Throwback Thursdays

I love Throwback Thursdays because I always post a photo of my daughter who has had so many different looks over the years, it’s hard to believe it’s the same person. Also, I always tag her so that it appears on her Facebook page and try and post early in the morning before she has a chance to delete it off of her page. It has become a little game we play. She did tell me that in one of her theatre classes at Loyola, that my Throwback Thursday photos of her were quite the topic of conversation with everyone, including her professor, saying how much they looked forward to seeing them.

This got me thinking that I should start recycling old color and design projects on Thursdays for my blog. This might be a good way to inspire me to post more often. So, hopefully, this will be the first of many!

I’ll start with one of my first color consultation projects. Shortly after I started my line of Full Spectrum Paints in 2001, Mercedes Whitecloud asked me to meet her at the Pitot House Museum in New Orleans because they were doing some repainting. I didn’t have nearly as many stock colors to choose from back then (now we have over 100), so what was surprising to me, was that many of my colors were actually dead ringers for the historical colors original to the circa 1799 plantation. The interior millwork was all “Edgewood Green” and three of the rooms were the equivalent of our “Wedgewood”, “Citrine” and “Ruby” which is from our Magical Gems Palette. I was floored to discover that this saturated, bright red was used back then!

“Ruby” walls with “Edgewood Green” trim recreated from the original colors used in this bedroom. Photo from the book Creole Houses.

Today the Pitot House is home to the Louisiana Landmarks Society who saved it, moving it about two hundred feet in the mid-1960s to prevent its demolition for the construction of a school. The Landmarks Society focused its restoration during the period of 1810-19 when it was occupied by Jacques-Francois Pitot, a native of France who became the second mayor of New Orleans. Pitot previously spent time in Saint Domingue, now Haiti, hence the Creole architectural and colorful influences.

We created our full spectrum formula for the shutters and named the color “Pitot Shutter Green”.

Although I had already created several of the colors used in the Pitot House, I was so taken with the unusual colors of the shutters and the mango-colored parlor, I later created full spectrum formulas for those colors for colorful artist Hunt Slonem, who used them at both Albania and Lakeside Plantations.

Our version of the Pitot Parlor wall color was used in the parlor of Albania Plantation so we renamed it “Albania Mango”. “Edgewood Green” is on all millwork including the ceiling. Note how the trim is so neutral it goes with every color in the house!

“Citrine” walls with “Edgewood Green” trim used in one of the bedrooms. Citrine is a color we use often to brighten an otherwise dark space. Works every time!

“Wedgewood” walls with “Edgewood Green” trim used in this bedroom is probably the most subdued color in the whole house and still one of our most popular bedroom colors. To get samples of these colors, visit: Full Spectrum Paints