Color is Perceived through Relationships

I recently worked with a couple on their kitchen remodel, who also happen to be friends. They are extremely talented with a home that truly reflects their family's spirit: relaxed, organic, artsy, warm, and comfortable. The kitchen is the last space in the home to be remodeled. They've done it all themselves (including raising the entire house and building a new foundation!) in the 15 years that they've lived there, while having and raising their two daughters. Doing it all themselves, of course they've never worked with someone like me before.

Clearly, the hour that I spent at their home with them was a frustrating process for me. I was able to acknowledge it, and we all were able to laugh at it too. The source of my frustration?

I was there to assist them with selecting their Forbo Marmoleum floor, kitchen counter top, backsplash or not, and paint color to work with the new bamboo cabinets he was making himself. The new kitchen will be significantly more open to the living room which has lots of fir trim (reads as orange in color world), wood floors, and Benjamin Moore's Henderson Buff on the living room walls. I brought my samples, ready to create their palette, and make the necessary decisions. Since I like to be efficient and work quickly anyway, I was delighted to do what I do best and also help my friends!

Well, no matter how many times I had asked for the real samples of VG fir and bamboo that would be used and felt that we had a clear plan so I could get to work, I was not seeing what I needed to see. I had communicated in the days before we met that I would need those samples to be able to help them. Yet, when I was there at the house, they did not have them and also couldn't seem to locate them. Instead, they were focusing on asking me their questions about what color to paint, etc.

My frustration mounted as every time I was asked a question, I had to respond, "I really can't answer you until I see everything." While my frustration mounted, I was able to see that my paradigm and how I do my work was foreign to them.

Did I feel that they were ignoring my request? No. I knew I wasn't truly being heard, but it's because they do not have the same experience I do with the energy color produces and how to manipulate it. The only way I know how to manipulate it is to create it and experience it.

Eventually, when I voiced my frustration of not feeling heard, samples were produced! We got out the Marmoleum samples and began to experience them with the fir and bamboo samples. Of course, the clear winners emerged as my friends felt what resonated with them most. As is usually the case when we just take the time to be present with our choices, THE right choice shines through.

We continued with my process selecting the counter top and paint color too. Everyone was in agreement that it was the perfect balance of color and neutrality to provide for a clean, uncluttered, and natural aesthetic. Building off of the predominance of warm colors already present in their home, choosing cool finishes for the flooring and paint in the kitchen were obvious to me. Of course, through the process, those emerged as the natural choice for them too when they saw it and experienced it in relation to the bamboo, fir, and existing Henderson Buff.

Choosing Stormy Monday to reflect the Aubergine Marmoleum created a very light and highly energized relationship with all of those warm yellow and orange tones. Also, Henderson Buff having so much yellow present in it, certainly brought to the forefront the purple depth in the Stormy Monday...soft and incredibly natural! Beautiful. We all saw it and experienced it together, and Stormy Monday was the clear winner! I left my friends feeling confident of how perfect their kitchen is going to be. A true reflection of their home and family's spirit!

That was a week or two ago... I heard from them today that now they are considering changing the paint color because they fear it's too gray.

I must say, again, the difference in our paradigms and how we experience this became obvious again. To me, that color is not gray. Sure on its own, when I look at the swatch, especially with white next to it, it looks like a pretty bland gray.

BUT, I saw it next to Henderson Buff (which is on the living room walls) and bamboo and fir, and I know from that experience that when it's painted on the walls and the kitchen is completed and put back together with bamboo cabinets, that Stormy Monday is going to be an incredibly soft and natural purple resonating and vibrating away in the most delicious way that Mother Nature has created for us and physics explains to us. The experience of color is all about its relationship to what else is present.

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The Dwelling Palettes

Stucco Italiano & Color in Space have created eight customized color palettes to make using their product and designing your home that much simpler.

Inspired by the abodes where this sustainable, authentic, Italian plaster sings, we invite you to visit our dwellings and choose what feels like yours:

Bungalow: organic & calm
Cabana: cool & refreshing
Cabin: warm & cozy
Cottage: cute & homey
Estate: elegant & refined
Hut: sunny & natural
Penthouse: polished & bold
Villa: rich & earthy

Each palette consists of twelve Benjamin Moore® paint colors in 4” swatches and no colors are repeated. Therefore, by acquiring all eight palettes, you will receive 96 of Color in Space’s most tried and true Benjamin Moore® paint colors.

Using the Color in Space approach means that the twelve colors in the palette may be used as the roadmap for your entire interior. Don’t just think of the swatches as paint! One color could work as your sofa, another as the rug, and another as a dominant color in a piece of art. Don’t stop there, use them to guide the tile on the backsplash in your kitchen too! You will then have the confidence that the color you choose from the palette for the paint will certainly flow with the other decor items and architectural finishes you have. The twelve colors complement each other and overall create a very harmonious atmosphere.

Dwelling Palette Pricing

$25 each
4 for $80
all 8 for $150

Color Theory 101

• Color is Light
Without light, we cannot see color. When we see color, it is light reflected back to us. The local color is what we call a color’s appearance in natural day or white light. As light conditions change, so does the appearance of the color.

Knowing this, you always want to look at color on the same plane it will be applied. Light reflects very differently off of a horizontal vs. a vertical surface. The only time to look at a color flat on a tabletop is if you are painting that tabletop...or perhaps the floor. It will look quite different if you hold the color vertically, as it will be on your wall.

• Color is Energy
Since color is light, and light is a form of energy with its own frequency and wavelength, thinking of color through a scientific or physics lens is often more helpful. This energy (color) is not static. It fluctuates and changes, reflecting the light conditions at the time and responding to the other colors (energies) surrounding it.

• Dimensions of Color
Every color can be looked at in three ways:
1. hue: the only dimension that most people think of as color, which is why “color” has become synonymous with “hue”; the primary (red, yellow, blue) and secondary (orange, green, purple) colors
2. saturation: the intensity of a color affected by adding gray or the color’s complement. Tertiary colors are typically low in saturation. Does it feel soft and muted or vibrant and intense?
3. value: the lightness or darkness of a color. A tint can be made by adding a hue to white. A shade can be made by adding black to a hue.

• Complementary Colors (warm & cool)
Every color only has one complement. The complementary pairs are red & green, blue & orange, yellow & purple. Each of the primary colors’ complements is a combination of the other two primary colors. Complementary colors make a complete whole, and what they complete is the spectrum of light: between the two colors in the complementary pair, all hues are present.

In each complementary pair, one of the colors is classified as a warm color and the other a cool color. When complementary colors are seen together, they actually enhance each other’s energy and appear brighter and cleaner. We often say that they appear to sing together. The colors energetically lift each other and are more luminous. (This is the same science behind Ellen Kennon’s Full Spectrum Paint and what accounts for its depth and beauty!)

We can create this same energetic enhancement by using a balance of warm and cool colors. Emily believes that this basic principle is what makes her color work unique and operating in a different dimension than just how her color designs look. Using a balance of warm and cool colors makes her color designs feel incredible because of the energy they produce together.

• Color is About Relationship
With the knowledge that color is light and energy, it is then so obvious how it is impacted by all of the other colors around it. They do work together...either to their benefit or detriment! All of the colors in a space need to be considered when making a color decision. Not just the paint! Cabinetry, flooring, decor, and other architectural finishes all impact how a paint’s color will appear. Even the most skilled color consultants need to actually see those relationships and if they work together or not. When we are able to isolate only the colors that will be present and see their relationship as a whole, we can then be assured that when it is painted on a larger scale, it will look and feel the same.

Knowing this, the last thing you want to do is make a judgment about a color when it is in the process of being painted! While paint companies encourage you to buy samples of their paint to test it (this sells lots of paint for them!), we know that this is the worst advice for getting an accurate idea of how a color will truly read once it is the only existing color. The color(s) you are painting over, even the blue painter’s tape, drastically affects your new color choice’s appearance.

Make your choice and stick with it! Without a doubt, from the moment you choose a color (isolating a swatch in relationship to the other finishes in your space) until the paint job is done and everything put back in order, you will not be able to accurately tell how your new color choice will look and feel. It is a leap of faith!

Using our process for building a palette is all that we depend upon for selecting a color. Even Emily tries not to look when it’s in process. Emotionally she still reacts to how it looks and feels when it’s in process, even though she KNOWS it won’t be that way when it’s done. In fact, looking at it while it is in process of being painted sets one up for a crazy-making emotional experience. We don’t know what we are choosing because it’s being impacted by what won’t exist when the paint job is done.

Trust the Color in Space process...

• Color is About Feeling
When we approach color as a phenomenon of science and physics, it is so easy to accept it as much more than how it looks. We definitely feel the energy color emits, and we can manipulate that with its relationship to other colors.

• The Continuum of your Palette
When creating a palette, think of the distance between the lightest and the darkest color if you were to organize the colors by this quality. Having a great distance will create a highly contrasted palette, while a shorter distance usually results in a more natural feeling.

• Dark Recedes, Light Comes Forward
Think of a painting...the darkest colors push back, and the lightest come forward. While we always hear that dark colors make a space smaller, and this may be true visually, energetically we experience the exact opposite. Since white and light colors approach, energetically we experience those colors making a space feel smaller. Light colors are more reflective, but they feel as if they are advancing. Dark colors in a space energetically push the walls back and can create a feeling of being held in a larger space.

• White is Not Our Friend
In working with relationships of colors, using a balance of warm and cool colors to enhance the complementary nature and energy, we notice that white is not on the color wheel. White is devoid of color. Therefore, there is nothing in it to increase the vibration and energy of any other color. White only provides contrast. And often that contrast actually fights the “color” we are choosing.

Does this mean that you can’t have white trim? You can definitely have trim that feels white in contrast to your other colors, but what often feels best is a soft, light, warm gray.

Doesn’t my ceiling have to be white? Only if you want it to energetically feel like it’s coming down on top of you...

We're Here to Empower YOU!

Color in Space realizes it’s time to share its knowledge and know-how with ALL of you. It really doesn’t have to be that difficult to create beautiful spaces with COLOR!

Here is some brief and general information—rules of thumb, you may say--about color and its architectural application, which Emily Lauderback has captured in working with close to a thousand individuals. This information represents the foundation of what Emily and other Color in Space consultants use in their work. When we accept and follow these guidelines, the results are always natural, harmonious, and just generally feel good.

If this doesn’t empower you to do it yourself, a Color in Space consultant can always facilitate this process for you in the SPACE Design Center or other participating retail locations. The Dwelling Palettes (available for sale here and in the SPACE Design Center) were created using this methodology and are another way to benefit from Color in Space’s expertise.

Emily is also available through her business, emily lauderback design & color consultation, for on-site home and commercial work. Contact her directly through her website.