The Power of Color

You have probably been asked in many different settings and situations “What is your favorite color?” Most of us have an instant answer. How many of you said blue was you favorite color? If so, you are not alone. 40 % to 45% of people chose blue as their favorite color. And that is globally, not just in the U.S.

Everyone has their own personal associations to individual colors. It influences many things, ranging from memories to emotion to what furniture we put in our homes. It might be something else you have seen in that color that provoked a positive response in your brain. It could be something in your past that processes one color differently from another.

So why do we react to colors the way we do? There is no sure answer. But there are some guesses that come close to a good answer.

Compare yellow and blue. Yellow comes near the bottom of favorite colors. Why? Because people tend to associate yellow with signs of bad health. Think mucus and bile. But blue evokes happy thoughts. It is associated with clear skies or a mountain lake.

Cultural context also influences what a color means to us. Again, blue comes in near the top. Blue is almost always linked to things like trustworthiness and competence.

Even though many color associations seemed to be hard-wired in all of us, we are affected by the pace and change of life in the 21st century. Things like politics, technology, movies, art, sporting events and fashion all contribute to interest in a particular color. The internet has a huge impact on color forecasting. You can sit at your desk and see what color is popular in any foreign country. You can see the latest colors in fashion.

So how does this apply to interior design and furniture?

Color has three different aspects: hue, saturation and brightness. Hue is the base color such as red, blue or yellow. Saturated means how pure a color is. Brightness refers to how much white is mixed in. There are many examples but it gets confusing. Bubble gum pink is not very saturated but it is bright because it contains a lot of white. Baby blue is brighter than royal blue. You get the idea.

One of the simplest maxims of design is that we expect the darkest color to be at our feet (the flooring surface) and the lightest color overhead. If you do a light colored floor, there will be dark rugs or a darker piece of furniture that people will instinctively move toward.

None of this is carved in stone and all rules are meant to be broken. An interior designer can help you harness the power of color in your home.

Search the World

We have a phrase we like to use at Stephen Rust Design Studio- “It’s not about the selection but the selecting.” For example, your mom’s famous lasagna isn’t just famous because of the outcome. It’s her “famous lasagna” because of the special care she puts into choosing each of the ingredients, the handmade noodles, and her secret spice. With this scenario, you’re just excited to have delicious lasagna ready to eat that you didn’t have to make.

Interior design is the same thing. It’s about creating a beautiful and unified home where each decision has been made with great care and consideration. Interior design is as much about the final unveiling as it is about how each element was selected.

Perhaps another way to think of it is that we act as an editor. There are literally thousands of items for every choice you have to make in your home. Whether you are building a new home, remodeling a room or two, or maybe just purchasing a new sofa for your family room, it is so very easy to get bogged down with choices.

Let’s say you’re shopping for that new sofa. You’re surrounded by options at your local furniture store, and they all seem great! The shopping experience is going well and good until the avalanche of important considerations comes crashing down: Will this match the paint color? What about the flooring? Will it fit it my room? Will it fit through the doorway? And what about how it sits? Will it be comfortable for me? How do I know if the seat height listed under dimensions is what I want? Should I get fabric or leather?

Now you’ve reached a state of overwhelm and decision fatigue. If you haven’t heard of the concept before, decision fatigue is basically a fancy way of saying that we get worn out after making too many decisions. The decisions you make at the beginning of the day are usually made with more care than the ones where you’re already mentally exhausted. And no one wants to bring home a sofa they’ll regret in a month.

Then there’s the time element. As if you aren’t already busy enough! If you’re building a new home, you can easily spend several days each week driving from supplier to supplier to pick items like door knobs and faucet handles and countertops and shower tile. Again, how do you make sure it all works together? The guy at the trim shop has no idea what windows or floor covering or cabinets you’ve chosen. He has no idea what works best in your home.

This is where an experienced interior designer comes in. We have years of experience doing this. We know all of the suppliers and what they have to offer. We know your likes and dislikes from the moment we start working with you. We know your choices for one room and how that affects the adjoining room. We narrow down the decisions so you can save that mental energy for other important things in life.

If you’re someone who likes to search the world for yourself to see every possible option, an interior designer might not be for you. But if you want to see carefully edited selections that keep your whole home and valuable time in mind, give us a call.

Practicing Patience & Working with Creatives

When you walk into a room, you can usually divide the crowd into two different types of people: the Type A Planners and the Fluid Creatives. Type A Planners are all about timelines, hard numbers, and doing things by the book to produce one great outcome. Fluid Creatives are all about going with the flow, solving a problem through multiple possible solutions, and taking each element into careful consideration.

The interior design field is full of these creative and fluid types. The flexible energy they bring to design makes them well suited to create the home of your dreams, even in ways you may not have thought of! While the end result makes you wonder how you ever lived without a home this beautiful, the design process can sometimes be tricky for tried and true planners.

Being patient can be difficult; especially when the end result is laced with excitement! But interior design is all about approaching a space with multiple different ideas, and that can take time. The interior designer isn’t the only creative-type involved in the process, either. Contractors, carpenters, architects, and tradespeople usually lean toward the creative side, too, and love to engage in hands-on work like building fireplace mantels or staircases.

While it’s reassuring to know your home makeover is in capable hands, it can also be hard when each of the people working on the project operate under uncertain deadlines. Our team would rather see the job done right, even if it takes a bit longer than expected. I’m sure you’d rather have a kitchen with cabinets on May 1st, than one without on April 15th! Oftentimes, the materials to build those new cabinets traveled through several sets of hands before they were installed in your kitchen. As we all know, if one segment of the supply change runs behind, it can throw everything else off schedule.

We promise to always try our hardest to keep each portion of renovations and redesign on schedule, but ask for a little grace as sometimes we blow right past those deadlines. The best advice we can give you is to be understanding, and know that our primary goal is a redesign that brings you peace and joy.