Yes, I AM one of those people who keeps a small library of my favorite magazines as reference material, often spending a rainy day thumbing through them for inspiration. The pages of this Martha Stewart Living magazine from 1998 have played many roles in my design process through the years. To me, the color choices truly are timeless…but what do you think? At first glance do these rooms look like they were painted sixteen years ago? When clients question my picking of softer, more muted versions of their color picks, I often refer to shoots like this one to bring them back down to earth. Sure, the thousands of hues available at Home Depot and Lowes might include bright colors better suited for a sports car, but it doesn't mean you should put them on your walls! When in doubt, DIAL IT DOWN! The better part of this color story, as I thumbed through it this morning with a cup of Joe, is that MY Joe was involved in the shoot and gave me the scoop. Years ago, Martha Stewart created a line of paint for Kmart after falling in love with the colorful eggs created by her Araucanan chickens. (This also served as the turning point for me of adoring Martha's creativity to thinking she was a total whack job, but that didn't stop me from falling in love with her paint line). Years later, I would learn that, while the Araucanan chickens do indeed create beautifully colorful eggs, they're nothing like the paint colors in Martha's world..in fact, my other half was told to paint the eggs to get the perfect color for the photo shoot, begging the question, which came first, the egg color or Martha's paint line?? It really doesn't matter to me, though, because I know if I walked into either one of the rooms above today, I'd still love them as much as I did in 1998. Loud music at a dinner party, just like bright paint colors, gets annoying after a while. Lower the tunes and tone down your paint!
