October 20, 2009

The Hallway: Part V

You know that part of the job description that says “and other duties as specified”?  Well, today, my other duties included painting some swatches of paint on the walls of our center hallway.

We had narrowed the colours to the Laura Ashley Pale Cowslip and a new entry, Duron’s Spice Island. The CEO had suggested I look at a taupe, and I whipped out my PMS colour book to see if there was a shade he had in mind. Once we settled on a PMS colour, I showed him some paints that matched and got a quart of the one he liked best.

He liked it on the sample board but was not at all wild about it on the wall. After I painted the Pale Cowslip, hall 003 it was deemed too bright, and the Spice Island was too boring. hall 002So, tomorrow, I will be getting a dark blue and a hunter green. The issues with those colours are that we are painting the stairway all the way to the third floor and if we do it all in the same shade, it will be very dark.

14 comments:

  1. Oh dear. Try a paler version of pale cowslip as well if you can sneak it in. We had navy eggshell walls at the gallery in NY and it worked well, although it wasn't a bright room. The white trim might help here.

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  2. And I just noticed the new header is a terrific combination of the very same colors.

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  3. I like the pale cowslip -fresh, invigorating and young! However, I don't have to live with it everyday like you all do!

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  4. have the cowslip mixed with 50% white- yellow *always* goes up brighter then one expects. and personal opinion (not that you asked) but i don't like a dark stairwell- it can be very oppressive, even if stair well has lots of natural light. you don't want the "stairway to doom", (my nickname for a client's lightless stairwell).

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  5. Maybe one of the Laura Ashley golds could work. I think there are at least 5 of them and one just might be a good midpoint between these two colors.

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  6. hmmmm
    try this color:

    pratt and lambert appaloosa.

    please.

    it's a sagey green/taupe -
    it's a cool tone, gorgeous!!!!!
    i promise. and it will look great with the floor. just get a sample. you don't have to buy the pratt and lambert- you can get anyone to copy the color.

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  7. I vote for a paler pale cowslip - maybe pale cowslip 2 or even pale cowslip 1 from this chart.

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  8. I think the color of Edith Wharton's home in one of your last posts would have more warmth. You don't want a cool color. For your business, as you have said before, you want an embracing, warm color. I liked the deep ochre-ish gold in Little Augury's post today of de la Falaise's one-room room. Janet Lindsay's book All About Color was a fascinating read. In fact, you should call her for input/interview. She lives in Canada. She understand's the biology of color, the science of color and the heart/passion of color. We need to know more about her.

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  9. I love the buttery yellow throughout the hallways as well,, the Cowslip toned down a bit would be perfect.

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  10. You'll get it right. Personally I am a fan of bright, sunny yellows. But we live with (probably too much) strong colour. Mrs. E.'s South American roots....

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  11. I loved Edith Wharton's yellow. What is with all of these dark choices? What's the theme here? Gateshead Hall and Lowood Institution? Is Jane Eyre somewhere about standing on a stool?

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  12. Love the header.
    I like ( this will sound lame) the color of brown paper bags ( what is that?) and crisp white trim/paneling.
    It makes the trim pop AND the color brown is so neutral.
    I do think that although the yellow was bright... it was so happy :)

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  13. Yellow is such a hard paint color to figure out! Just spent the weekend trying out paints in the kitchen...in the end I settled on cream.

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