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Colors can agitate, colors can make you hungry, feel more romantic, make your food taste better, help you learn, wake you up or help you sleep.
It's important for everyone to agree on a color in a house. This makes it more difficult the more people live in a space.
One of my clients had a beautiful painting in their living room that they loved. She asked me to come over and select a color for the walls. She had selected some peach colors already feeling that it highlighted the flowers in the painting. I reached for my paint deck to begin the process. However, she stopped me and asked me to choose from the colors she had chosen. I selected the best of those and she painted it that weekend.
Very soon afterwards, her roommate stopped talking to her. Several months later, the roommate finally divulged that she just couldn't stand the peach walls, that she hated it and it was the source of their lack of communication. My client remembered that I wasn't in love with the peach color she had selected, and asked me to come back. We looked through my paint deck and found a calmer, softer gold color that actually highlighted the painting even more than the peach had. The room was painted that weekend and their relationship was back on the path to healing. They started talking again and it was a much happier household.
It's very important to select colors that make people feel good and encourage them be more at ease in their environments. If there's peace at home, it's easier to go out into the world. If home is crazy, it makes facing the outside world much harder.
Embrace some color and see how many friends you can make.
Monday, July 20, 2009
paint cures 911 nightmare
Paint has such a huge affect on us in so many ways. Paint is all around us and we take it for granted but it does affect how we think and how we feel. I had a very profound experience with a child. The child was 9 years old and scared to sleep by herself. She was sleeping in her parents room. She had been 4 or 5 when 911 hit and watching the buildings fall had a huge impact on her. Her mom had previously done her room, she wanted it to be a fun and exciting room for her child. She used bright colors and wide stripes. It was a very active room. The problem was that her child had dyslexia. The bright colors were antagonizing her vision, and the wide stripes were giving the child nightmares. The child couldn't focus on the stripes properly and they appeared to always be shaking, and were a constant reenactment for her of a bad memory. Yellow is a great color to help with learning. We selected a soft calm yellow. When I selected the color, the mother said...."oh that's almost the color in the living room and she practically lives in there, she won't come in here at all" The child had gravitated toward her cure on her own. Mom painted the bedroom and they all were able to sleep in their own rooms.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Your House Whisperer
Every house has a story to tell. Not just about its own history but about its owners, past and present. Every detail liked or disliked says something about the owner. The house is a mirror of its owners
I have been nicknamed the “House Whisperer” because of the way that I look at design and its relationship with clients. The first thing I do is “listen to the space”, looking at the original architecture of the building and other historical information. Then I look at how the client lives in a home. Just as every home has a story, every item in a room has a story, and gives more information about the client. “Whispering” to a house is about balancing the needs of a building with the needs of those who live inside.
I look at the colors, textures, accessories to get a feel for the client’s personality. I look at the client to see if the client is comfortable in that space. Every room emotes a mood, we look and listen to see what that is, has it been accomplished and is it one that is enjoyed by the owner and the house.
Sometimes, the house makes certain demands. I once had a client that struggled to find the right hardware for her kitchen. It was easy to find hardware she liked, but the kitchen still wasn’t happy with the choices. When I found the hardware that the home ‘whispered’ to me, it became the instant favorite of the house and the client.
It is important, to take into account the needs, desires and style of the client. The goal is make the house comfortable for them first and foremost. The house is a mirror of the client and we want to look in that mirror and to see the best attributes of each member of the house, to create a space that is comfortable, peaceful, and restorative for that client. How is a place restorative? Well, there are many ways, the easiest to explain perhaps is color. Some people like loud bold colors, if you put them in a quiet colored room, it will unconsciously disturb them and vice versa. The trick is to find the color that gives them joy and makes them feel more like themselves. The same can be said for styles of furniture. Another way is in the amount of “stuff” people have around. Everyone has different comfort levels there. One person may like things really ornate, with lots of details and lots of accessories, another person may want it to be really modern and very sparse and there are lots of comfort zones in between. This is another aspect we look at when assessing a house. There are many more but these are just a few examples.
Sometimes when creating a design, we will just look at the room and imagine what could be in it. I think this is one of the ways the nickname really came into being. I would be sitting quietly looking at the room, as intently as you would listen to your best friend’s secret and come up with the idea that would work in the space. When asked, the best way I could explain it was that “it was what the room wanted”. Hence the name, house whisperer.
Being an interior designer isn’t just about making things pretty. It’s part sociologist, part historian, part psychologist. Sometimes I think being psychic wouldn’t hurt. It really is about listening to the client, not just with your ears but with your heart. At Chasworth Place, we want your home to be a grand expression of you and If, as Shakespeare wrote, “Life is but a stage”, it is our mission to provide the backdrop for you to create life’s great performance.
I have been nicknamed the “House Whisperer” because of the way that I look at design and its relationship with clients. The first thing I do is “listen to the space”, looking at the original architecture of the building and other historical information. Then I look at how the client lives in a home. Just as every home has a story, every item in a room has a story, and gives more information about the client. “Whispering” to a house is about balancing the needs of a building with the needs of those who live inside.
I look at the colors, textures, accessories to get a feel for the client’s personality. I look at the client to see if the client is comfortable in that space. Every room emotes a mood, we look and listen to see what that is, has it been accomplished and is it one that is enjoyed by the owner and the house.
Sometimes, the house makes certain demands. I once had a client that struggled to find the right hardware for her kitchen. It was easy to find hardware she liked, but the kitchen still wasn’t happy with the choices. When I found the hardware that the home ‘whispered’ to me, it became the instant favorite of the house and the client.
It is important, to take into account the needs, desires and style of the client. The goal is make the house comfortable for them first and foremost. The house is a mirror of the client and we want to look in that mirror and to see the best attributes of each member of the house, to create a space that is comfortable, peaceful, and restorative for that client. How is a place restorative? Well, there are many ways, the easiest to explain perhaps is color. Some people like loud bold colors, if you put them in a quiet colored room, it will unconsciously disturb them and vice versa. The trick is to find the color that gives them joy and makes them feel more like themselves. The same can be said for styles of furniture. Another way is in the amount of “stuff” people have around. Everyone has different comfort levels there. One person may like things really ornate, with lots of details and lots of accessories, another person may want it to be really modern and very sparse and there are lots of comfort zones in between. This is another aspect we look at when assessing a house. There are many more but these are just a few examples.
Sometimes when creating a design, we will just look at the room and imagine what could be in it. I think this is one of the ways the nickname really came into being. I would be sitting quietly looking at the room, as intently as you would listen to your best friend’s secret and come up with the idea that would work in the space. When asked, the best way I could explain it was that “it was what the room wanted”. Hence the name, house whisperer.
Being an interior designer isn’t just about making things pretty. It’s part sociologist, part historian, part psychologist. Sometimes I think being psychic wouldn’t hurt. It really is about listening to the client, not just with your ears but with your heart. At Chasworth Place, we want your home to be a grand expression of you and If, as Shakespeare wrote, “Life is but a stage”, it is our mission to provide the backdrop for you to create life’s great performance.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
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