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Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2005 | ||
Bad Links? | New paints showcase individual style, colorBy KATHY VAN MULLEKOM Calling all serial painters! You know who you are. Youre the ones who paint the dining room a soft buttery yellow, only to repaint it a moss green the next week, then a pleasing pink the following month because the earlier colors just didnt thrill you. You and anyone else who appreciates the use of wall color in their home will dance around your paint cans, happy to know there are new color choices arriving daily at local paint stores. For starters, big-name institutions like Virginias Colonial Williamsburg and Chrysler Museum have rolled out their own lines of fresh hues. The latest Williamsburg Color Collection, available through Pratt & Lambert and Martin Senour brands, is expanding from 144 to 184 colors. The new tones feature a substantial number of pale tones salmons, pinks, creams, blues and blushes with historic names such as Grissell Hay Sea Green, Palace Soft White and Market Square Tavern Shell Light. If your taste leans toward art, youll want to check out the 12 options in the Chrysler Museum Colors Collection. Paint names such as Elizabethan Umber, Baroque Blue, Dalis Gallery Green and Impressionist Rose take their influences from colors used in the museums exhibition galleries. Museum walls are often neutral colors, but the Chrysler went with specially mixed wall colors deep blues, terra cotta, sienna and teal when it renovated about 12 of its galleries. The paints are available at Sherwin-Williams stores. In addition, several companies have unveiled new ways to brush away the drabness of your stark white walls. Pittsburgh Paints now gives you an interactive way to choose a palette of colors that suits your personality. You visit www.voiceofcolor.com to play the Color Sense Game and answer a series of entertaining yet helpful questions. For instance, one segment tells you a genie grants you two wishes and asks you to choose how you would like to enhance your life. You select two answers from a selection of 14 words that include happiness, adventure, passion, calm, justice, health, etc. At the end of the game, youre aligned with one of eight color palettes. If your profile comes up water beads, your color style tends to be relaxing splashes of blue. A leather, stone and wood color style prefers coppery, golden and other earth tones. Recent behavioral studies indicate that people are searching for an emotional connection to the choices they make, said Josette Buisson, artistic director at Pittsburgh Paints. The Voice of Color addresses those needs. It doesnt just show consumers what colors work well together. It creates an individual color identity based on that persons psychological and behavioral makeup. And, to make sure you like the colors that match your personality, you can purchase a two-ounce sample jar of each for $3.99. No more lugging home a gallon of paint that you ultimately despise and toss out. True Value Co. also launches the Color Made Simple program for its hardware stores nationwide. At www.truevaluepaint.com, you quiz yourself to determine if you are a red or purple person. The online site also lets you e-mail paint questions to an expert. At the hardware stores, you can soon purchase 4-ounce, $3.99 sample bottles called Color Auditions for 100 of the hottest, most popular colors. The little bottles accommodate a 1-inch brush and provide enough paint for a trial section of wall covering 4 square feet. Or, you can use idea cards and color brochures with peel n place color chips to match colors to your home decor. On the print side, Benjamin Moore has just launched a new annual magazine, 05 Color, dedicated to decorating with color. The 63-page magazine introduces you to four families of color that may inspire you to try some change in your life. It gives you color tricks to widen, narrow or enlarge small spaces and helps you create niches of color that separate living, working and entertaining areas. The magazine also profiles interior designers such as Susan Turn of Palm Beach, Fla., who shares her experiences at using color to make all your furniture pop. The article shows how she decorated a New England farmhouse. Most people are afraid of color until they see the beauty of it on their walls, she said.
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