Websites Devoted to Color

 

Irwin Weiner ASID - Color is a gut-level, highly personal experience. I recommended "green" for a client's room, and saw his face turn into a contorted mask. "No way!" he said. "Anything green reminds me of hospital walls." One person's calm, energizing, positive color experience will mean disaster and horrors to another. When decorating, please yourself and choose colors you can live with day in, day out. But don't feel you have to stick with what's on the walls or in your furnishings. Some tips:

• Seasonal changes: Decorate with two color palettes a year - a spring/summer and a fall/winter scheme. Choose colors for furniture slipcovers, pillows, lampshades, and area rugs that give a lighter warm-weather feel and a darker, comfier cold-weather feel. It's good to shift the color palette and mood in your home.
• Wall impact: It's an old chestnut, but it's true that paint is the quickest way to decorate. You'll get huge impact if you paint your walls with color, color, color. I'm not a huge fan of accent walls, however. They tend to shrink the room and remind me of amateur room makeover shows on TV. Here's a lengthier blog post I wrote on Adding Color to Your Walls. Enjoy!
• Ceilings, too: I hate white ceilings in rooms with low ceilings and brightly painted walls (like putting a Tupperware lid on the room); paint walls and ceilings a unified color for bigger impact. Go a few shades lighter for the ceiling versus the wall color, but keep it unified and you'll be happier with the end results, I promise you.
• Love of color: There are blogs and other websites devoted to specific colors! If you're a fan of black and white, for instance, then go to Black and White Delight for inspiration! House of Turquoise may be your best bet if you're a fan of turquoise and all shades of blue. Go to the Decor by Color site, and you can select colors that suit your taste - or explore colors you may be timid about - in blogs and stores devoted to inspiring interior design based solely on color. This is a great way to get decorating ideas.

Enjoy this video of talented designer Karim Rashid talking about color - he's a huge fan of pink! - from TheHome.com.

 

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Man Cave Decorating: Trick Out All Work Spaces

RetroPlanet.com

Irwin Weiner ASID - Sometimes we turn a blind eye to decorating the male-oriented parts of any home, like the den, man cave/media room, basement, or garage. But why? Decorating makes any space more enjoyable to hang out in. Here's a RetroPlanet.com video on using some of their retro merchandise to decorate a garage, workshop, or barn into a more good-to-be-in environment. We liked the "filling station" theme for a retro garage, and accessories like metal paper towel dispensers, thermometers, clocks, and waste bins are practical ideas for anyone working on a car, bedding down a horse, or sharpening a lawn mower. Go antiquing or flea marketing to fill in the decor blanks and add authenticity to the mix, too. Bottomline: Don't neglect the man caves around your home or property; decorate to make all spaces more enjoyable for work and leisure.

 

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Men Love Home Decorating!

Gear Patrol

Jay Johnson - We're crazy about home improvements. Homeowners obsess with beauty, whether it's freshening up the look of a room or nipping into Home Goods to check out the latest shipment of accessories. Men love to get into the act, too. We know many who like to install their own heated floors, then repaint the walls. The end results are satisfying. We'd like to reward you for joining us in celebrating this DIY spirit. Post a comment - a sentence or two is fine - about WHY I LOVE TO DECORATE, we'll have a drawing at the end of Valentine's Day, Feb. 14, and the winner will get a gift code worth $75 off any purchase in the over 200 CSN Stores online; splurge on anything from a new pair of shoes to modern office furniture. Add a quick WHY I LOVE TO DECORATE comment right now - and good luck (to both men and women)!

We found this lots-of-fun video that perfectly captures the enthusiasm so many of us have for making a big difference in the appearance of our home. We salute all who decorate! (And go to Gear Patrol for a cool series of "male DIY" how-to posts.)

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Punches of Green

Peaceful Resources

Irwin Weiner ASID - I'm not alone thinking that this winter weather is going on far too long! It's time for spring, and so when we spotted this great video from Traditional Home - the iconic design magazine and style arbiter - we took heart that if we decorate with touches, splashes, and punches of green (any more decorating color nouns I might have missed?), we'll harken the advent of our favorite season. Just a few more weeks, and we'll get the real deal; in the meantime, enjoy TH's survey of top designers and showhouse rooms that use green.

Green furniture, anyone? These make us think spring, too!

 Alain Gilles for Qui Est Paul

Nusa Jelenec for Lago 

Rafael Simoes Miranda

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