Color Primer

Written by Jennifer Sergent Photography by Carrie Russell

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It’s a truism that painting a room is the easiest and cheapest way of boosting the color quotient in your home. But that advice isn’t as simple as it seems. “Paint chips don’t work,” says Sally Fretwell, a Richmond, VA, color expert who created her own line of paints – with samples on large paint sticks. A store’s fluorescent lighting doesn’t help either for determining which shade is best. And people wrongly assume that the colors on a paint strip are variations of one another. They aren’t. Without proper guidance, Fretwell says, “it’s this mental torture that people go through” when choosing colors for their home.

That’s why we asked several interior designers who are known for their use of color to give us their best tips for infusing color into a room – and name the biggest mistakes they see people make when left to their own devices.

Fretwell suggests using a tinted primer to bring out the surface paint’s truest shade, and room lighting with a subtle yellow or pink cast. Read on for more great advice.

Nothing Jarring

Dana Tydings of Laytonsville, MD, sees many homeowners who maintain an extremely neutral palette, and when they try to add color on top, it looks forced. Instead, she says, use grades of color, starting with the lightest color on the wall. With neutrals, add something subtle, such as gray-green next to beige. Don’t add any color that would be a jarring transition from the basic color scheme.

Also, for those afraid to go too far with color, take a color you love and ask for it in half-formula first. “You can always go darker. You can’t go lighter,” Tydings says. If you really want saturated color, use it in small doses in a powder room, dressing room, or entry foyer.

Other inventive ways to add color:

• Paint the baseboards.
• When using tile or vinyl squares on a floor, try one color for the field and another for the border.
• With seating, upholster the frame in one color, such as chocolate brown, and the cushions in another, such as camel.

Warm and Inviting

Justine Sancho says she has come into projects having to tone down rooms people have painted based on a small chip – without testing it first. On the other extreme, clients may have painted one accent wall without carrying that color throughout the house. “You really need to work on rooms as a group so the colors have a relationship,” she says. With a red wall, for example, “you need to have red in the space before it, even if it’s [only] a red lamp base.”

For the most part, the Potomac, MD, designer sticks with warm colors such as orange and gold in her interiors. Cool colors “are exactly what they [sound like] – they’re sophisticated but they don’t invite you in.”

Regardless, she says, “if you’re drawn to a certain color and it flatters you, you feel good around it, then that’s a color that should be incorporated into your home.”

A Little Goes a Long Way

Barry Dixon, the Warrenton,VA-based designer whose commissions are worldwide, says the biggest mistake people make is going toward one extreme or the other: “They overestimate or underestimate a color,” he says. You might like a swatch of colorful wallpaper, for example, but when it’s stretched over a 30-foot wall, the effect is much stronger than intended.

Dixon offers many affordable – and creative – ideas for injecting color into a room on a proper scale.

• Colored glass tends to be plentiful at flea markets, and it can change the tone of a room instantly. “When the light shines through it, the color intensifies,” he explains. “It can become like jewelry in a house. It’s an easy, quick-fix investment.”
• If you want to keep your color options open, place vessels of colored water in a space, and for the cost of food coloring, you can change the palette seasonally.
• In a neutral room, choose one color to repeat throughout via art and accessories, instead of many colors. The impact of that one color becomes much stronger.
• Throws are a great way to use color, because you can fold them up on the arm of a chair for a hint of hue, or stretch them over the back of a sofa to give that color a bigger presence.
• Window sheers don’t have to be white or cream. With tinted sheers, the sunlight will bathe a room in that color during the day, but at night it returns to normal.
• “I like to put really strong color in a task room,” such as a laundry or mud room, he says. “It makes you feel cheerful even in the drudgery of an everyday task.”

Wrapped in Color

Baltimore Designer Dan Proctor says a lot of people go wrong when they use small doses of many colors scattered throughout a room. Pick one or two shades at most and stick with them, he says. Add impact by wrapping sofa upholstery and the wall behind it in the same color, “so [the color] sort of steps in off the walls and makes the color more intimate.”

Proctor also suggests buying antiques that might not have great value, and painting them in a bold color, which can give the pieces new life. He mentions a 1920s camel-back sofa with exaggerated lines, which he found and upholstered in a vivid apple green.

If you are undecided about color, consider your personality, he says. Are you bold and outspoken, or quiet and contemplative? Choose colors in accordance. “I’m a great believer that houses have to take on the personality of the people in them,” he says.

Pattern, Tones, and Texture

Fiona Newell Weeks, the Easton, MD, designer who is known for her bold strokes of color, has a singular pet peeve: “Whenever everything is the exact same shade, it gives you no depth, no interest, nothing to move the eye,” she says. “It becomes boring.” Play with tones and texture, she counsels. And if you want to add pattern, include both linear designs and patterns that flow. “It can’t all be stripes and checks.”

Some might protest that once an investment is made in upholstered furniture, it would be too hard to put color on large pieces in the room. Not so, Weeks says – staple a new fabric onto removable seats of dining chairs or put a seasonal slip cover on a club chair.

If you’re worried that “there’s no going back” after choosing a strong upholstery, don’t be. “It’s so easy to tame it back,” Newell says. “Neutral it out” with softer anchoring colors, such as a sisal rug or a neutral wall color.

Picking the Right Paint

Beth Boggs and Renate Eschmann are on the front lines of helping people choose color: Boggs is the design manager for Potomac Paint & Decorating Center in Chantilly, VA, and Eschmann is a third-generation owner of Color Wheel in McLean, VA. Both agree that almost everyone gets nervous about color, and they’ve got great advice about what to ask for when you walk into a paint and design store like theirs.

Don’t ask what colors are popular, Boggs says. What other people are asking for has no bearing on what you need in your own home. “It has to match their existing items, or it doesn’t work and they’re unhappy.” Instead, she says, bring in artwork, rugs, swatches of upholstery or window treatments, and go from there.

Paint should be the last decision you should make – after you’ve chosen everything else for your room, Eschmann says. “We can tweak the paint to enhance the fabric,” she explains. “Paint color can literally be changed with a drop in the bucket.”

And if you’re faced with choosing more than one paint color, Eschmann adds, Benjamin Moore’s new Affinity line, in addition to a collection of classic colors from Farrow & Ball, not only offers a smaller selection, but every color in each line will go with one another.

Boggs also notes that Benjamin Moore’s saturated Aura line will ensure that you need only two coats of a deep chocolate brown or scarlet red, as opposed to six or eight coats with another brand.

Both designers stress that in-store color consultations are readily available, and although there are small fees for a house call, it’s money much better spent than going it on your own by purchasing endless quarts and sample pots to try yourself.