Transforming a Mountain Getaway

I just love it when I get emails and “after” photos from clients showing me their newly transformed homes! Mary, who has an art degree and specializes in oil painting, contacted me at the beginning of last year to help her with paint colors for her newly purchased home in the North Carolina mountains. When she and her husband Grady purchased the home, all of the walls were white and the trim was green, and as you can see, they also had lots of that honey-colored wood that can be so difficult to work with when selecting paint colors:In addition to the colors that were already in the palette, they had a very hard time choosing colors for this house because the elevation is above 4,000 ft. and the light in the mountains plays tricks with colors. They tried about 8 non-full spectrum paint color samples on the walls and the colors changed by the minute and most of the changes Mary didn’t like. Although she doesn’t use a designer and really enjoys decorating for herself, this weekend home was giving her fits, so she started searching the internet to see what she might come up with, and found information about full spectrum colors and then my website. She ordered samples, and then with the help of  Grady and her friend Cheryl, she picked out all of the colors, except for one of the guest rooms, because she had already chosen the fabric. After seeing her fabric samples, I suggested Edgewood Green to go with the rest of her chosen palette of Camelhair, Rust and Chestnut, with Wheat on millwork and most ceilings.

“Edgewood Green” is a great compliment to reds and golds and is such a neutral, most any fabric will work well with it.

“Camelhair” was used on the walls and millwork of the main living areas.

Kitchen Area “before”

“Camelhair” was used on everything: Walls, cabinets and trim.

Love the softness of her “Wheat” ceiling and trim with “Chestnut” walls in this Guest Bedroom!

“Edgewood Green” walls with “Wheat” ceiling and trim in this Guest Bedroom where dust ruffle is the red fabric and curtains are in the gold check.

“Camelhair” walls and millwork also used in the Dining Room.

I especially liked getting this feedback from Mary since I recently had to increase my prices again due to manufacturer Akzo Nobel increasing prices:

“I highly recommend your colors and your services. Sure you pay more for the paint, but the colors are fantastic.”

When I started this line of full spectrum paints over ten years ago, it was with the intent that I keep my pricing in line with major paint manufacturers so that it would be affordable for everyone because I truly believe (& get constant feedback) that our paints are healing, bringing joy and balance to everyone who comes into contact with them. Due to the scarcity of one of the most important ingredients in good paint, titanium; all paint manufacturers have increase their prices as many as 4 times a year over the past couple of years. However, even at our increased prices, it all comes down to only 15 cents per square foot for our most popular VOC-free “certified green” Lifemaster product. Considering that paint makes the biggest impact on any space, covering far more surface than anything else, it’s still a bargain! Here’s a link to the pricing information: Pricing and Product Data

However, I am working on creating formulas in their new VOC-free contractor grade paint which is perfect for those on a tight budget and those who like to change the color of their walls often. It will sell for around $50 per gallon.  We’re starting with our most popular colors, so stay tuned!

Jon Vaccari’s “JV Cloud White” Gets Around!

In my May 19, 2010 blog post “Many Shades of White“, I posted photos of Jon Vaccari’s fabulous New Orleans showroom where everything is painted this dreamy white created especially for him. Almost two years later, this color has made its way from Los Angeles to Miami to New York and back again to New Orleans.

I used it as the main color in Rob and Veronica Wasserman‘s Spanish-style home in Los Angeles and jewelry designer Isabella Holguin’s Miami apartment and most recently, designer/antiques dealer Karina Gentinetta used it in Desegno Karina Gentinetta, her new showroom located on the 1stdibs floor in the New York Design Center at 200 Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. Karina has been getting quite a bit of press lately, starting with a fascinating article in the New York Times (“A New Cottage in New Orleans with Katrina Patina”, a must read for true inspiration!) and most recently, she was featured on 1stDibs.com in their “Saturday Shopping with Karina Gentinetta“.

Karina in her new showroom, Disegno Karina Gentinetta

Karina’s home is also featured in this month’s issue of Southern Living Magazine and is also featured in Kerri McCaffety‘s gorgeous new book, New Orleans New Elegance, which is coming out next month.

Cover Photo of Jon Vaccari’s Dining Room painted in our “JV Cloud” White!

I can’t wait to meet Karina in person at a booksigning party for Kerri and her new book which will be held in Jon’s St. Charles Avenue showroom. His living quarters, which are also featured in the book, are upstairs from the showroom where most everything is painted in our “JV Cloud White”. It promises to be a great party reconnecting with many old friends like Jon, Kerri, Dean Coe and Mimi Read (who is quoted in the book and has generously included me in several of her articles for House Beautiful).

Also, Karina is designing a new restaurant to open next month in New Orleans’ Warehouse District (1016 Annunciation) which promises to be divine! I say “divine” because not only is Karina designing it, but the team opening it includes the chef from Clancy’s and the general manager of  Tommy’s Cuisine. I can’t wait to go enjoy what promises to be fabulous food in a divine atmosphere where the walls and millwork will be painted “JV Cloud White”!  I see many more trips to New Orleans in my future!

Speaking of New Orleans and on a personal note, my daughter Alex attends Loyola University majoring in theatre, so I love any excuse to go visit. She plans to spend the summer here in St. Francisville working on four plays with the St. Francisville Transitory Theatre, where she’s been a member since she was 12. Mom that I am, I am trying to help them raise money for this new venture. If you’re so inclined (and especially if you’re a local), here’s the link:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/91005905/summer-of-theatre-2012

Thanks so much and have a wonderful Spring day!

What Exactly Is “Full Spectrum Paint”?

Back in October 2010, I wrote a blog post about full spectrum paints going mainstream upon hearing Benjamin Moore’s announcement that they were debuting their own line of “full spectrum paints”. Thanks to Ben Moore’s major marketing campaign, I finally no longer feel like I am selling the emperor’s new clothes. When you Google the term “full spectrum paints”, now well over half a million links come up and although I have never advertised in the almost eleven years since I created my line of Full Spectrum Paints, links to my website come up first. For that, I am very grateful.

The only downside to this is that Benjamin Moore is putting out erroneous information in that they are claiming their Color Stories line is full spectrum because they do not use any black or gray pigments in their colors and their colors have a minimum of 5 pigments. The whole term “full spectrum paint” comes from the fact that in order to be a full spectrum paint, full spectrum colors are mixed using an amount of colorant from each hue family in the visible color spectrum, at a minimum. This wouldn’t bother me, but because Ben Moore’s Color Stories palettes consist of such saturated and vibrant colors, now the term “full spectrum paints” is becoming synonymous with “intense colors”, as you can see in the blog post “Can You Handle the Color?“

Now there’s certainly nothing wrong with saturated color, and I have enjoyed creating the Magical Gems and Summer Brights Palettes for artist Hunt Slonem, but it’s the more subtle, easier to live with colors in our Nature and Ethereal Mists Palettes that are what our Full Spectrum Paints are most known for.

As usual, color expert Lori Sawaya does an outstanding job of explaining exactly what full spectrum paints are in her article “What You Need to Know about Full spectrum Paints“, where she also includes this price per square foot infographic:

The great news here is that there is something for everyone when it comes to color and paint!

Bringing the Outdoors In

I just love it when I get happy emails and photos from paint customers! I especially love it when they take my advice and see for themselves why what I suggest works. Over twenty years ago, when I was building my own home, I had already decided to paint all of the trim in my home “Ashen Green”, but it wasn’t until the “Ashen Green” was painted over the white primer on my window and French door trim, that I realized how it pulls your eye out into the view. In sunrooms or rooms with lots of windows, it can give you the feeling of being outside on a porch.

Natasha Nyberg, the client I wrote about in my October 25, 2011 post who won the Apartment Therapy contest for her room painted in our “Caribe”, emailed me recently asking to suggest a color for her sunroom (pictured below). I suggested pretty much any of the greens from our Nature’s Palette and Natasha, who lives in a cold climate and is drawn to warm colors, chose our “Peridot”.

Although her white sunroom certainly looks pretty, here’s what our “Peridot” on both walls and trim did for the space:

“I am SO HAPPY with how it turned out. The green is perfect. I really couldn’t be happier. It’s everybody’s favorite room in the house now. We never used to go back there, and now we’re always spending time in there–and the only things I had to buy were the paint and some of the plants!” 

- Natasha Nyberg

I especially like the way her newly painted “Pumpkin Spice” kitchen glows through the interior window. The Peridot reminds me of the Spring greenery outside my window right now. There’s just no other color like it for rejuvenation. For more on about the properties of the color green and to see another example of painting everything green in a small room to expand the space, read our February 14, 2012 post. For more photos from happy paint customers, check out our Facebook page.

41st Audubon Pilgrimage is This Weekend!

For 41 years now, dedicated citizens of Saint Francisville have dressed up in period costumes like the ones shown below to host our annual Audubon Pilgrimage, celebrating the time when John James Audubon came here from France to tutor Eliza Pirrie at Oakley Plantation.  I have never had the courage to don one of those not so flattering costumes, so when I was asked to write an article about one of the homes on tour this year; I felt it was the least I could do to contribute. A few days later, I received an invitation from one of the country’s best-selling authors to accompany him to the Angola Rodeo here in town on the same weekend as my interview.  Considering I had never written an article for a magazine before, I took it as “a sign” to bring him along, figuring he could certainly show me some pointers! Thanks to him (read the article to find out who!) and Country Roads Magazine editor James Fox-Smith, it turned out quite well: Tales Tall but True of Woodland Plantation

Being a gal who only wears tailored clothes, I guess I have to claim vanity when it comes to wearing one of these outfits--especially the hats!

This year’s Pilgrimage features three days of festivities including historic home and garden tours, an antiques show and sale, a wine & cheese reception on Friday night and on Saturday night, a “Light up the Night” Soiree with dinner al fresco, street dancing to live music and a wine-tasting. For the schedule of events and more information visit: AudubonPilgrimage.info

In conjunction with Pilgrimage this year, the Historical Society Museum on main street features a traveling Smithsonian exhibit, Journey Stories. The West Feliciana Historical Museum produced a short video that chronicles the journeys in West Feliciana Parish from the time of the Tunica Indians and the French traders to the beginning of the 20th Century. David Norwood (of Woodland Plantation’s story mentioned above) and Janie Simmons (www.1-800-jane-eyre.com) wrote the script, and the video was produced by Sarah Powell. CDs are available for those wishing to take a driving tour of the areas mentioned in Journey Stories.

Hemingbough Antiques across from the Post Office will be open during Pilgrimage and has fine Audubon prints on sale.

If you are in our area, you really should come for the festivities. The weather promises to be fabulous and the azaleas are all in full bloom. Don’t miss Afton Villa Gardens which is spectacular as always! Hope to see you there!