December 22nd -- I quickly ran over to the house this morning to pick up the Sunday paper and to check on how the paint draw downs look in the morning light. My house has really lovely morning light through the south side windows. It should be sunny, but cold over the next few days so I am planning to make an intentional effort to study the paint samples at different times of the day.
Last night I read an article in the newspaper by Marni Jameson about the Color Marketing Group (CMG), (http://www.colormarketing.org/about-cmg) which is a not-for-profit group that forecasts color trends a few years in advance (Seriously, I am not making this up, check out the link to their website). Two years ago they predicted that THE color for 2014 is something called "Boyz-N-Berry," which according to the article is "a jam-like violet." Really? I prefer my jam in a jar or on my toast, and not on my walls. When asked why, purple and why now, the head of CMG said, "When we pulled Boyz-N-Berry out of the lineup in 2011, many said it was violet's time. We thought by the end of 2013, beginning of 2014, we would be moving past the economic crisis, and it would be time to have this marvelous color that many customers had stayed away from." I will continue to stay away from it, but the article suggests that one of the colors that will dominate in 2015 is "Smokey Cashmere, a warm grey with a brown influence." I will humor myself to think that I am ahead of my time as I am attracted to the gray palette for the interior colors, but more with the blue and true gray influence, rather than the red or brown influence.
Anyways, this has made me think a lot about just how subjective color perception and preference is and how difficult this process is because there are so many variables that influence what color looks like (the light of the day, surrounding colors, mood and so on). I guess groups like CMG and Pantone Color Institute are trying to be helpful by forecasting color trends, but in the end this is all about subjectivity.
So, here are some photos of the color samples, that will of course be affected by my camera and your computer monitor, but here's what I'm playing around with for the interior colors. Over the next few days I'll try to post some better photos of the color samples in different rooms at different times of the day.
The white strip at the edge of this photo is the bright white, high gloss trim, the top color is an option for the ceiling and the bottom is one of the shades of gray.
Here are two more possibilities with a lighter option for the ceiling, a gray with a bit of red influence to the left (of each photo) and a darker gray with a gray influence to the right (of each photo). The darker gray might be an accent wall, but is too dark for my tastes for all of the walls.
This is a really beautiful shade of gray against the white trim that has more of a blue influence
I haven't really zeroed in on anything yet, but I'm partial to these two shades (which look so much darker on my computer monitor, and maybe yours).
These two photos show you how deceiving color perception can be depending upon the surrounding colors, camera, angle, etc. To the left is a photo of the same two colors above, and the photo to the right shows the same two colors, but with one of the ceiling color choices placed in between them.
Later this week I will post the color names for these shades of gray and ask for your own subjective preferences -- you've been warned!!
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