ColorTherapy: Chamois

This warm, red yellow is low on my list of go-to colors for any reason, yet I was somehow captivated when I discovered this at a friend’s house on the Hudson. Could it be the furniture or the countryside setting unduly influencing my taste and opinions?
I usually think of this color as “flabby”—too rich, and still not enough, but here it’s relaxed and just right. It’s also ever so slightly unexpected--I think of this as a suburban color by default, always matched with more beige, but the pickled floors and fun furniture give it a new spin, so why not?
Changes in setting bring changes and softening of opinion. I’ll hopefully have even more changes of opinion after I return from summer road trips. See you in September.
- Mark Chamberlain, interior and decorative painter
To All ColorTherapy Posts

Comments (3)

Do you know you can paint those electric registers to match the walls? Just use a roller brush and go right over them, it works great. I rent and have the same colored walls and the same annoying electric registers. Painted, they blend right into the wall.

One room in my house is painted this chamois or buckskin color. I used a sherwin williams 'suede' paint and I get lots of compliments on the color. It's warm and neutral but also feels rich to me -- I'm not sure what "flabby" colors are. IMO, the undertones in the paint color are making shades like persimmon and teal (not shown) work really well with the browns. Against the chamois backdrop, color in the room feels layered on (e.g., the lamp shade looks tone-on-tone), rather than punched in (e.g., if the lamp were against a white wall).

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2306/2497107865_ea7e5c7eba_b.jpg

[this room is currently undergoing it's own deco-cure, but the paint stays]

Be so, so careful with the Ralph Lauren chamois colour - I loved it in a swatch, and loved it more when I painted a test patch, but once it hit all four walls of my bedroom, I suddenly found myself in a room the approximate shade of a school bus.

It mellowed a bit with time, thank goodness, and once the shock wore off, the colour grew on me a bit as well. Still, it's bright and bold enough that I can't help but laugh at it being described as "flabby," and can say absolutely that if I'd been dead-set on the colour being subtle, like, at ALL, I'd have been wildly disappointed.