New Year's Resolution: New Paint, New Home, New Me
From the color of your car, your linens and your favorite sweater to the color of neon lights, dishes, socks, paint and product packaging, there's a concerted effort to attract your attention with color. Without reading the company name, most folks can accurately identify, just from the color, a UPS or FedEx truck, can of Coca-Cola or Tiffany's box. The latter has its own trademarked robin's egg shade of blue.
Color is a powerful branding mechanism, as well as a delight to the eye in the natural world, our homes and work spaces. Colors promote emotional characteristics and perceived space. If you look around the Internet long enough, you can find almost every color is trending somewhere. The challenges are (1) to choose colors which enhance your home, personality and lifestyle, and (2) engage the best professional painters to transform a room or entire home into your own special retreat. The second decision is the easy one: Paintworks & Decorating.
Paint companies and fashion designers often drive color trends. Benjamin Moore has selected as its Color of the Year for 2019 a chic pewter gray named Metropolitan AF-690. Ellen O'Neill, director of strategic design intelligence, describes it as "comforting, composed and effortlessly sophisticated ... exuding beauty and balance. It's a color in the neutral spectrum that references a contemplative state of mind and design." The advantage of a gray tone is the opportunity to add vibrant colors in furniture, accents, art and fabric.
A warm dark colonial blue dubbed Blueprint S470-5 is Behr's 2019 Color of the Year, and they call it an "honest, approachable color that conjures up the blueprints builders rely on to bring architectural designs to life." Blue in any shade can evoke the peace and serenity found in landscapes and water views.
PPG Paints claims for 2019 that "classic luxury meets the restorative power of nature in this trending deep green paint color" named Night Watch. “The restorative power of nature is important in society now more than ever,” explains Dee Schlotter, PPG senior color marketing manager. "Night Watch is about bringing the healing power from the outdoors into your home." Memories of a walk in the park, like Central Park or Pelham Bay Park, can occupy a permanent space in your home.
A creamy terra cotta color from the American Southwest has migrated into the Big Apple and takes center stage as Sherwin-Williams' 2019 Color of the Year: Canyon Clay. It can go in a contemporary, neutral, natural or splashy direction in a high-rise loft, Upper East Side condo or Brooklyn brownstone.
Others in the color industry like Valspar and Pantone release palettes of colors they see as both trending and complementary. These run the gamut of the off-white creams and ubiquitous and optimistic yellows to natural greens and browns, soothing teal and blues, dramatic purples and energizing reds and oranges.
Color is a matter of personal preference, and the good news is that you don't need to be limited. Accent walls and contrasting trim are wildly popular, and while sky blue color was once relegated to porch ceilings, colors have found their way inside to add an element of interest and/or expand the space. Painting a wall to within two feet of a light colored ceiling and adding a thin strip of wood trim, for example, can make a small room seem larger. Light colors in general expand a space, while dark colors increase coziness. Another tip is to choose a paint color one or two shades lighter than you fall in love with on the paint chip.
After surfing the web at Houzz, Pinterest, hgtv.com and other sites, make your color selections and connect with Paintworks for the most professional application using the best practices and tools in the industry. We live up to our slogan: "Painting is our passion - Making people happy is our mission.”
