Color

Choosing color is a wonderful way to express yourself, your lifestyle and can really do a lot to your home or environment.

What better inspiration can you have than Mother Nature! As a nature lover, I always enjoy the color combination of flowers, grasses, trees and my own house reflects what I like. The colors I use on my interiors flow to the exterior using light green and woodsy color and brown. Not everyone favors those colors and would favor more upbeat and darker colors.

Also, I belong to the Color Association of America and get their latest newsletter discussing colors. What is interesting to note, the fashion industry also changes colors by season-fall, spring, winter and summer and the trend can go on with other design - web, graphic, interior and architecture.

As a subscriber of several architecture and design magazines, I found the pictures from

House Beautiful worth sharing. Above are some pictures that show inspiration and color combination when decorating.

First picture is a family room and brown is the predominant color- perfect for a more traditional conservative look.

Second picture is a dining room using neutral color but punctuated with vibrant color-red apple and blue artwork.

Third picture is one of my favorite, a vibrant orange cactus flower close to gray moss.

Fourth picture is a bathroom using light green which is refreshing and makes you feel clean.

Color can also evoke feelings and set you in a mood.

• Red can make you passionate and have more energy and also used by Chinese for good luck on New Year (see my picture on a Lunar Year celebration at South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa, CA).
• Green is a very relaxing color and refreshing. That is why citrus like lime scent is popular on bath and beauty products. Also, if you want to extend the look of your interior to your exterior and you have a lot of trees, vines, plants with green color, paint your interiors with green and shades can vary even with trees.
• Blue is a soothing and calming color. Clouds and water are blue and this color is popular in a bedroom especially if the person likes the beach. I personally like blue and use of shells in a bedroom since my happy childhood days were spent on rivers and beaches.
• Yellow is a color used to get attention. Whether you dress up in yellow, people tend to look at you and same if this color is used in a room. Dark room or space that don't have a lot of light are the spaces you can color as yellow but shades again will vary depending upon how much attention you want on that space.
• Orange is perfect color for warm people. I decorated a new house in Buena Park, CA for a couple who just got married. Orange color is welcoming and perfect for entryways and hallways.

I like going to model homes whether they are in California or Las Vegas, Nevada. One strategy to make your homes look bigger is to use one shade of color all throughout and make the accent, furniture, decor on the colors you like. This strategy works especially if you plan to sell or not stay long on your house.

Color is such a big topic for designers and you can either make your home stand out and get the "wow" factor or you can really ruin the look of your home.

Till next post. Hope you like this post.