Color Cheer from Friends, Part 2
Today, we're moving inside. At this time of year here in Chapel Hill, NC, the oppressive heat and humidity forces us to hunker down indoors. Plus with COVID at large, most of us are avoiding crowds and spending even more time inside than usual.
During these stressful, gloomy times, it's especially helpful to be surrounded by colors that lift our spirits. Amanda in Holland, Linda in Santa Monica and Dean in Seattle show us how indoor color has inspired them.
AMANDA Cushman in Holland
Color means everything to me as I grew up with a family who enjoyed color and knew how to use it. My mother was an artist and my father had amazing taste and we lived in a colorful home with a lot of art and color on each wall. I have adopted this sense of color and love how it transforms a space, a room, a wall. It brings warmth, whimsy, spice, excitement to my home.
Thankfully I married a man who is also a color enthusiast and has great taste and style. Every home we have ever lived in has had color because we transform our homes each time.
Here is Holland, the color in each room has changed our house and brought it to life.
From Barbara Clare: In the photo below LEFT, not only do you see cheerful color blocking, but also in the background, a view of water. Amanda and Herman's home is located on a canal, which means that they daily delight in the glorious light show of sky and water.
LINDA P in Santa Monica
For the last 3 months I have had my groceries delivered by a volunteer group, Westside Friends - a volunteer-led and volunteer-run mutual aid organization that assists with contactless grocery runs, prescription pickups and other small errands.
They matched me up with Gloria Shen. Westside Friends doesn't take money for their help.
Instead, I chose to pay Gloria in flowers from my garden.
Gloria used to work for a florist. I asked her to send me pics of her arrangements. Last time I gave her this bouquet and these are the arrangements she came up with!
DEAN Paton in Seattle
I wanted to find a way to make my dining room feel like the heart of the home, a place that inspires and encourages dinnertime conversations that go deep, beyond the usual bland niceties too common around most tables. It didn’t take more than a few moments to realize it would either be a rich gold or a tomato red. Because the room adjoins the living room — painted a deep avocado (the skin, not the fruit), I ended up going with a Benjamin Moore gold. The transition from the avocado to the gold seemed more inviting (and maybe less color-wheel trite) than it would have seemed to go from avocado to tomato.
The gold I chose was fine. But not. So I revisited the Benjamin Moore fan deck and went with another gold, this one with the most saturation I could find, and repainted. Now the room works. It’s just what I’d hoped for, and it shows off a red-painted cabinet and a red-painted old ice chest spectacularly.
Bon appetit.
And thank you, Amanda, for sharing all of your gorgeous photos of indoor color. Much appreciated. I've already had one friend comment that your place is his fantasy spot. Perhaps when the world opens up again, he'll rent your house!
Thank you for including my photos Claire. I will cherish this time I had to regroup and rewire my mind and life as we head out on our next journey to live in Valencia. It’s been a wonderful moment and the colors are so uplifting.