Color design on a budget

NORTHAMPTON, Mass. (Mass Appeal) - www.awcolor.com  

Does being on a budget mean you can't get the home of your dreams? Architectural Color Consultant Amy Woolf tells us how to use color and paint to manage or shift the color of existing elements in a room (like tile or countertops) when spending money on a renovation is not possible.

Color does not exist in a vacuum...everything is about relationships. Color is what it is because of what's around it. There are a couple of techniques you can use to manage the color of fixed features you cannot change. The first is to use a very different and visually stronger color in a space -- this essentially pushes the color you don't love into the background. The first example is a kitchen with oak cabinets and a harvest gold counter. We used a rich, vibrant green which forced the yellow counter almost into a neutral position. A second way to manage a color you don't love is to hit the room with more of the same. It's kind of an "if you can't beat it join it" kind of approach. In the kitchen shown, the taupe floor tile threw a little pink. By painting the walls red, which is just a stronger version of pink, the tile shifts back into the neutral position. Another way to bring more harmony to a room is by reducing contrast. This brick fireplace wall was all about the brick. By painting the mantel a darker color to harmonize with the brick and darkening the wall slightly the entire wall became more harmonious. The focal point is the fireplace -- not the brick. A common misconception when choosing colors is that you have to meet the color at the same level of intensity. In this bathroom with vibrant tile, the homeowner felt compelled to use a similarly vibrant blue. Though the two colors feel balanced, the result is an overly bright room. Here I specified a softer blue, leaning toward gray, which while very different in mood than the yellow, does work and brings the room into a quieter equilibrium.