We've got some winners! Congratulations to the very colorful...
Fourth Place: Becca's They Doubted Me But Color Made Them See The Light
The judges said, ""...spirited, yet clean...she lived up to the big challenge of working with a windowless basement." (Kyra), "You have talent Becca :)" (Kate).
[more winners after the jump]
Many thanks to everyone who showed their colors, especially here in the Northwest, to all the commentators, and to our generous sponsor, CB2!
Third Place: Geninne's Modern Mexican Abode
The judges said, "an elegant tension between organic and tailored." (Kyra), "an all around standout in this years contest!" (Kate).
Second Place: Joel's Lime Loft
The judges said, "the mix made his apartment feel personalized rather than store bought" (Kyra), "the perfect representation of who he is. Bravo!" (Kate), "how could I not like this? It’s damn near close to that Bronzino green I love so much." (Allison), "... an overall harmony...works to shed positive light on the lime green and to make the place feel personal and comforting" (Stephanie).
First Place: Marilyn & Peter's Home Studio Harmony
The judges called it: "beautifully curated" (Allison), "a perfect example to show those that fear color how the right amount and color palette can still create a soothing and calm effect" (Stephanie), "...a great example of bringing "color" through the pieces you place in the room, as opposed to painting the walls" (Jonathan).
If you've been inspired, start your engines for the next I've Got Color contest, and in the spring for Smallest, Coolest!
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The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
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A Beginner's Guide to Superb Stir-Fry: Quick, Healthy Meals from a Wok
Homesteaders' Cocktail Recipe: Lovage Simple Syrup
Comments (25)
WOO HOO!!!!!! Yeah!!!!!
Wow, Thanks AT and thank you to the judges! I'm absolutely thrilled and stunned and excited!
This is fantastic!
Congrats to Marilyn and Peter, Genine and Becca, too! You all have wonderful homes. Thanks for sharing them with everyone!
And thanks CB2 for being the generous sponsor!
I enjoyed the contest, but what a disappointing end. So many people took real risks with color and came up with beautiful or at least interesting results. The Home Studio Harmony has some muted sheets and a pale green couch. It's a lovely place, and I mean no disrespect to the owners, but it's not COLOR! Maybe Candy Spelling will win the Small Cool contest this year.
OH MY GOD!!!! I'm jumpin' up and down and I just can't stop!!!!
Thanks AT for a really fun contest and CB2 for sponsoring!!! Thanks judges!
Thanks Joel, your lime green rocked!!! I loved everyone's entry, you guys have the coolest abodes :)
MUCHAS GRACIAS!
Wow...this is just a stunning disappointment. I appreciate all the work that people have done, and I love the beauty of the homes that won. But honestly I believe that Joel is the only one of the actual winners who showed inspired use of color. I mean...COLOR, not simply design. Geninne and Marilyn & Peter - your homes are beautiful - but safe. Clean and gorgeous, yet standard. I could turn a page in any magazine and find something similar. What a shame for the contestants who took a risk to post their bold, kooky, personal, vibrant, and COLORFUL homes.
I am so glad that Geninne was recognized. I could care less about contests - which will never please everyone. I merely want to say that Geninne's modern mex is possible the most calm, serene, artistic design that I have seen in a very long time. It pleases my eyes and my soul and my general sense of aesthetics. It does not scream "look at me" - It does not scream "I have money to burn" - It does not scream "I have more taste than you do". In fact it doesn't scream anything. It whispers so softly like the early morning sun slowly rising in the mist over the Rockies.
I like subtlety as much as the next (perhaps more!), and I've rooted for the subtle entries here from day one, but I am REALLY surprised by the big winner.
Beautiful, and yes, well-curated, but I would not look at that entry and think "Wow, nice use of color." I would not think "color" at all.
Huh.
Congrats Marilyn & Peter! Your use of colour really inspires me. The mixture of tomato, baby blue, and sage accents in your studio is unpredictable and funky. The accents are perfectly mellowed out by the use of abundant white and wood. Your entry shows how to make a room colourful while maintaining a spacious and airy feeling. This is a great illustration of Maxwell's 80/20 colour rule.
Congrats to all the other winners as well. Your homes are beautiful and I would be thrilled to live in any of them.
Wow, you judges are really loving the green this year. I am more intrigued by the complex combinations of green with other colours as illustrated in Deana & Nadim's and Marilyn & Peter's homes as opposed to the lime green + neutral look.
Thanks to all the entrants for making this contest happen. I have learned a lot about colour by looking at your real homes. So much more interesting than looking at groomed-to-death magazine show homes.
Very disappointed. Very very...
I thought this was supposed to be a "Color Contest": boldest, most beautiful, and most inspiring use of COLOR in a space..!!??? Huh??
A couple of the winners appear to qualify, but... am I missing something here??? I am in disbelief.
I found this contest to be very lop-sided. I am truly and sincerely shocked at the incompetence, disorganisation, and the political one-party strategies used in this contest. Completely undemocratic! Again, where is the *clear and concise* definition and explanation of this contest????
Don't get me wrong as I enjoyed perusing the many contest entries. Nice spaces in the end, but not all are worthy of "coloring contest ribbons". Some of the winners (again, note the term *some*) do not motivate or inspire me to go ahead and experiment with color in my space.
FYI AT: Try using a different contest title next time. I am left shaking my head in bewilderment.
What is wrong with you people. It amazes me that sometimes simple is so difficult to understand. The rules were SIMPLE! The winners were SIMPLE! Patrick said it best, I would not think color. The best executed color schemes do not smack you in the face upon enterring a space, they make you feel good--why don't you get it. And for those of you who complain that best design should not win(WHAT?), then immediately point out the quirkiest rooms. Well it was not a quirky contest. Someone who executes good color would most likely execute good design.
I would also like to say I think this is a fantastic site and some of the comments utterly amaze me. You would think that this was not a site for the exchange of modern design ideas. But a legalistic, perfectionistic society of snobs.
Thank you AT for your vision.
Firstly, congrats to all the entries, finalists, and winners. I so appreciate you all graciously opening your homes to us A/T readers. It has truly been a wonderful gift to view each and every one of your uniquely colored and designed spaces. Thank you for that. xo
But, I so have to agree with some of the above comments. I, too, found that this contest, unfortunately, did not live up to it's original intent. The winners are kind of a let-down considering the compatibility of some of the other finalists who much better live up to what this contests stands and calls for: COLOR!
A facelift should be in the works as this contest needs a serious overhaul in so many ways (ie theme, outline, design etc). But, I do look forward to future contests as they are enjoyable nonetheless.
Sorry to sound like a sourpuss, but truth must be told. Thanks for the experience though, it was fun! :)
Great job, everyone! A round of applause to all contestants! Yeahhhhh!
And hats off to all the winners chosen by the judging panel. Excellent homes. Again, yeahhhhhh!
P.S.
Yes, I think there needs to be a better voting system put into play next contest to ensure we have more input on who ultimately makes the finals and who takes home the trophies. But, Maxwell must know that by now after this experience.
wow, how do i shake off this sinking feeling? i want, so badly, to be happy for the winners, but i really don't understand how this contest ended in the way that it did. i *loved* last year's finalists and winners and felt like each person deserved their recognition...i still daydream about jon's retro room.
this year's winners entries are all gorgeous places, no doubt, but their being champions of color leaves much to be desired.
maybe i'm just missing something b/c i don't come from an art or design background. i didn't necessarily root for the rooms that screamed saturation or visual cacophony but i *did* love the ones that were "bold, cool, and colorful" as your contest rules indicate. and yes, i know that white is a color. :)
it should also be said that a contest based upon viewer votes gives an advantage to those whose entries are shown earlier in the contest. all the finalists entered (or were showcased) in the first half of the contest. it seems like they just had more time to garner votes and some of the later entries definitely missed out. not everyone follows this contest as religiously as i do. :D
well, those are my 2 cents. i enjoyed following the contest- it got me hooked on AT and it has inspired me to live a more colorful sheltered life. i can't wait to enter next year!
YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY! I am so excited & flattered! Thanks to the judges and congrats to the other winners! And thanks to AT & CB2- this has been so much fun for me and I'm glad that I was able to share my home with everyone. And if anyone wants me to send them a resume, you just let me know!!!! ;-)
Well, I have to agree with many of you....what a disappointing finale. I'm happy for the winners; I think their places are very nice--but the I just don't get why some of them even made it to the finals.
In my humble opinion the contest should have been decided between Joel, Tyler, Adam, Brooke, Elizabeth Ingrid, & Becca. Why? Because they all presented apartments that were in the spirit of the competition: "boldest, coolest, most colorful". All of them took risks and exhibited a flair for DIY styling and didn't concede their own personalities to an accepted "look".
Joel, Brooke, & Becca transformed raw spaces into really colorful, personal living areas. The glass panels in Beccas home, Joel's lightbulb chandelier, and Brooke's handpainted wall treatments are exactly the kind of thing AT viewers look to for inspiration.
Tyler, Adam, & Elizabeth Ingrid each showed how color can express personality and make a space bright and exciting.
The winners of the competition have beautiful homes. I have no doubt they could win any other design competition - but THIS competition was about color.
Well this has been a culmination of a very bad summer/fall here at AT. Congrats to all the participants, but ehh! After the bitterness of the Small Contest, the negativity surrounding Kids month and this "colour" fiasco, what's the point???
Don't get me wrong, the big winner is a *gorgeous* space, and the owners seem lovely and talented design enthusiasts dedicated to creating wonderful things, right on the home turf of sponsor CB2, and I'd be MORE than delighted to see this kind of sophisticated, grown-up interior win the next Smallest, Coolest contest.
But even in the light of a new day, I am truly surprised this won the Color contest.
I think this is yet another "electoral college/popular vote" disconnect...
(and maybe I am just extra-bitter this morning, and no offense to the West Coasters, but it pisses me off that the winners were first posted on ATSF, and YET to be posted on the main/original NY site. Heck, given both the sponsor's and the grandfinale being in Chicago, even the winners being posted on AT Chicago wouldn't have bugged me so much.)
Meh. Why did I get the feeling that that one was going to be the winner? The comments on the original post kind of spelled it out. I was really happy with all the runners up and honorable mentions but the winner just leaves me... meh. "Curated" is the right word for it, and that's not something I completely like. That and seriously, they looked like they had the biggest budget in the contest to me so I resent that they get the big ol' prize when I'd love to see it go to someone like Joel or Becca who clearly did a very cool job on a slightly more limited budget.
Anyways, back to the Cure thread, that's my happy place on here.
while I don't fully agree with the results, I just want to say that I enjoyed the contest-- snarky comments, vote tampering-- wow! Who knew that so much drama could happen with a happy home blog? :)
However, I am surprised with all the negativity that is new to this site (I've been reading this fabulous blog for years now).
Regardless, I will keep reading! Thanks to all the hardworking AT staffers that keep me entertained with ideas on how to my home happier. Congrats to the winners, and all who entered.
Although I often get upset during these contests by various posts insisting that certain entries don't fit "their" vision of what the contest is about, I must say that this year's judges just didn't get it.
While I think a lot of the ire is out of proportion to the spirit of the contest, I hope there will be some reflection by AT gurus before we begin the next competition cycle.
Obviously, there is a lot going on with life on and off the blog, but there didn't seem to be as much invested on the other side of the screen as in the past, and that involvement is a crucial part of what makes this site special, IMO.
I do not agree with the judge's "final" finalists. In all honesty, I am very shocked at how this contest turned out. I have viewed and reviewed the chosen winners over and over, and I have to truly state that they do NOT represent the true meaning of this contest. Very inappropriate choices indeed.
Stand alone and apart of this contest, the spaces are really nice and all. But, really, now, do they represent what this contest was all about? Or, what was this contest about anyhow??? Color or something like that, or something completely different???!! Ugh.
In the end, we weren't really part of the contest process much at all, were we? Unfair, bias, fixed.. the list can go one. An undiplomatic, completely unjust, totally flawed contest arrangement. Shame, shame.
JenDC, you speak so expressively. Thank you.
And, I agree with Patrick (the other one) about the voting disconnect AND the posting of the winners. Sheesh. Learn some social etiquette.
color? where?
what a jip
hi bunya,
if you feel like this was a jip, enter next year. i'd love to see what you can do! :)
everybody who won deserved every bit of it! what cool spaces and congrats! this was a great contest but the spirit of it seems to have been lost on all the boo-hooers. sore losers perhaps??
Wasn't this a color contest?
I couldn't agree more with Tim's remark of "I do not agree with the judge's "final" finalists."
Even while I didn't agree with all of the 14 finalists, there were definetly some strong candidates and while I thought the ultimate first place winner had a lovely home, I wouldn't expect them to win first place in a color contest. I am shocked and disappointed that Brooke's home (one that I thought was an outstanding example of beautiful use of color) was completely shut out of the top 4.
I have to echo everyone else who said that this contest needs a major facelift. The voting process needs to change, judges should go further in depth to explain their judging criteria, etc. After all the hype this contest went out with a fizzle instead of a bang.