Name: Jim
Location: San Francisco
Type: 3-Br Home, owner
Why I use color:
I grew up in a home where everything was 'oyster,' 'eggshell' or 'buff'. Mom's idea of a daring color choice was beige. So I'm compensating for a color-deprived childhood. Besides, San Francisco tends to be cool and damp so a little warm color goes a long way.
2 good color tips:
1. Start your color plan by choosing the color of one principal feature of the room. Maybe a new wall color or new upholstery on your fabulous sofa. Then let the other colors in the room flow from that as compliments and contrasts to build a pleasing palette.
2. I like to use a very dramatic 'feature' color in each room but use that color on nothing else in the room. Like my pictured living room where I used a very saturated red Knoll upholstery on the sectional. Nothing else in the room is allowed to use anything close to that color. It makes the sofa pop like some fabulous gem hanging at a woman's decolletage.
2 good color resources:
1. Find your colors in nature. It's almost impossible to go wrong if you start with a color from something natural. Look at a jar of paprika, a rose, a rock or a seashell. Look through the produce aisle of the supermarket. Look in your garden. Most color mistakes are the result of grabbing a stack of chips at the paint store to plan your colors. This far too often results in the use of what I call "colors not found in nature."
2. Scout out the local art museums. Take a Pantone color matching bundle with you and when you see a color in a painting you like find its Pantone match so you can match the color in something else (since the museum is unlikely to let you take their art to the paint store). I like the work of John Singer Sargent and found my sofa color from his painting, Dr. Samuel Jean Pozzi at Home.
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
I am so coveting the room with the big bay windows. That you have a fireplace in that fabulous room with all those windows makes my jealousy go off the scale! But I didn't let my jealousy keep me from voting "Insta-Finalist". You managed to created a liveable layout in that round room and used color well in doing so. I thought all the furniture in the circle by the fireplace went well with the style of the room, but I especially loved the rug and the wood framed chair by the fireplace. (I wouldn't really see the table and chairs over by the window.)
i really like the space, the big bay windows are gorgeous! the room feels warm and inviting...
may be the picture does not come through the way you are saying that it looks warm. but we trust you. otherwise it looks WOW! in a good way of course
"It makes the sofa pop like some fabulous gem hanging at a woman's decolletage."
hmmm....the color is nice, the windows are great, the decor is cool but what really *pops* is your creative writing!?!
Now, Jim, don't be alarmed... but I'm moving into your house. I don't have a lot of stuff, and I'm willing to get rid of most of it if it "clashes."
I'm not even crazy about the red couches, but those windows! That room! The view!
And I do like the wall color very much.
Okay. Resigned to envy. (Sigh.)
It's a gorgeous space and I love that curved wall of windows! I like the color you picked for the furniture and rugs. Nice.
Wow! Attractive and comfortable looking without that catalog page look. Love it!
What an ugly McMansion.
McMansion? What an odd observation. The house was built in 1939 and the furniture dates from 1930 to 1956. The house is quite small and in a very middle of the road worker neighborhood. I've lived here 20 years and it's taken that long to get it to look like this. It's actually a recreation of 1940's postwar modernism. You're certainly entitled to find it ugly but why a 'McMansion'?
I love the bones of your space, the windows, moldings, etc. The wall color is nice, the couches are gutsy but great. However, I think the room still needs something to tie it all together. Perhaps a rug, different pillows, colorful accessories. So I'm voting in contention.
How interesting that you say the house is quite small - it looks HUGE in these photos! :) Whatever you've done it's working in a good direction. I would have thought this was a humongous house.
I think it's the wide angle lens to make the whole room fit in one shot. It does make the table in the window look like it's half-way to Santa Rosa. And Candice is right, it does make it look a lot less cohesive than it actually looks in person. It's a pretty standard 25 foot city lot, about 1500 sq ft total.
I saw your windows and I almost fell out of my chair. Is that an addition you did?
They are the original steel casements from 1939. The only thing I've changed was to add a bathroom.
It's wonderful-what a great rich color on the walls! I love the steel casements, so very 30's, and you aren't hiding them. The colorful furniture's curved lines, the curves in the rug, the curved wall-perfect! Insta-finalist in my book!
Forget the mcmansion comment, it's absurd.
The windows are to DIE for. WOW.
Beautiful space.
Very 1940's! Is that a Russell Wright chair next to the fireplace?
It is from the American Modern furniture line designed by Wright but the AM stamp does not include his name so it's likely an in house design after his contract ended, about 1939.
Too late for the contest but thought I'd put up some better pictures:
http://kayingleside.com/LRnight.jpg
http://kayingleside.com/LRday.jpg
If you are an "also ran," then praise the gods and goddesses who allow the rest of us to see what the populace has confused.
I love your words, your colors, your commentary, your work. And your compassionate responses to the blind.
McMansion?
As my grandmother would have said, "Doo Law!"
You obviously OWN this space. (I am a mere observer. I don't subscribe to house/architecture mags, but have been in a LOT of houses with impressive interiors. Style is not something you can buy, but something that makes itself over time, like a good soup, with quality bone structure and ingredients.)
Thank you. Good work.