How Your Personal Color Palette Can Change Your Life

Recently, Stan and I went to a friend's new flat for lunch and to take pictures to help her advertise it on AirBnB. Olga purchased the flat just a few months ago and there were already some very cool features in place - orange shades, orange radiators (!!!), and some lovely tile and wooden floors. While we ate lunch, I set my artist's eye to pick out items that would go together to help stage the photos. My thinking was completely based on the lectures I give at Hollins University about Personal Color Palettes.
     As I looked around, I began to see particular colours repeated again and again in her favorite keepsakes. For instance, this poster by Daniel Richter.This funny deep orange tin.She'd also bought this fantastic fabric she'd had made into a bed coverlette.We decluttered and then rebuilt the rooms, and as we did so, we decided which personal items would stay and go. For instance, out went the (very nice) flowered bed linens. They were busy and didn't fit in her color palette. Out went asundry items and in came some calming plants from the bedroom. I asked her to empty a wonderful big basket that picked up on the grey of the couch to go on the dining table - carrying the charcoal around the room.Of course, the star was the orange. Olga had extra fabric from the bed throw. We wrapped a pillow in it (she's going to have official pillow covers made from it after our visit) to carry the orange through the flat from the shades, to the couch.And into the kitchen where that funny orangey tin played a big role.The whole idea of a personal color palette was a revelation to Olga (it's a revelation to everybody I share this with), and she grabbed her favorite dress to show me. It had orange and pink stripes, like the shades and the shirt she was wearing. I quickly pulled together some of her items to show her what I meant.These are the colors that pull out:What a groovy palette! The black and charcoal act as bases - colors for ground pieces like the couch and the dining chairs, which we swapped out from the larger wooden chairs as that black helped pull the color around the room. In fact, she had been thinking about painting the wooden chairs black and after our visit, is confident it will look great! The other colors will help her make purchases in the future. As long as she sticks to the same saturation level, these will always go together and give her flat a lively, colorful, cohesive look! She'd already been doing it subconsciously, now she can do it consciously! So, Olga's flat is now advertised on AirBnB for rentals when she's out of town (click the image above to learn more), and she has a fun new way of looking at and decorating her world! What a creative and fun afternoon!
     Flat Photos by Stan Dulemba