, shadows and all.The rest of the house didn't remain white-walled for very long. They realized they had kept the builder-white walls because they didn't know what to do. They were afraid of making a mistake. Troubled by indecision, most people settle for innocuous wall colors, safe enough to be ignored or trendy enough to not be judged. Fear convinced them that white was the answer to their dark problem when all they had to do was call an electrician.Everything you want is on the other side of fear. -Jack CanfieldYours,G

When it comes to bathroom paint colors, people mostly want them light and bright so they can "see." Some even go as far as making sure the paint color compliments a person's skin tone.  That's not what your bathroom sink vanity is meant to be, a place where you play with color.  Vanities originally started as make-up treasure chests that grew larger and larger over time. A beautiful stand-alone piece of furniture, a beauty station. Today a vanity is referred to as a base for a bathroom sink, where you brush your teeth and wash your hands. Unless they are flooded by natural light, bathrooms cast shadows on your face that shouldn't be there.  One of my clients was married to a color-blind man — not the type that women often tease about because they think men don't care about color or what they wear. Her husband's color blindness was real, and she loved showering him with colors he could see. Their home was filled with many black-and-white patterns and colorful, bold prints. She had kept her walls a light creamy yellow, a practical color that was anemic yet buzzed with tension like a bug light. When we changed them to a light moss green, her husband called to tell me that even though he was color-blind, he could feel a difference in their home. When I asked how, he said, it seemed that the walls had somehow simply relaxed. Color is how we move our way through the world. Particular colors convey a lot of day-to-day information. Red stop signs, blue light specials, yellow ribbons, and white flags. The red on the stop sign is there to make you stop. While looking at that stop sign, take a moment to notice how the streets look blue when wet or how there is a gorgeous green tree next to the red. It will make your journey so much more pleasant. The same goes for the inside of your home. We choose dark bedding because the dog lies on the bed, white appliances because they go with the trim color, and black lamps because they are neutrals. We assign specific colors the job of being strictly functional. Then there are the red chairs because you love red, the blue and yellow dishes. After all, you love yellow and blue or the sage green curtains in velvet because you don't even know why. It's all love when we choose a color for beauty's sake. If you plan all the colors to be right with each other, you will have beauty and function all at once. In my business, wall colors have the awesome job of making all the colors in the room look functionally beautiful. Color has a job, as long as it is about making things meaningful and lovely. We might as well smell the roses with our eyes. Clear eyes, full heart, can't lose! Yours, G

Let me tell you about a client who didn't refuse herself anything when it came to either shoes or the color yellow. She wanted a yellow kitchen.  She had tried 12 shades of yellow by the time I got there. Somewhere in her imagination, she knew what the room would feel, look like, and say about her once she got it. She thought only yellow could bring in the warmth she was looking for. She couldn't wait to put up all her red accents, like dishes and platters, to go with it. She couldn't understand why she couldn't find the yellow; whenever she thought she had it, it was wrong. Not being able to trust your eyes is a scary thing. The lipstick that goes to orange, the shirt that makes your skin looks jaundiced, the bedspread that turned from purple to gray — we all have stories about how we just didn't see the color.  She didn't see the yellow that was already there in her kitchen. There were too many yellows in the room already. She was drowning in Lemon Drops. No yellow in the world would have worked; it was time to create a new magnetic color dynamic.  She had never considered the possibility of another color, the one she needed, not what she thought she wanted. What she needed came as a big surprise.  "You need red," I said. She loved color. Her home had many other colors in shades of red, orange, blues, and greens everywhere. Orange (too close to yellow) was also not an option. With only 6 colors in the rainbow, she could do green, blue, purple, red, or white. That happy feeling we get from a favorite color comes from our brain replaying the moment we first fell in love with that color. This sensory-driven memory is like a high-five wave in a stadium filled with cheering fans. We are a part of that color and experience a sense of belonging and identification in it. I wasn't trying to blow out her love flame. Just the opposite. I wanted to fuel the fire and stoke that golden love.  To feature beautiful red cherries on top of a cake, the cake has to be any other color but red.  It wasn't easy for her. After our time together, she called me 13 times to question the red choice. 13 times, I reiterated the same thing: "The walls can't be yellow or orange. Since you don't like browns or grays, and blue, green, or purples feel cold to you, it's either red or white. The last time she called was to tell me how much she loved the red and, to her surprise, how much others loved the red. It was all she could talk about. A magnetic color relationship intended to open her mind and light up her world expanded her kitchen and mind, attracting more of the same. Cheers to living in love! Yours, G

When you experience a sunset shining through a window, the rich, deep, endless ocean blues, or get lost in the details of color strokes on a canvas. These moments are transcendent. They elevate your mind and expand your world with abundance. You're not just looking or thinking about something but feeling the fullness of life in something.That's precisely how you should feel every day of your life when you walk in through your front door. Using magnetic color dynamics to paint an inclusive palette of colors throughout your home is a potent source of beauty and energy in your life. It expands your sense of the world beyond what you see.That's not what most people do. They paint one room at a time.This is how so many people end up with neglected living rooms where they don't feel the fullness of life, let alone transcendence. No sign of life there. The living room was once alive, but now that the family room and kitchen have been updated, the rooms are no longer speaking to each other. Ever walk into a home that feels so right, but you can't pinpoint why? A space that makes you want to look around and know about those who dwell there? A home that isn't decorated or trendy but inter-connected in ways that inspire you. They make you want to feel the same about your space, your stuff, and your life. That's how it feels when we are aligned with the unconditional color baggage that lives inside us, cravings and attractions for colors we will always love. These are homes where rooms feel genuinely loved rather than stuck looking like time capsules, earmarked by specific color combinations that defined the time's decade, movement, or style. The color choices you have to make are not the ones you think!There's the unconditional color baggage that lives inside of you. Your unique blend of color experiences results in color relationships you are attracted to and crave for a reason. These are color relationships that you will need later in life and express in joyful ways. They will enrich your well-being and amplify your daily life to make life's constant change sweeter.Then there is the conditional color baggage, the kind that has you coming and going at the mercy of trends. Living with cherry wood cabinets that aged a lousy shade of "Ron Burgundy" and rooms neutrally decorated to look timeless but turn out to be intolerant of any other color. These homes never feel finished or full because trends change.Magnetic color dynamics turn painting into a transformative ritual with the emotional power to make everything in an environment beautiful and meaningful overnight, regardless of trends or circumstances, attracting more of the same.Once you surrender to attraction, choose connection over perfection, and aspiration over approval, the rest of the baggage works itself out. You won't be able to pass that living room without feeling its beautiful presence in your home and in your life.In the name of self-care!Yours,G

Some flavors are not meant to be served together. Some colors are not either. Sometimes you want flavors to stand on their own, Think steak dinner. Other times, you want to relish a perfectly balanced Acapella of flavors. Think Paella, Gumbo, or Chilly. Color chemistry and connection work the same way. When something doesn't taste right, you know it right away.

Choosing dark bedding because the dog lies on the bed is smart. Your wall color, not so much. If you spend your free time thinking about paint colors for your bedroom walls and can't find the right one, you are not looking for a neutral; you are looking for emotion.