When I give the participants in my colour training an in-class exercise, or homework (hey you get your money's worth with us) I notice that when they select colours to create a colour palette they take the undertone of whatever paint chip/s they have to work with and repeat it. So if I show a blue green, and they need… Continue reading
The ONLY surface that I did not paint in the house we bought and renovated last Spring was the deck. Now that we've worn a couple spots running back and forth between the house and the office (below) I can see that it was formerly forest green. Had it still been that colour, it would definitely have been on the… Continue reading
Alright my lovelies, it's time to literally shake things up in the paint world! Wake Up! It's 2013! Most of you are so behind with your colours it's totally painful. I conduct on-line colour consultations all over the world and I use your fan decks. Before I can even look up a colour on some decks, I have to read… Continue reading
I get a lot of questions about which colours work with honey oak trim, so I thought it would be easier to just show which colours are not so fabulous. Since honey oak trim has an orange/yellow undertone, I would generally advise against using any shade of pink beige colour with it. In my system of understanding undertones, the… Continue reading
After I posted my goals for 2013 last week sharing my dilemma on finding images that I could use to show 'What not to do with undertones', I received this very generous email from one of my lovely readers (no names will be used here), who said I was welcome to share her story: I have made literally every mistake… Continue reading
source I received some new quartz samples the other day. This is how they were packaged when they arrived. . . Every single sample had to be pried off with a screwdriver and taken out of the packaging. Why? Because it's virtually impossible to choose the coordinating colour for your walls or cabinets with the sample glued and surrounded by… Continue reading
I'm on vacation this week so I thought I'd re-post and revise some of my oldest and best posts. I thought i'd start with this one because of the 37 Days of Learning Undertones series I am doing on Facebook this month. It's a not-to-be-missed opportunity to start to see what others don't see, completely free. If you want to… Continue reading
I have a confession. Lately I've been feeling like a one-trick pony. Because I'm specifying the same grays over and over and over. Thank goodness I know better. Shaker Beige (source) Because here's the thing. When the brown trend was here, it was the same, "Oh, you have an espresso brown sofa, brown floors, and you want a neutral?" It… Continue reading
A big hello to Maria Killam's readers! I am your guest blogger, Saffronia Baldwin, also an interior designer and author of the blog Design Like the Pros . Thank you, Maria, for this special opportunity to do a guest post. I'm sure I can speak for all of us when I say that your fabulous posts are an ongoing source… Continue reading
This is one of our dated bathrooms which will be renovated next summer. It was so hard for me to get past just the colour in here. See the chair rail? If you have it in your house and you don't have wallpaper above it take it out! Photos by Maria Killam I didn't touch this bathroom except to paint… Continue reading
