For the past nine years I have been helping people select colors to paint various rooms in their homes... but that was easy compared to selecting the colors to paint my own home this past spring, a problem I recently learned I shared with my fellow Color Consultants.  Why so difficult, you may ask? I believe it is because we want it to be perfect. Yeah, they say it's only paint, and you get a do over, BUT the colors we select surround us every day. We know it is the most effective way to make an impact when redecorating our homes, our refuge. It has to be perfect!

For this Blog I would like to start with my most recent color conundrum... selecting colors for my home.

I needed to paint my open plan main floor while keeping my window treatments, furniture and area rugs etc. Working at the Benjamin Moore Color Station in Paramus Park, I had 400 color samples at my finger tips. I narrowed it down to eight colors from the Benjamin Moore "Affinity" and "Color Stories" collections. I  had to do exactly what I told customers to do, take the samples home and see how they looked in the lighting in my home.

Lighting and exposure (North, South, East, West) profoundly effects colors. I will write more about that in a future Blog. Suffice to say, I thought the color I selected in my north facing living/dining room could be too gray, but "Crystaline" turned out to be the perfect blue/green.

I agonized (even after the two-story wall was painted) over the purple on my accent wall... but "Instinct" (a medium to dark purple) is so rich I now love it! "Oat Straw" (a rich gold/brown) in my south facing office/den is my favorite.. also a favorite of my customers at the Color Station. My kitchen is a full spectrum color called "Budding Green". All these colors flow beautifully from one room to the other. I feel as though I have moved into a new house!