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Following the last post here about price of paint and Titanium White (a major ingredient in house paint products) I want to share this article with you.

From the magazine Period Homes, it’s titled “A Primer on Paint,” and offers a detailed view of trends in paint products. It’s not about ‘color trends’ but rather about the actual development of paint products.

It's the pigments that make color visible. Aren't they beautiful? Kremer Pigments manufactures pigments from natural materials to create a wide range of historically authentic paints and finishes. Photo: courtesy of Kremer Pigments.

Major paint and pigment manufacturers are featured, with comments from Benjamin Moore, Sherwin Williams, Behr, Fine Paints of Europe, and Kremer Pigments.

If you have been wondering about Waterborne – vs. – Oil based paints, differences in paint qualities, “VOC’s,” and pigments, be sure to read the article. You will also glean a few tips from color consultants James Martin and Barbara Jacobs (Yes, I am honored to be included in this article).

I hope you enjoy reading it, and perusing the magazine, in general.

Do you have a “Period Home?’ What are the joys and challenges?  What do you love the most about it? Let us know about your experience.

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Here we go again, in Paint as many industries and products.
Yes, prices are going up—again. It used to be that paint was, well, “Cheap!” We always would say, hey, it’s the best way to get the most change for the least money spent.  Big change for small change, so to speak. Whether you’re “into paint” or just buying paint again after a long time away from your paint store, now you might be surprised at the current prices and the projected trend in this direction.

What is the story about the paint price increases? It’s not just for a few “premium” companies, but apparently all across the spectrum of brands, quality and price points.

What’s in that can of paint?
Basically, all paint colors are made up of tinted bases. In sheens from flat to high gloss, the base material is a combination of materials, but this story is about, essentially,  “titanium dioxide.” That’s what makes the the paint color white, in the can, before adding tints to make Your colors. So, when the cost of that material goes up, so goes the price of paint.

If you’re into the economy of science–or the bottom line on why paint products are continuing to get more expensive– you might enjoy this article.

But OK, I will still say it—Paint is the way to go.  All the more reason why we want to really carefully consider what colors we’re using, and paying for.  And, all the more reason to make the most of the paint we are using—and enjoying.

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For the most part, paint color consultants are concerned primarily with specifying color for ceilings, walls, trim, and other architectural details. Even so, (we) paint color consultants also consider the colors and textures of floors, since those surfaces are a big factor in how we all perceive any space in its entirety. In fact the colors and textures of floors will always affect the wall and ceiling colors we select.

I was recently inspired by seeing some particularly beautiful floor coverings and flooring materials, and wanted to share them with you. So, here’s a quick overview of a few that inspired me personally.

Hard Surface Materials
Wood, stone, tile, concrete, natural linoleum? Consider the various materials, colors and  texture, and how they are all related.

Wood is always a beautiful choice and the new, high quality engineered products are a good choice.

A floor only stains and finishes as well as the type of wood you start with.
A beautiful example, from Finland, in a gorgeous gray.

Silverwood: Impresario - Color: Stonewashed Volcanic Ash

Silverwood - Smoked Ash Ancient White

More gorgeous "smoked finish" woods from Silverwood

Made in Finland, Karelia floors from Silverwood Flooring feature a thick 4mm veneer over a Quarter Sawn Nordic Spruce core for ultimate stability. Karelia is offered in a multi-strip, 5.4” or 7.” wide format. This series is available in multiple finishes including lacquer and a 100% vegetable oil. Perfectly milled square edge product suitable for floating (click) or glue down installation including over radiant heat. (description from Silverwood.com)

Full Plank wood from Carlisle is great way to achieve a unique look, with a US-sourced product.
Carlisle describes Hickory like this: “…Hickory is tough and handsome, with a tensile strength that rivals steel and a surface appearance long admired by woodworking purists and cabinetmakers.”

Hickory, from Carlisle - lots of personality!

Wood patterns in Parquet, which Carlisle can make in a variety of patterns.

The artistry involved in making parquet flooring first emerged during the Baroque era of the early 1600’s.

Light floors can add light to a room, even if you don’t have a wall of windows.

Floors and sky are the feature in this spacious open, contemporary room

Concrete
Concrete, a truly decorative and durable floor product. From funky to glamorous; old-world to contemporary and smooth to patterned or textured, it’s a multi-use material that invites your creativity.
A few examples, from Scofield Decorative Concrete.

Pretty "hip" for a fire station kitchen!

Is this concrete or leather and pebbles?

Five colors were used in this stained concrete floor.

Natural and Biostatic: Marmoleum Linoleum
Made from natural raw materials, including linseed oil, pine rosins, and wood flour, Marmoleum is biodegradable and environmentally friendly. It’s antimicrobial properties make it the perfect health care flooring. Of course it’s also great for a home!

There are so many ways you can be creative with this product. A few examples here are from Forbo – Marmoleum

Forbo: Marmoleum - Rusting Leaves

Forbo: Marmoleum - Vibrating Copper.

For more drama you can always get really creative with this product.

Floor color speaks volumes -- and in this case, surfaces.

Forbo: Marmoleum "Click"

Other interesting flooring (and paneling) materials worth considering
Durapalm: Palmwood -another great reason to love coconut water!

What they say: "Palmwood flooring makes coconut water worthwhile".

I have some cooking utensils like this, but never before thought of it for the floor!

Cork: beautiful colors and textures in sound-absorbing, comfortable surfacing.

Cork is well known as a versatile floor material that comes in a variety of colors and natural patterns.

Check out DuroDesign for great ideas texture and color, in cork and bamboo.

Cork comes in many patterns, also. This is DuroDesign-Edipo Bleach White

I love the deep mossy color of DuroDesign: Cleopatra Negra Steel Green

Carpet Tiles
FLOR
Looking for a softer solution to floor surfaces? Durable, beautiful, varied, with seemingly infinte options whether you do it yourself or get professional help. You can even explore designing your own patterns on their web site.

From the Patterns group of FLOR carpet tiles

FLOR: Graphic Pattern

More from FLOR

If you’re into painted floors…
You can either yourself, or hire a decorative artist to do the creative and installation processes. You’ll have a universe of creative options at your disposal.

Large "marble squares" painted on wood kitchen floor. Wood floor and wall finishes by Barbara Jacobs. Photo by Barbara Jacobs

This kitchen floor in an antique home received a decorative floor finish painted by Barbara Jacobs. Photo by Barbara Jacobs

Detail view of painted floor, from the back entrance to the kitchen.

One example of balancing floor and wall colors
In this project, the color of the tile floor dominated the space and made the clients uncomfortable. It could not be changed so we modified the effect with wall color.

Dominant floor tile color is balanced with a rich, earthy wall color.

Future: Natural stone, tile, and soft surface flooring
A future post will address more inspirational options, from the various types of machine-made carpeting in a variety of materials to hand knotted area rugs.

Are you FLOORED yet?
Please let me—and other readers—know your favorites, and your thoughts about using purposeful color on floors.
Your comments are always welcome!

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Last year was a big year for my mom. Making the decision to move to Los Angeles from her lifelong home in Minneapolis was not easy, but once she did, she did it with her typical commitment to a project.

Granted, this is not my usual kind of subject but I wanted to touch on it anyway.  After all…it’s this type of life change that make you reflect on future development and how it’s a quite a mystery that we can only “plan” for to a relatively limited extent.

The reason I wanted to bring this up is that she had a lot of help from a friend and “moving-on-professional.”  I don’t know what we would have done without Laure Green, a Minneapolis real estate professional who also has a compatible business in helping elders with exactly this type of transition. From identifying attachments and being able to “let go” of them–right down to the last minute managing the movers. My mom—and we, her family— were so lucky to have Laure’s help.

Moving in, or moving out? This room needs color!

Emotion Rules…for better or worse!
More recently, and locally to us here in Massachusetts, Lisbeth Wiley Chapman has started a new “move management” company on Cape Cod. She’s named it “Extra Daughters,” and the name really fits the service.

Beth’s description of what is involved includes emotion as playing a major role in the moving process:
“It’s all about emotion. Downsizing and de-cluttering means making decisions. Rather than making them, we have spent years stashing stuff higher and deeper. We save too much and get emotionally bogged down in life’s leftovers that we will never use and have tenuous reasons for keeping.”

Beth’s Top Ten Tips
Check out Beth’s Top Ten Tips for Moving.

Between the two of them, Laure and Beth have a world of experience. Laure, from the Real Estate side—and Beth, having moved her own full household eighteen times before coming to Cape Cod nearly 12 years ago—has an unusual depth of  experiences to combine with her organized, focused approach to everything she does. Beth has settled five estates and worked for an antique/collectibles dealer.  Recently, she was the program director for Seashore Point, the only outer Cape continuing care retirement community.

Make the transition one that is joyous, radiant and full of positive energy!
Since this is, after all, IntegralColorViews, I can easily make the color connection:
Change a gray, depressing and overwhelmed feeling and experience to one that is brightly glowing with yellows, oranges, and luminous blues! As we age, our color needs change.

As always, environmental color is, in itself, an absorbing  and expansive subject.  It’s not unusual for designers of elder housing to create spaces with only the family members in mind. But it’s the people who live there who count the most!

A few the reasons to give color the serious consideration that people deserve

• Emotional comfort
• Physical comfort
• Wayfinding
• Safety in the home

Even if there is not a move planned at this time, you can always revive a current home to make it more appropriate for elder residents.
For now, I offer a few considerations, and tips for selecting colors as we age:

1. Hue: Many hues can work, but consider that we see more yellow as we age.
2. Pattern: larger patterns are sometimes easier to “read” but don’t overwhelm the viewer with visual information
3. Contrast: regardless of our age, higher contrast makes important items more identifiable
4. Sheen: high sheen creates reflection and can add confusion
5. Intensity: use colors that are moderate but not boring. Consider contrast, intensity, sheen.
6. Lighting: a critical piece! Consider lighting closer to daylight, rather than yellow-based lighting color. Consult an experienced lighting designer for this all-important part of the environment you want to create
7. In all cases, the balance between these elements is key.  Too subtly neutral is “boring” and can create anxiety, and too much color and pattern can create confusion when not used judiciously.

I look forward to addressing these details more specifically in a future article. Meanwhile, I’d love to hear your experiences in this area.

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We’re always so busy in our daily lives — both personally and professionally–that we don’t often pause to really think about what was happening in the very, very early times of human development and how it might relate to us today.

I remember when, as a child, one of my favorite subjects was “cave men” and how they lived. Those early cultures held a mysterious fascination for me. OK, so I’m actually a frustrated archaeologist!

The paintings of Charles R. Knight, (1874-1953), influenced our impressions of the prehistoric world.

When the recent New York Times article on the amazing discovery of a  “100,000-year old paint workshop” came to my attention, I not only enjoyed reading it but was compelled to emerge from a sort of “Blog-out” of being absent from posting for quite a while.

This is what it made me think about, to start with:

• Symbolic use of color in many cultures
• Who made the color decisions “way back then?”
• What was the “psychology” of those early people and how did the arrive at their discoveries and uses of color?
• How did they continue, over time, to make new pigment discoveries and record them?
• How were the colors communicated from one group to another, and
• Did they have what we call “personal preferences?”

I’m sure the answers to these questions are elementary to the people who make this study their life’s work.

But this discovery feels like a jolt to the modern world of design, fashion, color trends, and modern paint techniques. If we are open to it, we’ll appreciate new dimensions in our current way of thinking about color, pigment, and paint mixing. Organic color sources of many types are at the foundation of  modern paint colors that we use most often in our own home decorating.

Another way of looking at it is as another example of the connection between art and science and, in this case, history—literally!

Image from the New York Times article.

Image source: New York Times
Grethe Moell Pedersen

But what do you think?
And, what do you know, for a “fact”?

If you do read the article, be sure to go to the readers’ comments there, which are fascinating and informative as well!

I”ll certainly be interested your thoughts, too.

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Connect and coordinate a simple color palette with collaboration, colors, and textures.
Sometimes it’s easier than others, and sometimes it just Looks easy! Carefully considered wall finishes and coordinated custom rugs can help. Collaboration gets it done.

In this Boston high-rise condo, to create a backdrop for stronger colors we used a neutral-based color palette in custom finish of textured walls, with custom Tibetan rugs.

I’ve worked in tandem with Boston-area designer Cynthia Brumm, of SpaceDesign, on a number of projects. Here, Cynthia was the lead and she asked me to create wall finishes and rug designs. In addition to designing custom pieces for this client, Cynthia selected beautifully vibrant furnishings to complement the owner’s existing pieces.

Existing dining room furniture is beautifully complemented by GEO-Borders in wool and silk, from Silk Road Weaves

Cynthia also designed this dramatic console cabinet in a beautiful dark wood finish.

Cabinet design by Cynthia Brumm. Artisan wall finishes by Barbara Jacobs Color and Design

Custom wall finishes in an architectural, low-profile texture provide a beautiful backdrop for the custom rugs from Silk Road Weaves.

The adaptable nature of GEO from Silk Road Weaves becomes a runner in 100% wool, and complements the living room and dining room rugs, also from the GEO group.

The wall finishes are the same throughout the main open areas: Entry, Hallway, Living room, Dining room.
Kitchen and powder room are different.

Powder room features walls having a soft bronze layered glaze. Wall finishes by Barbara Jacobs.

The overall effect is comfortable, yet stunning, with a dramatic view overlooking the city.

Yes, there is a view of Boston!

All images by Barbara Jacobs.

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What do you Not want to do today?

For me, today it’s painting shutters instead of writing a blog post; or instead of working on one of the many new rug designs in progress; or even selecting new paint colors for my own little interior project—reviving a former bedroom occupied by one or another of our children over the years.

OK, so I took a break from the shutter work. After all, client projects are much more enjoyable!

The particular pair of exterior shutters I’m talking about (yes, just 2 of them!) has been in my studio since last Fall, over the entire winter. Even with a great place to work on projects like this in any season, I didn’t have to try too had to walk by them and look the other way every time I was doing something more “immediate” and enjoyable, even painting up color samples.

Now, finally, it’s almost Fall again and the prep is done.  I’m on to the surface color, so the end is in sight and, once done, I might even get to organizing the office and studio –again.

The point is, that every time I actually accomplish a long-procrastinated task, the reward is so much sweeter—as in, “I Finally did it!”
Here’s my color celebration, in advance!

The trick is to find the creative in the mundane.

What are Your tips for doing this?

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Maybe it’s every summer, but in Ohio it’s a great assortment of beautiful colors on beautiful vintage cars that represent some of the colors of summer, and of adventure.

That’s a classic color, for sure (O.K., so I’m from Minnesota!)
Check out the upholstery!  What a beautiful job.

Step inside, take a ride!

Maybe you’d prefer red?

Hot, and Hotter!

Or, is it Cool, and Cooler?  We didn’t see any Yellow cars that day, though…

Going back in time a bit…

Red was probably not the original color.

But isn't it gorgeous?

What’s a car show without an essential, basic, and beautiful green?

There’s something about the quality of the paint job.
All these colors are so deep, you can look into them for miles. Some have embedded metallic within the layers of the finish.Shiny, Bright, and Brilliant.

And last but certainly not least..the original.

Original version, complete with real, very historic, embellishment.

How will you use these colors?  Please share your inspirations!

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Blues…music, paint, fiber, jewels, feelings.

What’s “Mood Indigo,” anyway?
An audio version of course…this classic!

And another interpretation by Ella Fitzgerald, unsurpassable.

Another way to experience it – Old Levi’s!  In the originals, the dye was Indigo.

Indigo culture is worldwide, a fiber dye and therefore, as with many dye materials, a currency. Whether it’s a paste resist in Africa; Batik  or block-printing in Indonesia; Rice Paste resist or Arashi Shibori in Japan, and any one of the myriad textile design techniques that are part of indigenous cultures worldwide, using Indigo dye is a highly developed craft and art.

Vats of Indigo in Japan. Find out more at Kimono Boy

Actually, the inspiration for this post was a recent conversation with a friend who now lives in Santa Fe. She mentioned seeing the premier of the documentary, Blue Alchemy, and hearing about it reminded me of the many ways that I’ve seen Indigo dye used over the years. That conversation brought back many memories of my own personal experiences working with many types of tradition textile decoration techniques and materials. Even now, in fact, I can use Indigo-dyed fibers in my own Tibetan rug designs!

In antique textiles, traditional culture textiles, and modern work, Indigo has a presence all its own.

Textiles made by Hmong people in Vietnam, shown at Kimono Reincarnate blog site.

Pots of Indigo in Nigerian traditional dyeing

Indigo printed textile by Morris Kennet -- 1883!

Indigo is earthy, primal, mysterious, exotic, beautiful, and versatile! What more could we ask of one type of plant?

If this is a subject that interests you, check out this video and other material on the same page. And, Enjoy!

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