Name: Rebecca Szeto
Location: San Francisco
Type: Studio, rented
Why I use color:
I live for color! It really brings a space to life for me. I would describe my style as being flamboyant, french poodle flea market. When I first moved into my apartment, I loved all the mouldings and hardwood floors, but not the lack of light in the hallway or uneven wall texture. I also didn't have much furniture, so I decided colored walls as a backdrop would provide the biggest visual impact and unify all my eclectic collections of furniture, art and travel trinkets...
To give my hallway a bit of oomph and airiness, I went over the existing off-white walls with a strie drag in a custom melon tone (flat finish), then added a tart, green stripe (satin finish) to balance out the sweetness. The different paint lustres add another subtle visual layer, which you see at an angle as you pass.
Color and texture go hand in hand for me. The living room has a little of everything. Seen in detail here, I painted a mossy linen-like crosshatch finish to create a sense of laid back formality and contrasted it with an artwork's organic markings and the "color pop" display of red dictionaries and objects.
2 good color tips:
1. Don't be afraid to experiment or repaint if necessary. I painted the hallway that melon color and found it really saccharin, so I devised a way to balance out the tone, and now it really works.
2. When choosing wall colors, consider what type of light (both natural and artificial) will fill a room. i.e. Trees outside can cast/reflect green inside the house, northern or southern exposure, using incandescent light (yellow) vs. halogen (brighter white) bulbs, torchere lamps (never!) or ambient light, task lighting or wall washers.
2 good color resources:
1. "The World of Interiors." Love the mag's sense of vibrancy and history.
2. My Trick Pony, a newish t-shirt store on 14th Street/Duboce, SF. Fun, vintage, graphic, kitschy.
Wow - those stripes are exquisite. I tried doing stripes once and it was not as easy as I thought it would be. This is so well done it looks like wallpaper! The strie drag in the second photo resembles grasscloth. I love the view from the bright hallway into the black & white tiled (kitchen?) floor.
rebecca, my emails to you keep bouncing back. could you please contact me when you have a chance?
thanks,
leslie(at)apartmenttherapy(dot)com
maybe it's the lighting, but it's too acrid for my taste. i applaud her painting skills... and that's about it. so i'm sorry this is a no-go for me.
Elegant.
I think I'm in love with your apartment. At first it was just lust, but then I saw the apple and the crochet thread and I knew it was the real thing. If you lived in LA I would invite myself over for wine and Mah Jong.
Bravo. I'm totaly inspired.
This is adorable. But so frustrated by not being able to see more!
Maryam, ditto! Especially on entries like this - I just want to see the whole place. I saw this entry yesterday but have already clicked back here twice to admire it.
On my monitor, the colors of the stripes remind me of one of those striped candy sticks that come in big glass jars in old time candy stores. In this case, apple or melon flavor. Yum!
This entry is a great example of how you can live with brilliant color in a small apartment without it being too overwhelming. If you are lucky enough to have a secondary space (hall or foyer) painting that space allows your living areas to be more neutral in color so you aren't surrounded by the color all the time until you want to scream. Instead you do get to pass thru it and have glimpses of a color saturated space which can be very enriching. It is a fun way to live with a color you really like. I love how the stripes in the paint play with the b&w checkerboard and the b&w tile pattern
you don't think it's too overwhelming? that hallway reminds me of a nightclub and it looks like there is a blacklight on, but I hope it's just an illusion.
how do you do the crosshatch? i'd love to do that in one of my rooms--or at least on one wall. out of curiosity, what are the colors involved in the crosshatch? is it pale blue and tan? green and ivory?
Oooo, I really like this one! Elegant but not stand-offish; careful but not prissy; colorful but not psychodelic. I wish I had your skills as a painter!
this is exactly the effect i'm hoping to acheive when/if i ever get around to putting stripes in my hallway. the greens are lovely here -- yeah, there's a lot of green this year, but this is green done right. the dark wood and mirror are perfect.
i'm a tad confused about the second photo. is that another part of the same hallway? a completely different space entirely? it's really nice, but i'm having trouble figuring out how it relates.
The stripes are amazing. Absolute sophistication with the hallway furniture you chose and the classic black & white checkerboard floor in the next room. The second photo doesn't really inspire me but the first photo is perhaps my favorite of the whole competition.
Lovely! You found a color scheme that looks bright in one of those SF foyers that gets no natural light. I'd wondered what color it would take.
I love the juxtiposition of something as simple as yarn, to something as luxurious as a Hermes box.
I think the same idea with an orangy-red sort of color would work wonderful. I agree that it look a little acrid.
Fantastic space! I'd love to see more photos and find out if you'd be interested in being on HGTV's Small Space, Big Style. Email me if you're interested in finding out more. Nicole(at)brainbox(dot)tv
I love this! Can we see the rest of your space???
This is the best in the Northwest category.
Very, very nice; in fact, stunning!
Well done. More please!
And please--what are the names and mfr of that gorgeous paint? Somehow "melon" is not what I'm seeing on my screen.
I like those stripes!! Too cute!
I love this. It has the kind of personality I am trying to go for in my bedroom. Love love love it. Wish you would post more pictures.
Yipes... I entered the contest and never followed up. Re: the acidic color...the monitor or uploading (and maybe bad photo-taking) makes it a bit too neon even for me. eeks. Trust me it's not **that* bright. The melon color was custom mixed, the green tone was Citrus Rind (I want to say BenMoore paints, but I painted it many years ago). I recently moved from the apt (as of Jan 2007), and painted up a brand new place.
could someone tell me the exact color of the green used in the apartment
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