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Yay Montreal!

That's it? All that color, all that dazzle, all that, well, all that color again and this is it?

Yay Montreal encore!

Although there were many amazing rooms with MORE color, I'm glad to see that in the end it was quality, not just quantity, that won out. Even though I enjoyed seeing many of the other color saturated rooms, I would not necessarily want to LIVE in any of them. These two winners are tastefully colorful AND liveable.

P.S. I DO think that Mr. Anado in Mexico deserves an honorable mention!

Understated, sure.

But I am feeling underwhelmed.... Not inspired by vibrant color choice....

I'm not critiquing the room (it is nice), just not as inspiring for *COLOR*!

Congratulations to both winners. Both are nice rooms.

In the future I hope that AT will treat this contest more like a color contest and less like a popularity contest. Not encouraging people who enter to get friends/family to sign up and vote. Looking at the profiles of many voters (not specifically for these entries) many people signed up only to vote and post a single comment fo0r their friend or family member. That may be what AT wanted in the end (wider exposure) but was a disservice to those who entered who don't have tons of family or friends who are even willing to sign up just to vote.

Sorry, a nice room and that's it.

I can't believe two people I voted for actually won!!! That's a congrats to them and a first for me.

this room is so cold.. I wouldn't nominate it myself first for a color contest.. however I respect votes of the others, so congratulation for the winner.

Yayyyy for Beth!!!! I'm so glad she won.

Disappointing results. But these contests are just popularity contests. The blandest entries tend to go the furthest.

Congratulations to the winners. I think the final two contestants were picture perfect examples of the AT style and guessed from the start they would be on top. I appreciate the chance to see all the various styles and thank all who entered for showing off their homes. It is a brave thing to do.

Congratulations Beth and Heather!

Both rooms are nice.

However, I don't understand how simply painting your walls a pretty color shows off somebody's sense of color and design. I was hoping this contest would celebrate color with more complexity and comprehension.

Congratulations to the winners.

i was so rooting for Kyle...such a dissapointment to see this cold room win. It just shows this was a popularity contest. Bummer!

I'm a bit shocked at the final outcome. I honestly feel other rooms were more deserving but that's just my opinion. And if each person who voted, voted for who they liked in their own opinion...then I guess the right rooms won.

Beige and blue???? You have to be kidding me!
At least the international room is somewhat different.

I whole-heartedly agree with some of the earlier comments - how can you show us such range and then bore us with a winner like this?

I thought a lot of people seemed confused that it was a contest for the most and brightest color, and that's how some of the more sophisticated entries fell by the wayside. Maybe AT will consider bringing back expert judges for the final rounds...?

Anyway, I do like both of the winners, because they are both a case for being able to add color to a rental in a meaningful way.

I agree with tequila red..my favorite choice was the space that had white walls and color was incorporated in the furniture, accessories and artwork.

@Bridget212323: I must have missed that one - can you link it please? :)

i'm with rexrayfan on Mr. Anado in Mexico and with dmstudio on this turning out to be a popularity contest. i was disappointed by comments left by friends and family on the lines of "this is your aunt xyz, you were always a creative person and you deserve to win" etc etc etc. it seemed that nationality, family, etc were more important in judging this contest than just color.

don't get me wrong- i love this contest and i love AT :-) my diatribe is not directed at contest & AT but at partisan voters.

really????

I have to agree with the other comments. The contest was clearly a popularity contest. Room #1 is classic, well thought out, deliberate, but, unfortunately, not a joyful and perfectly unexpected expression of the owner's interpretation of color.

At the same time, though, it's nice to see that each room is accessible and filled with attainable design ideas for any budget.

Congrats to the winners! Honestly, I think I voted for the blue room half the time and against it the other half. I'm sorry, but I just couldn't get past the chunky book work of art.

I have no connection to either winners and still think they are lovely and deserve their wins. Congratulations!

Too Snarky, People. Get over yourselves.

This was a fun contest and I enjoyed the pairings and rooting for my favorites. Now, moving on, what's next.

The people have spoken. Congrats to Beth and Heather.

Of course saying things like "get over yourselves" isn't snarky at all.

Yay, Heather's coral kitchen was my favorite entry!
Sorry to see so many snarky comments on here, though.

YA CANADA!!!!!!!!!!!

YA CANADA for the international division win which is tops in my books for whimsy, eclectic *doable* inspiration (first room is just too formula for my taste!)

I agree with the Kate(NC) who said entering these contests is a brave thing to do. Most of the time I enjoy this site to get ideas and discover people who are interested in helping one another live more...aesthetically, I guess.

But when the comments sections devolve into non-constructive, my-taste-is-better-than-yours criticism of the posts or preceding comments or, for gosh sakes, what people do with their own *homes,* I am very discouraged. I avoided the site for half a year because the cruelty of the comments had become such a downer.

All this to say: it was a fun contest. My votes sometimes, but not always, aligned with the majority. Hooray for the winners. Jeez.

I do not know either of the winners, but I loved both rooms when they were first shown, and I loved them most of the time in the contest. The voters voted, and these two won. Good for you.

I am delighted to find out that this room won - this is my favorite entry and the first one I checked in on after each vote. So beautiful, warm, relaxing - this is the room that changed my mind about blue. I love the coral kitchen too!

it was a fun contest - i checked in a lot to see what was going on. but i would be 100% lying if i said i'm not totally surprised that Kind of Blue won.

what i think is going on here, is that AT lacked giving parameters for what it meant to be in a "color contest" - best accent color/wall, best use of color through accessories, best over all color scheme.... the options are endless.

lets have designers vote on the rules, vote on the entries and let readers give a space thumbs up or down without it having anything to do with who winds up in the finals. then its truly a color contest and not the popularity contest popular opinion has called it out to be.

What's the problem with expressing how you feel about the results? This isn't Kindergarten where everyone gets an A for effort.

I don't agree that it's a popularity contest. We don't even know these people. My votes went to rooms that took the most risk with colors and pulled it off. So yeah, I'm disappointed.

I loved the Montreal room from the beginning. Congrats to the winners!

I liked both of them but I didn't love them. It's interesting that they are each others opposite.

Interesting. The blue room has a nice small seating arrangement and a lovely blue on ONE wall. Although I find it semi puzzling and have to agree with some of the comments, that this room wins the ROOM FOR COLOR contest when the OWNER describes the color choices as utilitarian and can't even remember the name or maker of the paint color chosen.

BTW the comment section is often the most entertaining part of AT in my opinion, I wouldn't trade the snarky opinions of my fellow posters for anything ; )

Congrats to Beth and Heather!

I had the runner up room to Beth's living room. I completely enjoyed this experience. I entered on a lark and got some great responses. I appreciated everyone's comments and support.

It was exciting for me and my friends and family when we got to the finals. My mother was a wreck, but secretly she had a good time. We reconnected with old friends and family and my 8 year old nephew worked on his math skills as he gave me updates of the differences in the vote count every five minutes.

Thanks for a fun weekend AT!

Kyle, that's actually pretty cool. It makes me wish I'd told more people about it (I'm Jessica's 'Mostly Neutrals'). I told my parents but I wouldn't even let them vote. Not that they could have figured out how, but still.

Jessica, for what it's worth, yours was my favorite! I stalked your blog, and that color in the main room was truly transformative. (PS I also L-O-V-E what you did to the free Craigslist table)

Congratulations to the winners! Heather's kitchen was one of my absolute favorite rooms!

I really liked the Spanish room with the bunnies and the awesome door :)

I have to agree with some of the other commentors that the finale was a little underwhelming from a color standpoint. It seems as though this year the voter focus was on accessibility (the "hey, I could live with this" factor) rather than the "wow" factor that past contests have rewarded. Nothing wrong with that, I guess. Congratulations to the winners.

Congratulations to the winners. Others are entitled to their opinions, so the judges and voter decisions has to be respected as well. Well done :)

congrats to the winners. I'm just happy it wasn't the professional designers or those who hired pros that won. I agree that the winning room wasn't the most dramatic but the problem with dramatic rooms is that as much as some people love them, some people hate them for the very same elements. my favorite rooms were the very subtle rooms and the over the top ones, it really came down to having the right balance and tonality.

I do wish that they wouldn't allow people who have just joined to vote but of course as a website that is all about page views, they have these contests to drive traffic to the site.

I think both of the winners show that using colour doesn't have to be scary and can be used in smaller amounts and in smaller spaces and still work wonderfully.

I agree with J.

go chitown!

Cute rooms. Though I do wish the winners were rooms with more of a diverse palette. Or sophisticated and creative usage of a colour palette in ALL aspects of the room.

Both winners have great rooms with a bold colour choice. I'd like to see what would happen had there been more conscious accents.

Wait, are thumbnail #2 and thumbnail #4 different places from the winners? I just noticed those and they're both super interesting!

If they are a part of the same places, I take back my comments.

This was a strange process, as I saw all the one's I really loved fall out of the running. (I still can't forget the Richmond, VA home with the overlapping bubbles of color!). I got an education in color and in the downsides of the popular vote. Maybe run-off voting next year?!

That said, I loved seeing all of these home, and everyone is really a winner, and both people have nice places. Congrats!

Majority vote = middle of the road, almost as a rule. I'm not surprised the winners ended up as really basic sort of agreeable rooms. They are by no means bad rooms, but nor are they outstanding, which is how they got to the finish line, you know?

popularity contests = poopy disappointment.

i really wanted kyle to win, too. his color choices & design are amazing and daring. and i don't even know who the hell he is.

but the contest was very, very fun regardless, and i can't wait for the next one. i'll still vote.

you can send your checks directly to me....

HA HA HA HA xo

How about having popular winners as well as ones adjudicated by color experts and designers? (more winners that way probably too!)

Pretty rooms, but how about colour? I mean, these winners are really good, but they don't make me feel the "colour contest" part.

I was expecting more somehow and now feel quite disappointed.

The contest description does say that this was about the "most colorful" room, not that more color necessarily has to make for a better space. The two winners? Not so much, although they're nice.

I think all these contests, in the end, have to do with the entrants' popularity and also just people responding to what they like, not necessarily what best fits the criteria [which they may also interpret in different ways].

high school all over again

I thought Kyle's was awesome - he took color way beyond just painting one wall blue. But I'm glad the tea room won - love the multi-faceted infusion of orange!

Well, congrats to both Beth and Heather! I had a feeling both of you would be in the finals, if not the winners. Heather, your kitchen is beautiful, and we didn't mind losing to it!

Like Kyle, we were the runner-ups too (for international), and we had a great time with this contest. It was sort of a trip to open up Apartment Therapy and see our blue sofa staring back at me. I felt like we had a lot of positive comments as well as critique in the comments for our original entry, and we got a lot out of it. Heck, we even received advice on window treatments, something we hadn't taken into consideration yet. We didn't agree with the recommendation, but did start thinking about what we want to do. Critique helps push any kind of design forward, so entering this contest was worth it just for that. I think we'll probably enter another room next year, it was so much fun.

And now after all that positive feedback and good experience... its a little disappointing to read all the downer comments in here. I suppose I'm just surprised not to find more support for Beth, when it seems likely that the AT community's votes that got her to the finals, not her friends and family.

Personally, my few friends (and my mom) that wanted to vote generally couldn't figure out how to log-in, never mind vote. We had maybe six or seven friends that made it in to vote, and they mostly couldn't figure it out at all after 'thumbs-up' voting was over! lol It didn't feel like a popularity contest to me as a contestant simply because my real-life popularity didn't matter.


Anyway, thanks AT for the fun contest! We'll definitely enter again next year.

I was really blown away by that coral kitchen. Absolutely gorgeous. Those TEA letters are so warming. Congratulations!

Congrats to the winners. You won! Take that much away from this. I see what the other posters are saying. But I ended up voting for these two in the end (no affiliation to either BTW). I think it came down to imagining myself in the space and being comfortable. Others had more color and well done, but not in a way that most can live with. And I also took the view that this wasn't about the 'most' color, but the most well done use of a color. I think that the results show many others took the same view, right or wrong. Interesting and fun, can't wait for next time!

First off, congrats to the the winners!

I am kind of disappointed by the results. Frankly, I found Beth's kind of blue... kind of boring. And the thing that bothered me the most was those curtains ending at the window sill. Where's the drama?

Heather's kitchen color is great, especially for the wintertime blues. And it had character and personality, so for that, I cannot be disappointed about that at all.

I would add to the sentiment that there should be a judged contest with the addition of a people's choice category. That said, I also think that dividing the contest up by region is a little silly, and doesn't bode well for those regions that have a lot of great rooms, only one of which will be rewarded. A first prize 4 runners up (nationwide) seems the most fair.

Here's the thing: Neutral rooms with turquoise accent walls are everywhere. They're almost a cliche. BUT...

This is one of the only successful turquoise accent walls I've ever seen. The color is balanced with other colors in the room. Almost no one else bothers to do that -- they just have a big "pop" of blue in an otherwise totally bland space.

So I can see why this entry won, even though I personally loved the apple-green-with-red-brick entry the most.

Is "snarky" a word?

Wow people are harsh! Congrats on winning. I think I also imagined myself living in the space. Who would want to live in a busy home, not me? It is how to use color and live with it not just shock people with a crazy pattern. I loved all the entries though and people are really creative!

The winning rooms look nice, but I think a few other rooms REALLY stood out to me in terms of color, design, and functionality.

This has been a great experience - I was a little nervous about putting my home up for judgment among all my respected AT peers, but hearing so much positive feedback on my favourite place in the universe, that I designed on pennies and street scraps has been really sort of empowering.

As for all the popularity contest grumblings - like Beth I had a few friends who were voting for me, but by and large I won based on the votes of AT regulars. The byzantine sign-up discouraged most of my more internet challenged relatives as well. Whether or not you are disappointed in the results, I think that this has been a fairly democratic system. Taste is totally subjective. I personally preferred a few of the earlier finalists to the final American winner but I respect the results.

And personally, I think that fact that the AT community is responsible for choosing winners rather than some independent judges makes the experience more fun for everyone. Regardless, thanks for all the positive feedback. I'm considering doing a house tour if I can ever get my house tidy enough to take some photos. Unfortunately us international winners don't get to pimp out in NYC, but I'll accept my certificate/"I entered the AT colour contest and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" with pride.

the Montreal kitchen is seriously the cutest thing I have ever seen! I'm going to try and mimic it...

Well said - Heatherbelle, and hats off to you for winning.

Having seen both rooms liked both but the Kind of Blue room is my favorite and not just because it's blue, but how it's been executed, it has a colorful, but sophisticated feel to it, but as others have said, it's rather safe in that it needed something else besides the black, like chartreuse, Citron or red as an accent in say the pillows to add spark to the otherwise sedated room, but as an aesthetic with the white and bits of black, it WORKS, even the artwork above the white couch workse great for it pops against that lovely blue, which is a bold, intense blue.

I love blue, always have but some blues come across as dull and conservative, but not all blues do but they, IMO, need something like red or yellow to set it off some as well as the white.

Kyle's stripes, while great and works with how he did his space, works great too, but I'd find the stripes may get tiresome after a while, more so than the solid blue I think.

The coral kitchen needed something other than the coral and orange (which is too similar) to help add something to the space, such as picking up more of the blue in the sink counter as accents to help move things along.

Either way, both were good choices for this contest, not all rooms took color far enough IMO, these two did a great job, but needed that extra layer to help them along a bit.

Super fun contest - I am now officially hooked on AT :)

I wouldn't worry too much about friends pitching in. Maybe this happens some. Instead, I think this is a result of the voting structure:

first, you get to give thumbs-up to anything you like. Notice that "Brave and Bold" got more thumbs up than "Kind of Blue". Not to mention Anado who got the most thumbs up of all.

but then entries are paired, and you have to pick one of two. Even if all the people who gave thumbs up to "Brave and Bold" put their vote in, a lot of people are now 'forced' to pick. I think this will result in more mainstream entries like 'Kind of Blue" winning over entries like "Brave and Bold", since a stronger personality room like "Brave and Bold" will also rub more people the wrong way.

I would have preferred Kyle to win, or some other of my 'favorites' that never made it that far. And yes, I think 'Kind of Blue' is nice, but not very inspiring in the sense that I don't feel like I learned anything new, and there was no accent color so no 'color play' going on, which seems to me a more advanced level of color wisdom.

But Yay Heather!!! At least that was my vote for a winner!

/end novel/

also, thank you to all participants! Most of all, I loved being introduced to so many color philosophies!

Both of these rooms are incredibly boring compared to many in the earlier rounds. There is nothing remarkably creative about either of them.