The Decorologist | Paint Color Consultant | Home Staging
Home Staging and Paint Color Expert Kristie Barnett, draws on her background in psychology and education to provide design and color advice to residential projects.
I was on Pinterest early yesterday morning, and I noticed a popular pin about how to choosing paint colors. Since I am a Paint Color Consultant, I am always looking for new ideas about such things, of course. I went to the site and read a post by a blogger describing three strategies to use for choosing paint colors in your home.
I could probably do eDesigns full-time, if I chose to work solely from home. I love doing long-distance paint color and design, but I try to keep it to just a couple a week so that I can do more local (Nashville) designs and paint color consultations. Otherwise, I just might stay in my pajamas everyday blogging and doing e-designs!
The cool thing about this edesign is that this is the second home I have worked on with this awesome client. The first was for her musician son’s condo near Music Row in Nashville. Soon thereafter, she and her husband bought a second home on the coast of Florida and asked if I could work on a design long-distance. The Florida home looked like many typical beach homes – lots and lots of ceramic tile floors and slightly sterile decor. [Read more...]
The bulk of what I do is Paint Color Consultations. Something just hit me the other day and made me kinda laugh out loud (sitting by myself like a psycho). As many neutral paint colors that I specify for clients’ homes, I have NEVER used a neutral paint color in my own homes.
My Breakfast Nook
Sometimes in Paint Color Consultations, I suggest a dark paint color for a ceiling in certain rooms. Most people think that paint colors for ceilings should always be light, right? Dark paint colors for ceilings used to be a hard sell, but luckily I’ve built up enough street cred that most believe me now when I say a dark painted ceiling won’t come down on your head.
Because that’s what most people are concerned with – that a dark paint color will make the ceiling appear lower. In a relatively small room, when the walls are painted light or neutral, a dark painted ceiling actually recedes. Think of it like a night sky that goes on and on. Here’s a recent before-and-after, if you still don’t believe me: [Read more...]
I’ve been running mad this week following last week’s beach vacation, and I’m headed out this morning for a Speed Staging. I thought I’d share an email I received last week along with some “after” photos that came from an online client who consulted with me long distance on a virtual kitchen design.
There are few things that can give away the age of your home, or the date of your decorating, like how you paint out that trey ceiling. I recently did a Staging Consultation for a Nashville Realtor who was about to list a home to sell. This was the first thing you saw upon entry into the home:
Dining Room Before
As a professional paint color consultant, I’m always learning more and more about color – either through experience or training. About a week ago, I finished up some color training that focused on Sherwin-Williams paint colors and passed the certification test with a big fat A!!!
As many of you who follow The Decorologist on Facebook or Twitter may know, it was a big week for me! I was thrilled to be notified that I had received the 2013 Real Estate Staging Association (RESA) award for Best Staging of North America! I waited until my award arrived in the mail to write this post:
Ballard Designs is one of my favorite online sources for my decorating clients. You might say it's a lighter, more feminine version of Pottery Barn. Prettier and more colorful, but of similar price and quality as good ole PB. Ballard Designs features beautiful wall colors as a background to their products, and here are some you might be interested in knowing! Here's one of my personal favs:
I've used Benjamin Moore's Winterwood in several projects this year – it's a great super-neutral that works great in somewhat contemporary spaces. It is not quite as "fresh" as it appears in the photo above, however – it's a bit more grayed down than this.
I work with multiple clients every week helping them establish color palettes for their home. Some people may think that paint color consultants/specialists have a few pre-established color palettes that they pull out, any of which will work in a given home.
Color Palette by The Decorologist
That may be true for some in this field, but it's certainly not the way I operate. Determining what is NOT changing in a client's home is very important, as that influences what options are available going forward. Part of my job is knowing what colors and color combinations are current, or on-trend, but that's not to say that those colors will truly work in any setting. I am always dealing with pre-existing finishes and furnishings that must be part of the overall equation in order to make the space feel right.
Just SOME of the blues I've used in design projects this year
Let's say a client loves blue and wants that incorporated in the color palette. I can usually make that happen, but different clients may need different blues based on what's already a part of their existing space. Knowing WHICH blue will work in a given space is the puzzle I solve during my color consultations. Below is a color palette that I worked on with a client yesterday – I started working with her over two years ago, when we established a couple of the colors you see below (the two blues) in a couple of her rooms. She told me yesterday that she had read a recent article I wrote for The Tennessean about looking at the "big picture" and decorating in the right order, so now she wanted to build on those colors to finish out her home in a complete color palette with good flow.
Client Color Palette
The color scheme you see above is roughly layed out in relation to the flow of the rooms in her home. The neutral you see will be in the entrance to her home, the light blue is in her living room/dining room (from two years ago), the darker blue is in her kitchen (from two years ago), the lighter green will be in her bedroom/bath with the off-white going on several furniture pieces, and the dark green will be in her hall bathroom. This color palette works with her existing furnishings and finishes, which is my #1 priority.
This image that I posted at the beginning of this article is an Inspiration Board I put together last night using her color palette, but which different furnishings just for fun. This might be the direction I would go in if we were starting from scratch, which we aren't. Regardless of whether you are using what you have or starting from scratch, the development of a cohesive, on-trend color palette requires a vision for the "big picture" or the finished look of a space.
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