**Click Image to Enlarge**
This Ossining residence recently underwent a major renovation that expanded the kitchen, added a family/music room on the first floor & a new master bath & office on the second floor. So what happens when you remodel? Your contractor says, "So have you picked a paint color?" Oh the horror, right? Not really, just call me.
The first floor was tricky...really tricky! Every room opened into another & in certain parts of the first floor, you could see 2 or 3 paint colors at once. The client already picked the foyer color, Martha Stewart's "Camel Coat". This was great since it was a neutral & it needed to cover a double story hallway. We started in the dining room since she already had chairs that were fully upholstered. She had many cayenne-chili pepper red swatches on the wall, but the upholstery did not have an ounce of it. If she really wanted to pick out a red tone from the chairs, it would have been a pinky salmon & she was definately not into that. Then she threw me a curve ball by showing me a swatch for the sofa that was going in the living room. It was in the Robin's Egg family. Oh Boy...now what. "Okay Rena think", I heard myself say more than a few times...and then it clicked.
Well Red is out I explained...why don't we get a little nutty & go for a rich dark chocolate, daring I know, but highly sophisticated. If you've been to my store, you know how much I love the combination of Robin's Egg & Dark Brown. "Okay, we're gettin' there". "Roasted Coffee Beans" was the perfect dark brown, so we're good on that. Now for the kitchen. Knowing that the sofa across the hall from the dining room was going to be in a Robin's egg color, we opted to try variations of that color for the kitchen. But wait, we also had to take into consideration the buttercream cabinets. After a few samples, we finally decided on "Catalina Blue". This color is gorgeous!
And now the living room. I knew how much this client loved that Red Hot Chili pepper color...and although really risky, I told her to go for it. The Robin's Egg sofa would look striking against it. We decided on "Tucson Red".
The hardest part? The sun room. This room is almost all windows, narrow & doesn't have much exposed wall. It is located right past the living room & needed to balance the volume of the red. To do a pale neutral would almost make the room disappear, in my opinion. I was feeling a green color, but it had to be something happy. To do something toned down just looked muddy & slightly depressing. Although the customer is not into pastels, we did try a few swatches of a more sagey color, but to me, they all fell flat. Then she showed me a picture out of a magazine that featured this beautiful apple green color. This is what I envisioned, so we went with "Warren Acres". She is still not convinced on the color, but it is in fact growing on her. Of course it is only paint, but I told her I had to take a picture of it before she changed her mind.
Stay tuned for how we will tackle fabric & furniture selections for a teal, chili pepper, chocolate & apple green ensemble. Can't wait!
