DECORATING : A Philosophical Palette
Donald Kaufman, New York color consultant: “The most commonly overlooked thing for people making color choices is their own preference. They are made to feel by fashion dictates that they need to do things that are au courant or are important. That is the worst way to approach color. The best way is to look for things that are personal favorites and not care about what everyone says.”
* Lin Yun, feng-shui expert: “Interior colors can affect your work. For example, if a color is too deep or too heavy, like black desks with coffee-colored walls, the business won’t develop well because everyone will feel depressed and down. Then again, if the color is too bright, it could lead to corporate infighting.”
* Clodagh, New York interior designer: “I think color has a huge effect on you. I would never paint a bedroom red, for instance. But I would paint the dining room red, a sort of brownish red. I like two kinds of bathrooms, because some shower in a brisk bathroom and bathe in a warm one. So for the brisk one I would do water and aqua glass and slate and very fresh white or aluminum. The other I would do in terra cotta, granite and copper.
* From Tricia Guild’s “Country Color”: “Paint and paper will take on a different color in your own home. For example, a predominantly white color scheme can seem creamy in a south-facing room bathed in warm sunlight, but take on a bluish tinge in a north-facing room. A west-facing room takes on the warmer light of afternoon, while an east-facing room will reflect the colder light of morning.”
* Sarah Rossbach and Lin Yun from “Living Color”: “For kitchens, white is the best color. It shows off the colors of food best, like a blank canvas upon which the cook creates a meal of red tomatoes, green peppers, yellow squash.”
* Eugenia Au Kim, Southampton, N.Y., designer: “For a home office, do lots of natural woods, and I would suggest that one wall should be black. That encourages money. If the person is hyperkinetic, I would use softer colors on the walls. If they need stimulation, use jewel tones.”
