Home Painters Chicago IL

With Expert: Dewey Sadka
President, Dewey Color System® and Color Marketing Group Chairholder, he holds patents on color systems for both consumers and industry centered on the language of colors. Sadka has been featured in more than 40 national magazines.

Q. We have a 4-year old house with white walls throughout. We want to paint it so it will have some charm inside our house; I want simple colors that will fit my taste.

A. So you want charming use of colors! I don't know your taste, but the word "simple" implies pure colors -- versus rich colors, and your word "charm" gives me the sense you might like pastels.

So pick your favorite pastel colors from the following: sky blue, mint green, pale yellow, lavendar, pale pink, salmon, peach, periwinkle and spring green (a pastel shade of lime green). Since these colors are from the same family you can choose as many as you wish to make your own palette. The only rule is to make sure you like them!

Now assign one of your palette colors to a room -- by matching it to the furniture in that room -- or just because you like that color in the room. You'll find this blend of colors will flow from one room to another -- generating a different mood in each. You will have turned your home into a beautiful, spiritual rainbow!

One final thought. To unify all your rooms, paint your molding, window sills and your doors a high gloss white, which will give it crisp contemp...

“Do-it-yourself” has become “DIY.” Target is democratizing design, women’s magazines break from runways to run issues dedicated solely to interior fashions, and clichés of paint brush wielding, HGTV watching moms have replaced the soap opera viewing, bonbon eating set of the 1980s.

The country is in the throes of a collective lust for design. And while we don’t all want to actually do it ourselves, we do want our homes to reflect ourselves. We want people to walk in and have a sense of who we are and what we’re about. And the easiest way to impart these ideas is the one we seem to have the biggest problem with: color.

But finding and living with colors we really love can be easy and even fun. Aimee Desrosier, a member of The Color Marketing Group Consultants Bureau and a Color Forecaster for California Paints says, “We all coordinate color everyday. It’s almost like makeup––it pays to get a little information and instruction.” Plus, she says, “There are a lot of tools that do it for you and still give you an opportunity for flexibility.”

Step 1: Getting to Know You
The link between our personalities and color preferences is muddy with outside influence. Desrosier says color confusion starts with information overload, and the often paid for mis-recommendations of home design celebrities. Trends get in the way of what we know we like, and trying to fit colors in with existing furniture, cabinetry, floors or woodwork makes it all worse.

Thankfully though, the unlikely merging of technology, psychoanalysis and style helps guide us through a rainbow of possible color disasters. Pittsburgh Paints launched the Voice of Color “Color Sense Game” . “It doesn’t just show consumers what colors work well together,” says Pittsburgh Paints’ Artistic Director Josette Buisson, a Color Marketing Group chairholder. “It creates an individual color identity based on that person’s psychological and behavioral make-up. This provides meaning and inspires confidence in their color decisions.”

Your answers to seven questions determine your personality and related color preferences. Would you rather vacation on a sailboat, a beach, the Grand Canyon? Do you prefer the taste of cakes, blueberries, peppers? How would your friends describe you? Your result shows a series of colors that work together, and reveals the color palettes for other personalities. Look at them all and see how right they were about your favorites. There’s also the Dewey Color System . Choose your favorite and least favorite colors and the...

Trend watchers see colors ranging from lilac mauve to cool olive, with purple most prevalent, and patterns varying from groovy psychedelic to crisp country. Metallics and neutrals are still in, but soft contemporary is out, and “Love That Pink” is a new banner color.

Michelle Lamb, co-founder and chairman of Marketing Directions, Inc., senior editor of The Trend Curve and contributor to Accessory Merchandising, says today's top palettes represent "a turning point for color" that "makes a bold statement and says, ‘Look at me!’”

Lamb points to six color palettes and notes the returning importance of the color purple.

Porcelain Pales: Even though these are the palest of the forecast, they are still much more saturated than any pastels we’ve seen in five years” said Lamb, adding that one of the most significant pale colors will be lemon mist.

“Lemon mist is influenced deeply by grey and green, so it’s a little bit edgy and a little bit complex at the same time. That’s an unusual combination that’s going to make this color one of the most popular in the forecast.”

Natural Mid-values: These “prove that complex colors are not necessarily sleepy ones,” said Lamb. These colors include washed denim that will have “undertones of red” as well as lilac mauve.

Mythological Mid-values: Lavish and richly saturated colors. “Each one of these looks like it could be an historic version of some centuries old color,” said Lamb.

Tranquil Deeps: The most saturated range of colors in the forecast. “Cool olive leans towards country green,” said Lamb of one of these deep colors. “This is a tone that allows it to partner with navy and crimson red in a nod to retro-80’s combinations that does not necessarily mean that we will repeat 1980s patterns.”

Primary School: These colors provide “contrasting energy.” One of them, laser lime, has a variety of uses. “Regardless of the hue, the value or the saturation, there are few colors that cannot be paired with this tangy green,” said Lamb. “Think about using it anytime you need to give color a lift.”

Glossy Brights: "The most flamboyant palette,” said Lamb. “A palette that suggests neons without the extreme intensity.” The pink in this palette, Love That Pink, is “as clear and specific a color as you can get.” Lamb calls it the standard-bearer of the color group.

“There is ple...