Colours For Exteriors; What Not To Chose.

I just have to ask. What is with the apartment owner/manager’s love for a colour that I refer to as Dirty Diaper Beige?

I live in the South Granville neighbourhood of Vancouver where there are many rental apartment buildings. Recently I noticed that a building on the next street was being painted. I don’t normally see this building except when I drive through the lane to get into my parkade.

The new colour is one that makes my head want to explode and if I see it painted on one more building it just might happen.

Take a look for yourself.

Granted this building was no beauty when it was painted white with green trim, and this is an unflattering photo from the lane way, but why oh why did they have to chose this dirty, dead, awful beige?!!

There are so many better choices one could make. There are even better beige choices one could make. What really bothers me is that the expense of an exterior paint job is very high, in the tens of thousands of dollars. What I charge for one hour of my time (and yes if you give me carte blanche I can come up with something very nice in one hour) is a drop in the bucket, probably somewhere around 1- 2 percent! Depending on how much the paint company low balled the bid.

This is another beauty in my neighbourhood that was painted a few years ago. I really wish I had a before picture because this building actually looks worse after the paint job than it did before.

It’s a large building and the cost for this paint job must have been very high. They even went to the expense of getting new matching awnings. I know for a fact that the building manager chose these colours. Why? Because they are the apartment manager? Is that actually criteria for choosing colour? Apartment managers know how to manage apartments. As witnessed by the above photo, they don’t know much about how to bring out the best in a building through the correct choice and application of colour.

I have a phrase for this type of colour. I call it Dirty Diaper Beige.

You don’t have to hire me, but please hire a professional. As I’m sitting here writing this post and looking at the pictures I’ve inserted I realize these buildings actually look better in photos than they do in real life.

I don’t enjoy being hard on people regarding their colour choices and I really prefer not to write negative posts for all to read but honestly someone has got to speak out against this awful, depressing, lifeless colour.

Please please please, can we stop the spread of Dirty Diaper Beige. I’m pleading with all apartment building owners – hire a colour consultant the next time you’re going to have one of your buildings painted. The cost is nothing compared to the value.

There’s a greater point to this post, it’s about how colour affects people. If a building looks ugly then what kind of tenant are you going to attract. I know, I know, we’re living in 1% vacancy rate Vancouver, so people are going to have to take what they can get. However, even old buildings like these are becoming ridiculously expensive. Often just as expensive as a shiny new building that looks nice on the outside and clean on the inside.

Put colour into the hands of a professional. When there’s a problem with the pipes you hire a plumber. When it comes time to paint, you hire professional painters. So, when it comes time to chose colour hire an Architectural Colour Consultant. It’s really pretty simple.

Let’s make Vancouver Beautiful – Let’s make our Buildings as Beautiful as our surroundings. It can be done and you’d be amazed what beautiful buildings can do to lift people’s spirits.

Kora Sevier is an Architectural Colour Consultant based in Vancouver. She specializes in interior and exterior colour consultations for both residential and commercial clients. For more information, visit www.kcolour.com

 

Heritage House Kitchen Renovation

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Benjamin Moore, Harvey Maria, Hex tile

 

Hex tile. Contemporary and timeless

Renovating the kitchen of a heritage house requires a sense of balance. I’ve seen a number of hundred year old houses where the owners have done a full on reno of their kitchens and in the process have created one uber modern room in an old skeleton. I think it’s possible to create a kitchen that has both a contemporary look and pays homage to the house’s heritage at the same time. As with colour, the style and feel of a house should have a smooth flow. I know, I know, there’s a whole school of thought out there that likes to blend modern with antique. I’m not against that, but it’s like anything else, it has to be done correctly. I’ve made up (at least I think I made it up but others may be on the same track) what I think of as the 10% rule. The gist of this philosophy is that most things only work really well 10% of the time. The over use of white in interiors is a perfect example. 10% of the time an all white interior is perfect, it’s beautiful, it is absolutely the correct thing to do. The rest of the time, not so much. For me the 10% rule also applies to the mixing of old and new.

The eating area after renovation.

This is an award winning heritage house that I have worked on with the owners on several occasions, they like to do one room at a time. The exterior of their house has also been previously featured.

Here is how the kitchen looked prior to the renovation. The cupboards are probably original but other than that and the wood trim and wainscoting there’s not much that actually dates back to 1890 when the house was built.

The kitchen area prior to renovation.

It’s not really obvious in this photo but both the counter top and the back splash were a kind of pinky, yellow – not great.

The first decision that had to be made was about the cedar cabinets. Kudos to the owners for wanting them to stay. This is a large kitchen and new cabinets would have been an unnecessary expense. It came down to whether to paint them or have them refinished. Ultimately refinishing won. We chose a stain that was slightly darker than the old one, this brought the finished product to almost the exact colour of the wood window frames. A new and slightly smaller apron sink was installed along with a new faucet and Cambria Torquay counter top. These were the easy parts. I didn’t feel that the back splash would be difficult, it was the floor that was going to be a challenge.

There’s already a great deal of wood in this kitchen and if the cabinets were not going to be painted a wood floor would really be overwhelming. Also, there’s hardwood throughout the rest of the house and there would be the question of it matching.

The real challenge was that the owners didn’t want ceramic tile for the flooring. They also wanted something with a pattern.

Let me tell you, that really limits your options. The owners were very keen on linoleum which is now sold under the name of marmoleum. So I began researching marmoleum as well as LVT, the fancy new name for luxury vinyl tile. However the challenges continued. I could source marmoleum but local retailers were very reluctant to install it in a residential setting. It’s actually a really amazing natural product. The downside of it is that it needs regular polishing, it’s also tricky to install. Aside from creating a checker board pattern there was nothing that had pattern to it – at least nothing my clients would like. I was holding out hope for some kind of LVT but it was all, to be very honest, pretty awful.

My experience was that if you don’t want what everyone else has you’re going to have a very hard time finding something you like.

And this is where the internet comes in! I have to say it saved the day. What I found was a flooring company in England called Harvey Maria. They carry this great LVT in a pattern called Parquet. It comes in a variety of colours but we chose charcoal. Here’s a look at the finished kitchen area.

The finished kitchen with its fantastic new flooring!

I can’t tell you how impressed we all were with Harvey Maria. I ordered a few different colours of samples, which were free. Their customer service support team was amazing, they answered all my inquiries promptly. Their website is great with all kinds of information and videos. What impressed us most is how quickly the tile arrived once the order was placed – boom, in a matter of days it was at my client’s door – in Canada. Once the floor was decided upon it made choosing the hex back splash with the detail in varying shades of grey an easy choice.

Wall colour wasn’t decided until everything else was in place. The owners wanted a colour for the walls and my preference was to make it something that could be wrapped onto the ceiling to help unify the kitchen and the eating area. Besides, one of the wonderful things about these particular clients is that they always go for colour on the ceiling – trust me, more people should do the same.

We had to be careful of anything with too much colour in it, I didn’t want it to end up looking like a 1950’s diner. In the end we chose Benjamin Moore Smoky Green, it’s just right. It offsets the white tile, looks beautiful with all the wood and was pale enough to wrap onto the ceiling.

Thank you Harvey Maria for making a product that is out of the ordinary!

Kora Sevier is a Vancouver Colour Consultant. She specializes in interior and exterior colour consultations for both residential and commercial clients. For more information, visit www.kcolour.com

The Colouring Book Craze

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Colouring books

“Man needs color to live, it’s just as necessary an element as fire and water”. Fernand Leger.

The table full of colouring (or coloring) books piled up on the table at Indigo (a colour), certainly seems to support the above quote from Fernand Leger.

There was an even greater selection of colouring books than is shown in the photo and the table was surrounded by people. Nobody looked bored, people were intent and excited. They were smiling. None of this was a surprise to me, colour does that to people. Something that I’ve learned from my work as an architectural colour consultant is that

Colour opens people up.

So as I stood there, looking at all these colouring books and the people who were so excited by their existence, several things went through my mind. I wondered if this was yet another example of the preoccupation our culture has with youth and hanging on to it (or returning to it) at all costs. I wondered if, in a world where the daily news is becoming more and more awful and depressing, people longed for an outlet that provided them with something that was fun and an escape back to innocence. I think both these things could be true, at least to an extent. I also wondered if the people standing around that table lived in a world where their walls were all white or, as I refer to it, masking tape beige. So many people do live in world either devoid of colour or painted in something lifeless and dull. For some it’s a conscious choice that they are, of course, entitled to make. My belief is that people ought to live with whatever colour makes them happy.

What bothers me, and what I wonder about, is how many people make the “neutral” or no-colour choice based on what they have come to believe they ought to do from looking at home decor magazines or websites.

Magazines do this all the time. They will boldly proclaim on their cover that this is the Colour Issue! Yet a look inside reveals one white interior after another with the odd brightly coloured toss cushion, or if someone has been really bold, a rug that has some colour in it. I grow so weary of this. Websites dedicated to architecture and design feature an endless stream of white interiors. Sometimes they’re beautiful, sometimes they are perfect and white was exactly the correct colour choice. But so often I look through these magazines and websites and I think, Why? What has caused this epic failure of the imagination? Why have people come to accept such blandness? Then the universe gives me this gift, this group of people standing around a table full of colouring books and I am relieved. I am thankful yet again for the work that I do and for everyone who finds me and wants colour in their life, be it bold or delicate.

People get excited by colour, but they can also be a bit afraid of it. I have news for you, colour can’t hurt you.

Time and time again when I work with clients there is a pattern of behaviour. At first the client is a bit timid and usually beating themselves up because they can’t seem to get colour right in their own home. After we’ve spent a bit of time walking around so that I can get to know them and their house a bit better, I pull out my colour samples. At first people are still a bit timid, they’re being respectful (which I’m appreciative of) of the tools of my trade. However it doesn’t take long before they begin to get very animated. Soon they are looking over my shoulder as I thumb quickly through the fan deck which I use to get a quick overview of colours. I then pull individual colour samples and tape those onto a neutral background, and this is when things get interesting. I ask my clients for feedback on the colour or colours I have placed there and I watch them change before my eyes. In no time they have become animated. They will be thoughtful when I ask for their opinion about different colours, but they also start having fun.

Almost without fail my clients will tell me how much fun they had during a consultation.

And why is that? Because colour is life affirming. A colour that you like, makes you happy. It’s as simple as that.

The other thing that most people will do during a consultation is that they will want to touch the colour sample. This is so interesting to me, they will walk up to it and repeatedly run their fingers along it. I think they do this because they are feeling something. They are compelled to do it, I can tell because they’re doing it without thinking about it.

What are the things that people are willing do this with? Things that are beautiful, like a beautiful piece of furniture. Or things that bring them joy; their child, their spouse or pet. Watch a person who loves dogs when they see a dog on the street. They will be completely open, they will approach the dog and pet it and say nice things to it. Maybe the owner will also get a bit of recognition (but only because they own a dog). The people at that table full of colouring books were doing the same thing. They kept picking them up, or they’d run their hands along the cover. People don’t touch what they don’t like.

Recently I was introducing myself to a gentleman. He asked me what I did for a living. When I told him he said, oh colour is everything. I couldn’t agree more.

Fernand Leger was a cubist artist who saw the world in great swaths of colour. It’s not that I hate white, beige or grey. It’s not that I think any of those colour choices is categorically wrong. What I think is that more often than not people hide themselves behind the perceived safety of those colours. When they do that they’re closing themselves off in a way. Personally I think we’re all better off when we are open and happy and embracing things.

Fernand Leger. The Bridge of the Tugboat. 1920.

Leger is correct, we do need colour. It is a necessary element because like fire or water it gives us life and, like music, it connects us to our emotions and our emotions are what make us human.

So go out, buy a colouring book and a whole lot of coloured pencils. Introduce or re-introduce yourself to colour. Have fun with it, it’s a small step. A step that may, one day, lead to living in a home full of beautiful colour and walls that you love to touch.

Kora Sevier is a Vancouver Colour Consultant. She specializes in interior and exterior colour consultations for both residential and commercial clients. For more information, visit www.kcolour.com

 

Benjamin Moore’s Heritage Colour Palette

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Benjamin Moore historical colours palette

The Falding House was built in 1890 in the Queen Anne revival style. Robert Falding was the original owner and may have been a clerk at the Supreme Court. In 1929 the house was owned by George Gray who was a steam roller driver for the city of New Westminster.

The photo below is courtesy of New Westminster Heritage Society and was donated to them by George Kelly who is the young man with the rather large bicycle.

In the 1980’s the New Westminster heritage society had in mind that they would introduce a program similar to one that existed in Victoria whereby heritage houses were purchased by the city, restored and then sold at a profit. While unthinkable these days, what happened was that the bottom fell out of the housing market resulting in a loss for the city. The current owners had often walked past the house and decided to buy it. It was the one and only house in the city’s failed experiment.

The current owners purchased the home in 1985 and have been lovingly caring for it since then. They are very proud of the house and conscientious of its heritage designation. I began working with them in 2008 on various interior projects.

This is how the house looked then. There were two different very dark colours that had been used as picking out colours. I often prefer a dark trim over a light one but in this case the two dark colours were obscuring several architectural details that I thought should stand out.

In January of 2014 the owners called me to work with them on a new exterior colour scheme. My goal was to honour the heritage significance and value of the house while at the same time bringing it to life. The colours would have to be approved by the New Westminster Heritage Preservation Society. The availability of a grant through Benjamin Moore paints meant that we would be using their colour palette.

I used the Benjamin Historical Colours palette rather than their Vancouver True Colours palette. I’m glad that the Vancouver True Colours palette exists and appreciate all the work that went into the creation of it, but for this house I felt that that palette would be too heavy and frankly drab. It’s a charming cottage, I wanted colours that would keep it grounded but also give it a lighter, friendlier feel without being playful or cute.

Here’s the house in progress during the summer of 2014. I was very very happy when the owners decided to go with Lindel Painters for this job. The entire team was a pleasure to work with. Very rarely do you come across painters who take such pride in their trade.

A total of seven colours were used, including the fence colour.

Your eye is now drawn to all the yellow highlights. The cut-out detail in the front gable, the brackets and scalloped trim on the porch.

One of my favourite things about the new colours is the back porch with the screen door.

In November of 2014 the house won the Special Jury’s Prize at the Royal City Builders awards in New Westminster!

Here’s what the owners had to say.

“Thank goodness for Kora. Selecting the wrong exterior house colours can be a very expensive and long enduring mistake. Kora guided our journey through heritage colour choices and provided the foundation of drawings, photographs and detailed designation of seven colours to dazzle City Hall and ease approval for our plan. Acting as project co-ordinator, Kora was a liaison with the painting crew and made effective changes as the painting progressed on our detailed Queen Anne cottage. Proof of success was the winning of a special Royal City Builder’s Award for the exterior paint job”.

Kora Sevier is a Vancouver Colour Consultant. She specializes in interior and exterior colour consultations for both residential and commercial clients. For more information, visit www.kcolour.com

Exterior House Colours. Taming The Monster Garage.

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Architectural Colour consultation

A garage that overwhelms the house may not be a common site in Vancouver, but get into the suburbs and you’ll find the phenomenon is alive and well. Some architects are attempting to come up with better and more stylish solutions, but many new builds still have a garage that upstages the house.

Paint cannot change the architecture of your home. However, if used effectively, colour can do a great deal to bring your home and garage into harmony and draw attention away from the behemoth at the front.

I have a strong dislike for before and after pictures but in this case it’s useful for illustrating how effective a change in paint colour can be. This is the before picture.

What you see here is a garage that is both architecturally and colour dominant, with the house sitting blandly in the background. Yes, they did use the same colour in the gables as they did on the garage but they didn’t pull any of the house colours onto the garage. White windows with white frames blend with the body colour. Windows are often the jewellery of a house and deserve much more attention than what is typically given to them. When I drove up to this house I felt the house and the garage had nothing to do with each other, the slight repetition of colour seemed more like an accident than anything else. The only other place on the house where they used the dark garage colour was on the caps of the brick pillars.

When I look at a house what I’m working out in my mind is how to use colour in a way that makes architectural sense. With this house, colour and architecture were in an unhappy marriage. There were also inconsistencies that bothered me. For example, there’s a horizontal strip of trim on 3 of the 4 gables that has been painted white. That took some effort (but only succeeded in creating visual clutter). However, the caps of the brick pillars of the garage and porch are painted one colour. It may be difficult to see in the before picture but those caps are framed, making a two colour combination an easy thing to do, yet here the effort was not made.
This annotated photograph points out the problem areas. Everything about how this house was built and the colour scheme used was designed to make you look at the garage rather than the house.
Take a look at the photos below. There are two places where the eye is drawn to and visually difficult to look away from.

Here’s one of them. The eye moves in a circle up and down and around the garage.

This is the other. Even though your eye is drawn upwards it gets pulled back down to the garage without really taking in the house.The reason this happens is because the eye is drawn to the lightest thing. With a dark background the white of the gables and garage is more dominant than the white of the windows and porch area.

Let’s look at how to fix this!

There were two constraints that I had to work with. The owners did not have the budget to repaint the beige body colour, so that was staying. They also wanted the gutters to remain a light colour vs. a very dark colour, which for me meant that the fascia would also need to be a light colour.
Here’s the after picture.

We now have a mix of the same colours used on both the house and the garage. While we can’t magically make the garage move to the rear of the house at least now all the colours are relating to one another.

The garage colours have been layered and softened, thus helping it to visually recede. Most importantly a dark trim colour was used around the white windows, this draws the eye to that area and brings focus to the house itself rather than just the garage. The caps on top of the brick columns of the garage and porch have also been outlined, pulling the eye from garage to porch.

The photo below gives you a rough idea of how the eye travels around the house. Beginning where the red dot is.

This a another picture taken from a different angle that shows the porch railing. The dark colour now acts as a bridge between the brick pillars.

There’s another very important thing that new choice of colour did to this house, it made it look friendlier. In the before pictures the house looks harsh and severe, not at all like its owners and not at all the way the vast majority of people would want their house to feel.

I recently had someone ask me what I was looking at when I consulted on the exterior colours of a house. It’s a good question with an answer that sounds simple but in reality is very complex, the happy marriage of colour and architecture. When I speak with potential clients I always tell them that their house is probably much more complicated than they think it is. I can sense their skepticism, that is until a certain point when we are working together and they say, “I never knew this house was so complicated”!  I hope this post helps illuminate my point.

Till next time!

Kora Sevier is a Vancouver Colour Consultant. She specializes in interior and exterior colour consultations for both residential and commercial clients. For more information, visit www.kcolour.com

Colours For Strata Buildings.

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Strata buildings

The great advantage to working with individual clients or couples is that they play an active role in the selection of new colours. It’s a collaborative process during which I can inform, educate and advise in the moment.

Working with a strata or co-op however is an entirely different experience, both for myself and for the owners. This is the first in what will be a series of posts on this subject. Let’s start with the broad brushstrokes, an overall guide of things to consider when looking for a colour consultant to help you chose colours for your strata or co-op.
I’m going to focus mainly on exterior consultations but there’s also a bit about interior work as well.

Have A Budget.
Most strata councils do not have a budget set aside for professional colour or design services. They have a budget for painting or new carpeting or various upgrades to common areas but they have no budget to hire a person who can give them sound colour advice. Why not?
The cost of hiring a colour consultant is truly a drop in the bucket when you consider the cost of an exterior paint job. The painting for most exteriors is in the tens of thousands and even into the hundred thousands.
If your strata is small and your needs are few, a consultation can be had for less than a thousand dollars.
If your strata is large and has multiple buildings or is going through a major rehabilitation then you could be looking at roughly two to three thousand dollars. In general we’re talking less than 5% of the painting costs. That is not an unreasonable sum of money, especially when you consider what you’re getting. Hiring an architectural colour consultant is one of the best returns you’ll get for your dollar.
How much a consultation will cost is dependent upon two things.
First, how many options you want to present to the members to vote on.
Second, how the colours options will be presented. I’ll talk more about both these in another post.

Set Up A Time Frame.
I have literally had people call me in the morning from a strata committee saying that they’re having their meeting that afternoon and can I come up with something to present to them by then?
Umm no. I cannot.
As with your budget, have a time frame that is commensurate with the scale of work that is to be done. Ideally you want to be as far ahead of the game as possible. Hiring a colour consultant anywhere from a few months to a year in advance is not a bad idea. It’s only after you have hired the consultant that you’ll have a list of colours for the painter. When the painter knows the exact nature and quantity of colours to be used on a project then he or she will be able to give you an accurate quote.

Understand The Scope Of Work.
On every single exterior project I have worked on, from large strata complexes to small homes, I have heard some form of, “I never knew how complicated this would be”.
Exteriors are always far more complex than owners ever think they are. I really mean it.
Remember a number of years ago when Donald Rumsfeld famously stated that there are known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns. Your house or strata and how colour can effect it is like that. There are things you know about it, things you know you don’t know and then there are things that you don’t even know that you don’t know! A professional knows the unknown unknowns.
Have a good look at how many colour decisions will need to be made. It’s rarely just body colour and trim. It could also be flashing and gutters (yes they can be painted), fences, lighting fixtures, signage, garage doors, door numbers. Various exterior add-ons such as gazebos or benches. And of course the front entrance door. In units where people have their own front entrance door strong feelings run high.
You want to save money and believe that you or a group of people who live within the strata can chose new colours. Be my guest. If you think your neighbours are going to have some other person who lives in the strata tell them what colour they can paint their front door, then you’ve got another thing coming! Doors are a contentious issue that will get more coverage in another post.
If it’s the interior of a common area it could also include things such as flooring or even artwork.
When I am hired by a strata I always include a Scope of Work document with my quote, that way people understand the extent of what they are paying for.

Try To Let Go Of Your Judgment Regarding Other Owners.
This one is really very important. Interpersonal relations between owners can make the whole process easier and increase the chance of acceptance to change or it can sabotage the entire project. This is another good reason to hire a professional colour consultant. Regardless of who first made contact with me or who will be my regular contact on a project, I am an objective outsider. I am not there to push anyone’s agenda. I am there to give everyone the best possible colour options to suit the building or buildings that they live in. Often the people who really want change are convinced that certain owners will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to accept new colours. I’m not saying that’s never true, but what I’ve come to learn is that everyone has their own relationship to change. Some people just need more time than others, they need to sit with the idea for awhile. Some people want as much information as they can get their hands on others don’t really care. How the new colour information is presented is important to the success of the project. This is why I now make it a requirement that I present the new colours to all interested owners. I am better able to explain the colour choices, answer questions and help ease anxiety about the unknown.

Know The Brand Of Paint To Be Used On The Project.
Paint manufacturers love to advertise that they can match any colour. I use the word advertise here for a very specific reason, because that’s what it is, advertising.
I always work with the colour palette from the brand of paint that’s to be used on the project, why? Because colour matching is highly unreliable, especially when it comes to exteriors. The simple fact of the matter is that sometimes, and only sometimes can one paint company match a colour from another paint company. Do you really want to take that chance? The other thing about colour matching is that the colour can look exactly the same on a small sample, but when it gets painted on a large exterior surface it’s a whole other ball game. If my clients don’t have a relationship with a painter then I discuss different options with them to help decide what brand to go with.

As you can see there’s more to think about than colour choice. I hope this post proves helpful to many of you out there. Stay tuned for more!

Kora Sevier is an Architectural Colour Consultant based in Vancouver BC. She specializes in interior and exterior colour consultations for both residential and commercial clients. For more information, visit www.kcolour.com

Oh No I Hate The Colour!

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colour advice, colour decisions

I recently repainted my home studio/office, it was the final room left to paint in an apartment that was entirely the same colour, a colour that I refer to as masking tape beige. I’m not fond of masking tape beige. It’s not only that it’s bland, it’s a colour that doesn’t make any sense in my life. It doesn’t work with anything I own. Every time I looked at a room I felt that my furnishings and art were living in some kind of limbo. There’s a presumption that one colour throughout a house ties things together. At times that’s true, but there can also be times when it leaves things feeling disjointed. Masking tape beige is also one of those colours that looks dirty and tired, there’s nothing fresh about it. My studio is a creative space, I needed something that would support and enhance that creativity not drag it down.

Benjamin Moore’s, Cool Breeze. Exactly the colour I wanted.

I wanted a light colour for the studio, I also needed something that wouldn’t overwhelm colour samples when working on colour schemes for clients. Many would say that the perfect colour would be gray and I can’t really argue with that. When I’m working with clients I always look at colour samples on a gray background. However I simply couldn’t bring myself to paint any room that I must live in a pale gray. It would make me sad. I opted for a lovely pale blue with just a touch of gray in it to desaturate it. I chose it from Benjamin Moore’s Colour Stories line of full spectrum colours. It’s called Cool Breeze. One needs to be careful when choosing a blue because they intensify more so than other colours and can overwhelm a room.

The first thing I did was to cut into the narrow wall above the doorway. I cut in along the ceiling, down the two edges of wall and across the top of the door frame.
When I came down off the ladder I stood back, looked at the pale blue and…
Hated it!
It looked awful, it seemed like a bright and obnoxious baby blue, not at all what I wanted.
This is the point where the majority of people would run back to the paint store and frantically attempt to choose a different colour. Digging themselves deeper into a pit of anxiety and frustration as well as laying out a tidy sum of cash for another gallon. If I didn’t know better I might have done the same, but I do know better and this is the first rule of colour application – never knee jerk.
Rule number two is, you must wait till the paint is dry to get a better sense of the colour.

It’s not always easy to trust a colour. They can seem like a person whom you really need to rely upon and they’re letting you down. The disappointment can be devastating. However, knowing what I know I kept painting. Usually once I have finished cutting in around the ceiling I move to cutting in around the floor. This time I thought I would do an experiment. I wanted to see if my feelings about the colour would change if an entire wall was painted. So, I rolled out the wall around the door frame. It’s not a very big wall I admit, but I still didn’t like the colour. I kept going because there are several important things to keep in mind when making a colour change to a room.
The first is that when we look at colour what we are looking at is reflected light. A colour in a room isn’t true until it’s reflecting off itself. Even with two walls painted you still have your old colour reflecting around the room.
The other is one of the most important things to understand about colour, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, colour is all about relationships. The blue and the beige were in a disastrous relationship where the beige was having an extremely bad influence on the blue. The blue was never going to become fully itself until it got out on it’s own. Once the room was fully painted it looked great. The one last thing I had to do was paint the door frame the same colour and that clinched it. It had previously been painted the same beige and even that small bit of it was dragging the blue down.

Light blues open up a space and that’s what has happened, it feels clean and light and airy. In the end the colour turned out exactly as I expected, but as is so often the case with colour, one must keep the faith.
This is one of the reasons why it’s preferable for clients not to be home when the painters are working, it’s not complete until all the painting is done. The truth is even then it’s not really complete, furniture and art will alter the space yet again. In my case I knew that the birch furnishings, white shelves and white accent pieces would work really well with pale blue.

Another thing that frequently happens when you change the colour in a room is that it changes your feelings for it. In the past I would avoid working there, I’d take my work to my living or dining room. Now I’m so happy to work in my studio, I love being in it.

So the next time a colour starts to be applied and you think you don’t like it remember not to have a knee jerk reaction. I know it can be difficult but try to be patient, give it a chance to fully reveal itself.
We live in a world in which we rarely don’t know the answer to something. We can go online and look at a menu before going to a restaurant. We can Google any topic that leaves us with a question. We can find out immediately what song is playing or get turn by turn directions to a destination. Yet there are still some things that need to be revealed in the fullness of time. There are still times when we have to venture into the unknown and make a leap of faith, colour is one such instance, personally I think that’s a good thing.

Kora Sevier is an Architectural Colour Consultant based in Vancouver BC. She specializes in interior and exterior colour consultations for both residential and commercial clients. For more information, visit www.kcolour.com

What Is A Colour Consultant?

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Architectural Colour consultation, colour advice, colour consultant, Colour consultation, how to chose colour

Don’t feel embarrassed if you don’t know what a Colour consultant is or what they do. When I tell people I’m a Colour consultant they typically hesitate for a moment, I can see some part of their brain is trying to figure it out. Finally they ask, well what is that exactly? It’s a fair enough question because there are different types of Colour consultants. Some people specialize in colours for the garment industry. They keep track of dye lots and ensure consistency. Some people specialize in the very broad spectrum of texture and colour. These people may work for a running shoe company or for a manufacturer of cases for your iPhone.

What I am is an Architectural Colour consultant.

I specialize in helping either home or business owners chose paint colours for interior or exterior surfaces. The next question I usually get is, so you’re an Interior designer? No, I’m not. The only real crossover between a Colour consultant and an Interior designer is the specification of colour. For an Interior designer that can be just one small part of their job. Interior designers have to be able to draw up plans, understand building codes or fire rating classifications for materials. Interior designers and Architects often call upon the services of a Colour consultant because colour is a highly specialized field. Most people don’t understand the change that occurs in paint when it goes from a printed sample to a painted wall.

What happens during a Colour consultation, how does it work?

I work in a highly collaborative manner. With a few exceptions my clients are actively involved in the process. I show up at a person’s home or business with a special kit of individual colour samples from a particular paint manufacturer. I am an independent Colour consultant, I am not an employee of a paint company. Therefore one of the first questions I ask a new client is, what brand of paint do you want to use. Or, what brand of paint will your painter be using. I do this because I don’t like colour matching. Many paint companies make a big deal of how they can match any colour. Well, the truth is, sometimes they can and sometimes they can’t. It’s hit and miss and that’s why I don’t like it. Especially on exteriors.

The next thing I do is take a look around. I need to see all of the interior or walk all around the outside of the building. I need to take in the whole and hold that in my mind as my client and I work through each room or exterior. The best comparison that I can think of for this is a theatre or film director. A director has to have both an overall vision and the ability to make highly detailed decisions. That’s what I do. I understand the space in a different way, I’m looking at it through different eyes. They’re also fresh eyes, and that’s important.

I have to get to know my clients very quickly. I believe that the ability to understand colour is just one skill that I use. There are two other skills that I think are equally important for a Colour consultant to have: an open mind (never judge people) and intuitiveness.

Then we get to play with colour!

Most people begin by being a bit timid. I start out by asking a few questions and then I begin placing colour samples onto a large neutral grey piece of cardboard that I carry with me. I work off both verbal and visual feedback. Sometimes a person will say, no I don’t like that colour, but when I placed it on the board they smiled. This is where it gets interesting because people don’t smile at something they don’t like. Part of what I have to do is break down people’s preconceived ideas about colour and what they think they like or don’t like. There’s an entire page on my website that is dedicated to one sentence, it is.

The perception is that choosing colour is a decision making process, it’s not. This is why people get stuck, it’s a creative process.

I’ll let you in on a little secret about the creative process – it’s fun! And because it’s fun before long the client becomes less timid, they tend to loosen up and get into it. Each in their own way. It’s one of the things I like the most about what I do. I love opening the door to the creative process for people.

But you know, adults can get a bit nervous when they begin to play…

The next thing I’m about to describe happens probably eight times out of 10. Suddenly my client or clients will get this panicked look on their faces. They’ve just realized that while they were in the midst of having so much fun they haven’t been paying attention to writing things down! They’ve forgotten that when I first spoke with them I told them I would be taking detailed notes. I’m not doing this constantly. In general I have a good memory. I’ve also been dealing with colour for a long time and have very good colour memory. At a certain point I need to get it down of course but the important thing is that my service isn’t just in the moment, it’s also the follow-up. People always look so happy and relieved when they realize that they can go back to having fun and not worry about being the responsible one.

So do I only work with colours for paint?

Not by a long shot. I also help clients chose tile, flooring, counter tops and cabinet finishes. I help them make decisions on crown molding or trim. On new builds it can be everything from window style and colour to gutters and paving stones.

Anything else?

Why yes. I may make suggestions for window coverings. I often make suggestions for re-arrangement of furniture. I have suggested removing doors and have also suggested changing the direction that a door opens. I have advised clients to switch the purpose of a room. For example, I worked with clients where one of them used the top floor of their home as an office. It was a big beautiful room that had a view and a large deck. The deck was never used (because it was off of an office) and the view was wasted because of the layout of furniture and because the person using it was busy working. Their bedroom was a room on the second level that was much too small. Why not switch them, I asked? They couldn’t believe they’d never thought of it. That’s not unusual, once people have settled into a space they just accept how it is. I’m an agent of change – the status quo is up for grabs with me. By the same token I have talked clients out of getting rid of beautiful furniture because they never used the room and thought it must be the furnishings. It wasn’t, it was the paint colour.

What happens after the consultation is over.

Each of my clients receives a detailed colour scheme from me that is theirs to keep. It contains all the pertinent information regarding paint colour name and number along with recommended sheen levels and a colour sample. I also include any other notes that I have made that will be important for my clients to remember. The other person who will now be coming on to the scene is the painter and it’s important for me to properly communicate what my client and I have worked so hard to achieve. Therefore my clients also receive a detailed colour schematic which lays out the placement of colour in a way that is easy for a painter to understand.

What value is there in a Colour consultation?

If you have ever stood confused and overwhelmed by the selection of colour samples displayed in a paint or hardware store. If you have wasted time and money collecting colour samples and buying tester pots only to feel disappointed with your selection. If you have ever painted a room or an entire house the wrong colour, then you already have an idea of the value in a Colour consultation. I am there as an objective professional, a guide, an ally and a presenter of choices not thought of. I am there to explain colour to you and to shatter colour myths and misinformation. And, I’m there to take care of you and this place that is your home or business. Many people have an expectation that they’ll be able to chose colour intelligently, when they fail they tend to be rather hard on themselves. But think of it this way, it’s highly unlikely that I can do your job.

Till next time,

Kora

Kora Sevier is a Vancouver Colour Consultant. She specializes in interior and exterior colour consultations for both residential and commercial clients. For more information, visit www.kcolour.com
 

 

 

 

 

 

Colour and Healing, the Power of Pink.

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colour and healing, colour in health care, Colour in medical setting, Dr Kenzo Kase, kinesiology tape

Very recently I suffered from terrible pain in my right shoulder. It turns out I have a calcium build-up around my rotator cuff and when this gets aggravated the inflammation is a source of profound pain. Apparently my years as a painter are catching up with me, it’s a common occurrence in people who spend a lot of time with their arm above their head.

In the course of getting treatment I went to see a registered massage therapist who specializes in sports injuries. I was into my third day of acute pain by the time I got to him. The first thing he did was to put three strips of what is called kinesiology tape on my shoulder. Within 24 hours the pain was manageable. After about 4 days some range of motion returned, and unless I did something stupid I was not actively in pain. My R.M.T. was thrilled with my progress and so was I.

For me however, the most interesting thing about all this was the effect that the colour of the tape had on me. It was not some horrible beige pretending to be a flesh tone (any artist will tell you that flesh is not beige), it was bright pink.

Ready to take on sinister villains and colour sceptics everywhere!

The first thing my husband said to me when he saw my pink taped shoulder was that I looked like Seven of Nine from Star Trek. Well, that’s pushing it a bit because she has some interesting thing going on with her hand not her shoulder. Somehow though it made me feel better. Later on he began to refer to me as the bionic woman. I was curious, would he have done so if the tape were beige? No, it was because of the colour. Despite feeling absolutely miserable I began to find some joy in this superwoman theme. As I developed more and more range of motion I would show this off by striking a karate chop pose and singing “Wonder Woman”!

I’m a person with a good sense of humour, and I think it’s pretty obvious to you by now that I’m not afraid to act silly. I have no doubt that a sense of humour is important to the healing process, and the pink tape really encouraged that. I wasn’t just someone suffering from the effects of time taking its toll on my body, the tape had transformed me into an action hero! Due to its colour the tape was fun and had way more sex appeal than beige tape would have had. Despite my inherent sense of humour I don’t think I would have had half the fun with beige tape. Beige tape would have just made me feel ill and sickly.

Naturally the tape itself was doing what it was designed to do and was helping me recover, but the colour was an added bonus that I believe sped up the process.

As with all things, you can find people online who absolutely pooh poo kinesiology tape. One man was angered by the fact it comes in a variety of colours. He asserts it’s just a big marketing scam and doubts that the tape does any good at all. As someone who has actually used the tape, I think he’s wrong.

Some may feel that beige would be better because it wouldn’t show as much under clothing. I didn’t care about that, in fact it seemed better that it could be seen. Despite the action hero association I was getting from it, it helped remind me as well as others of the reality of my injury.

Beige tape would not have inspired me to write this blog post. I can tell you categorically that I would not have posed for the above picture with beige tape on my arm.

Yes, I’m a person who loves colour. Colour is what I do with my life, but something dull and glum never made anybody feel better. Colour has vitality and life and it has played a part in my healing process. Medical institutions could learn a lesson from this. When colour is put before people in a way that is not crass or overwhelming they take great joy from it. Colour has the power to make people light up, to smile. Isn’t that one of the very best things for your health.

My N.D. and my R.M.T have provided me with excellent care, I’m fortunate to have them in my life. Dr. Kenzo Kase has created a tape that does an amazing job but is also cool and fun and helps people to heal in a way that perhaps even he has never imagined.

Kora Sevier is a Vancouver Colour Consultant. She specializes in interior and exterior colour consultations for both residential and commercial clients. For more information, visit www.kcolour.com

If you’d like to read more about Dr. Kase, visit http://www.kinesiotaping.com/about

 

 

Inspired Colour Palettes.

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BC Home & Garden magazine

I had a lot of fun writing this piece for BC Home & Garden magazine. I wasn’t sure what the end result would look but I love the illustrations by Mandy Lau.

The task given to me by Amy Mair, the editor of BC Home & Garden magazine, was to use the 2013 trending colour palettes from 4 different paint companies and come up with colours for four different types of architecture popular here in British Columbia.

My thanks to BC Home & Garden for supplying me with an electronic version to post on this site.

Here’s the link to the pdf.

BC H&G June 2013

Enjoy!

Kora Sevier is a Vancouver Colour Consultant. She specializes in interior and exterior colour consultations for both residential and commercial clients. For more information, visit www.kcolour.com

Interested in cocktails? visit www.astaswhiskers.wordpress.com