Our blog offers a fresh voice on the design scene, with ideas, inspiration and paint color advice focused on color for the built world. Updated regularly, discover current paint color trends and tried and true proven approaches to color design for your home, your business or your brand. It's all about the human response to color. Learn how to choose and apply color in a way that supports well-being and adds beauty and function to any environment. Whether interior or exterior, residential or commercial, smart color design makes the difference between a space that's hardly noticeable and one that makes you feel alive!

Thanks for stopping by our blog........Amy

12 Paint Color and Interior Design Trends for 2022

This year’s go-to color is green. Though I rarely give the paint companys' Color of the Year more than a glancing nod, this year I was struck by their uniformity and general good sense. Green was the hands down choice. As the most prevalent color in our surroundings (outside of concrete jungles) green ushers in feelings of calmness, health, freshness and well-being. No wonder, after what we’ve been through it’s one of the hottest trends. I’ve been specifying greens for eons when clients are open to it. It’s an easy color to work with and enhances every style of interior design Continue reading...

Choosing paint colors for red brick or stone exteriors

Paint colors for red brick exteriors. More than any other material, red brick seems to stump folks most when choosing paint colors to accompany it. It’s such a pronounced, definite color, the conceptual opposite of a neutral. Red brick comes in many shades. Brick is a natural material, made from clay. The origin and age of the brick affects its appearance greatly. The brick can appear more burnt orange or red. It can lean brown or yellow tan and it’s almost always multi toned within one structure. Finding great paint colors for red brick is easy if you follow the following guidelines.… Continue reading...

11 Paint Color and Interior Design Trends for 2021

Always my favorite blog post, this year, corralling paint color and interior design trends into a coherent POV is tempered by my acknowledgement of the distressing state of the world and the relative insignificance of this task. But not wanting to add to this year’s sense of aberration I’m forging ahead with it. Like most years in the past, this year’s trends are a combination of those newly emerging with those already ongoing. Some also take a relatively fresh idea from the recent past and morph it into something just a squosh different. Last year, pre-Covid, I forecasted the new trend in warm, saturated paint colors like russet, bronze, burnt orange and the like. Continue reading...

Paint Color Palette of the Year 2021

Almost as much as Pantone, Benjamin Moore’s Color of the Year and corresponding Palette of the Year is always greatly anticipated. This year the colors in the Palette of the Year 2021 have a seriously cohesive feel. Why these colors? We’re told the palette was developed before covid arrived which is interesting. In many respects it seems a natural reaction to our current situation. I always advise, whether designing a palette for one room or for a whole house, to mix cool and warm colors with the goal of creating a sense of balance.… Continue reading...

How to Choose a White Paint Color for Your House Exterior

Choosing the best white paint color for your house exterior can be difficult. Let’s’ face it, many folks find choosing white colors for both exteriors and interiors challenging. That’s why you should go to an exterior paint color consultant for help! Most paint companies make many white choices. When you compare a lot of them you realize that accompanying the white exists many other tones. White can appear a tad pink or creamy with some yellow. It can contain some gray, blue, green, or a mix of more than one other color.  Like other colors besides white, the color comes from a particular hue family and traces of those families are part of the white’s makeup.… Continue reading...

Exterior Paint Color Trends for 2020

Unless you’ve been driving around with blinders on you’ve had to have noticed the prevalence of very dark homes by now. Exterior paint color trends for 2020 practically starts and ends with black, charcoal, navy and other very dark hues.  I’ve been writing about this trend for years as they started showing up in about 2014 or 2015 but dark houses seem to be moving more and more into the mainstream. Chances are you’ll see more dark homes in cities and the countryside. The trend is lagging in the suburbs for obvious reasons. And while they seem most appropriate for very modern homes you’ll note dark hues on historic homes like the Victorian above as well as colonials and other architectural styles, much to the delight of some and horror of others.… Continue reading...

Color and Interior Design Trends 2020

It’s that time of year that I forecast color and interior design trends for residences and I’m getting a jump on it this year. I am proud to say design pundits and shelter mags have consistently lagged behind identifying these concepts, reporting much later than I about new trends for the coming year. Like most years, some trends remain strong and carry on for longer than 12 months. This year those include, the use of pink, deep saturated wall color in hues like blue, green and teal, the use of caning in seating and case goods, dark green kitchen cabinets and the on-going love affair with light neutral spaces.… Continue reading...

Dining Room Color

The kids are back in school, the fall season with its apple picking and pumpkin carving is here so inevitably the holidays are upon us. Even if you weren’t thinking about redecorating your home you are cognizant that the least used room is about to get a workout. Are you panicking? Don’t! Jazz up your dining room by choosing the perfect dining room paint color. Here’s how to choose dining room color.  My philosophy about dining room color is to let the architectural style and decor direction of the whole home guide you. Homes which employ one overall theme should continue this theme into the dining room.… Continue reading...