 Color Me
Beautiful
Pour on the pizzazz
by Priscilla Kohutek
It’s a big, bright Technicolor world,and you’re missing all the fun if you’re stuck in a house with boring beige or hospital white walls. Now, don’t get the wrong idea — I’m not saying that your house should have the shock value of the Sunday comics. Some people just can’t live with a lot of color, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have an interesting color scheme. Let’s do the homework …
Decide what you want to accomplish: a calm, quiet setting; a stimulating effect; a tropical look; a chic, sophisticated living room or a wildly romantic bedroom. Then gather color concepts that fit with the feeling you want.
Inspiration can come from many sources — an upholstery fabric, a painting, photos from an exotic holiday, home decorating magazines like San Antonio At Home, your favorite dress or necktie or a beautiful garden in full bloom. But here’s a little word to the wise: Don’t paint a room in a color that you’d never wear. For example, if your skin blends right into certain gold or yellow tones, avoid them. You “wear” the color around you, so pick something that looks great on you.
The good news is that you don’t even have to leave home to get started on your paint project. With the color tools on many of the paint companies’ Web sites, you can view a million colors and play at painting different rooms to see what they will actually look like on the walls. Even if you have a preconceived idea about your color selections, you’ll be surprised by the possibilities. White isn’t just white, and beige isn’t just beige — thank goodness — and do you know there are different shades
of black?
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