Plunge Into Colors

By Katherine Salant

If buying a brand new house is supposed to be so wonderful, why are you having such a hard time choosing all that neat stuff like flooring and cabinets and wall colors?

The decorating challenges of a new house make many people nervous because "they have been conditioned to believe their personalities are expressed in their house, and they fear that their preferences will show that their taste is terrible," observed interior designer Skip Sroka of Bethesda, Md., who has been guiding people through this process for nearly 25 years. "In truth, I have rarely been in a house that looks awful. Most of the time people are too timid. A big part of my job is to get clients to loosen up and consider all the possibilities."

Sroka said his clients get the most worked up about their flooring and furniture choices, but the single decision that will have the most impact on what the interiors of their new house will look like is the color of the walls.

If you're buying a tract-built house, tract builders commonly only offer one color - usually off white - for both the walls and the trim. It's easier for the painters, and imperfections in the walls are less noticeable. From a resale perspective, an innocuous color that nine of 10 buyers will like is also a safe bet. But, Sroka pointed out, you don't have to stick with the builder's color choice. You can paint over it with colors that make you feel good and blend with your furnishings. If your choices are unusual, you can tone them down with something that those nine of 10 buyers will like when it's time to sell.

You may really want white or off-white everywhere, but "it's boring unless you have the most fabulous art collections in the world," Sroka said. Jumping off the cliff into the wonderful world of color, however, is harder than it looks. Most people are hesitant to be very adventurous because they fear they may not like their color choices once they see them on the walls. To help his clients feel more comfortable with a look that may be a radical departure from what they have now, Sroka instructs the painters to paint a 3- by 3-foot square on both sides of a corner in each room. Then he asks the clients to look at it in the morning, afternoon and after dark, as the color can change dramatically with differing light conditions. If they don't like what they see, they can lighten it, darken it or try something else. In the worst-case scenario - they decide they don't like the colors after they move in - they can paint them again.

"It's the easiest and cheapest piece of any decorating scheme to change, and the one that gives you the most bang for the buck," he said.

Another important aspect of color that most people don't realize is that bigger rooms can take stronger colors. This means that as a house gets larger, you can make bolder color choices, Sroka said. Bigger in this sense does not mean enormous. A 2,500-square-foot house, a typical size for a mid-range, mid-priced house in most markets, is big enough, and choosing different colors for different rooms can make a house this size look larger.

To illustrate his point, Sroka suggested a hypothetical color scheme.

Suppose your favorite colors were red, green and blue. For your 2,500-square-foot house, you could have a red foyer, a blue living room and a green dining room. The colors would be similar in tone, bold but not so bright as to overwhelm everything else in the space. Peacock blue, for example, would be way too intense and look awful. To make the spaces flow together instead of feeling like each room could be in a different house, the carpet should be the same color throughout this area. With these wall colors, Sroka would pick tawny beige that hides the dirt. The trim should also be the same color throughout the space. To make a nice contrast to the walls, he would pick a creamy off-white (this will also make the three-piece crown molding that you paid extra for "pop out").

To further enhance the flow, within each room Sroka would give the other two colors a minor supporting role. In small amounts, each color can be more intense - say fire-engine red pillows for the blue living room, delphium blue upholstery for the green dining room and a cobalt blue/sage green piece of art work for the red foyer.

You won't have to finalize the wall colors until your new house is nearing completion. But, you should have a good idea when you make your flooring selections because the flooring colors and textures are an integral part of any interior decorating scheme, Sroka said. With a tract-built house, you'll have to pick the flooring within a short time of signing the sales contract. If you haven't come up with a color scheme at that time, Sroka suggests choosing neutral flooring colors such as biscuit beige that provide a wide latitude for the walls and furnishings.

When choosing furniture, the biggest hurdle for many people is not the style or the colors, it's the timing of the purchase, Sroka said. If you're moving into a bigger house and need more furniture, do you get a few really good pieces when you move in and add a few more every year? Or, do you get everything you need now and get better pieces as the initial purchases wear out? Sroka advises the latter course.

"I'm for getting lesser quality and getting on with life," he said. "If the clients are collecting, a lot of times they won't socialize and use their house as much because they don't think they can. I tend to be one to furnish everything and get it done. Then every year or so you can replace one or two pieces. That way, you don't feel ashamed to have friends over, and you get to enjoy your house from the day you move in. If you're moving to a new town a new city, it's especially important to have a place to call home and be comfortable in."

If the new house is bigger, you may need more furniture than you realize because the furniture you have now may be the wrong scale. For example, if you have a lot of Danish modern pieces, "they always look best in small scale rooms because that's what they were designed for. In a big house, with higher ceilings, they look too small. Likewise, inherited pieces from the 1920s, 30s and 40s can also look ridiculously small. Major rooms need major pieces." But, he added, "If a client is genuinely attached to a particular piece, I always say, 'bring it.' It's always better to bring it and live with it in the new place. If the scale is really off, the owner will eventually come to that understanding and replace it."

You may be thinking that you will make or refinish some of the furniture pieces for your new house yourself. But Sroka advises his clients to think twice or even three times before pursuing this course. When he was growing up in the 50s and 60s, people were handy. In his old neighborhood many families did their own redecorating and even made some of the furniture. But now, he said, "Most people have no time to paint, refinish or make curtains. Occasionally a client will have a specific project or a piece of furniture that he wants to make. He really will do it, but it might take him a year. His wife could wait forever if he did the entire house."

« Previous