Bringing an Apartment Complex to Life

One of my colossal projects last year was the coloration of a large apartment complex,The Courtyard at South Station, situated in Tukwila, WA, just south of Seattle. It was a rather sorry looking assemblage of structures looking more like drab army barracks than a beautiful place for people to live.

This undertaking was huge. I met with the managers on a cool dreary day last April to hash over the project, take a lot of pictures and copious notes. At this field report, we discussed their vision of the place, as well as the demographics of the current tenants. We took the adjacent properties into consideration.  They viewed my exterior portfolio and selected some palettes that resonated with their ideal. It was agreed upon that I would present three unique palettes with a rendering of each facade  Then one would be finally chosen. As I said, I took dozens and dozens of pictures as I often do on architectural color consultations. They’re invaluable as they reveal details that my eyes do not detect on site. Photos present minutiae and the big picture, too.

Well, it’s easy enough to specify three unique color palettes, but it’s another challenge to appoint each color on the buildings so it makes visual sense. This apartment complex had multiple buildings with several unique facades exhibiting singular architectural features… the color had to be intelligently applied so it created something good to behold with both balance and rhythm from multiple views and angles. After hours and hours of rendering, trying this, trying that, tweaking this, tweaking that, I finally arrived at the result.

When I drove over on a sunny September afternoon to view the final outcome and saw the finished project in its entirety, I was ecstatic. It was a showpiece. I had pulled it off! The Courtyard at South Station holds its own now among all the other complexes on the street, beckoning a potential renter and giving something nice for the current tenants to come home to.

I developed the colors for the monument sign as well.

Indeed, this was a big job. But don’t think your project is too small for EB Color. Each and every color consultation presents its challenges and I relish the opportunity to meet them head on, in Seattle and beyond.

ebrown@eb-color.com     EB-Color.com    206-353-0454

Bittersweet

It’s September 21, 2012, the first official day of autumn. Recently I was concurring with an English pen pal that with the onset of fall, a melancholy is often left in its wake – that even with all the delights offered by the poetry of this glorious season, in tandem lingers a mild saddening. Bittersweet was the word that came to mind. No sooner had the word flowed from my pen, I was off to the dictionary to look up its origins.

Well, there’s a plant called Bittersweet, Celastrus Orbiculatis, but why its oxymoronic name? It’s named after its roots which are said to taste bitter, then sweet when chewed. I then continued to learn that bittersweet is also a name of a deep, dark to reddish orange color. Its seminal beginnings come from well, duh… the seed... its color that is.

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All the more reason to refer to autumn as “bittersweet.”!

But what about autumn’s cohort, moodiness? Could it be the darkening days, the donning of sweaters, the plaintiff early morning cries of the foghorn? All these herald the next season we know is in the store…winter. But before winter overtakes us, creeping in, even under the door, turning us all into a pile of frozen bones, nature takes her one last hurrah, color abounds and the entire region is awash in bittersweet.  From spawning salmon in the Pacific Northwest creeks,

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to breathtaking foliage at every turn, 

Photo by Elizabeth Brown

we revel in this riot of color.

Is it not a coincidence that the bittersweet’s complement on the color wheel is blue, melancholy’s cloak?

We must have both, the warm and the cool to be complete. This goes for an architectural color palette as well as for nature’s tableau.

So get out, this fall, take a bittersweet walk,

Original Painting by Elizabeth Brown

Savor the bittersweet harvest,

Original Oil Painting by Elizabeth Brown

And count your lucky stars that your bittersweet senses are in full tilt. 

 EB Color

Elizabeth Brown  206-353-0454 ebrown@eb-color.com

Working at the Speed of Light

Yikes!  I haven't posted since January. I feel like Rip Van Winkle waking from miraculous slumber.  But the fact is, I haven't been in the dark. I have become enlightened. And I mean that literally.

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Since November, I've been at Seattle Lighting three days a week, learning absolutely everything there is to know about lighting and then some. And why you may ask? Because lighting goes hand in hand with color and I want to have more to offer my clients. Now I'm an official lighting geek and terms like wattage, lumens and voltage drop are flowing off my tongue at 186,000 miles per second. I now know the difference between a G9 and and GU 24 bulb, when to use a 12volt transformer versus 24 and every fixture one would need for a myriad of lighting applications from kitchen to landscape. I have been fortunate to learn from a fantastic team who have taught me everything in the most supportive environment. And of course, the experience gets sprinkled from time to time with nuggets like the Edison Bulb.

All the while, EB Color is going through the roof! The phone has been ringing incessantly and I answer the call. So I'm at it six days a week, but I wouldn't say it's work. Nope. I absolutely love my job as a color consultant and emerge from each color consultation with a wonderful sense of fulfillment for having helped people through the use of my talent and experience.I find myself in amazing places and my customers are lovely.  Besides residential work, I have also been branching out doing larger scale commercial work, developing palettes for apartment complexes from Tukwila to Tacoma.

Courtyard at South Station "before"

But alas...my website needs updating, my easel beckons and so does my Etsy shop.  I am once again summoned to a blogging regiment of writing mine and reading my favorite colleagues' on the magical subject of color. This morning over coffee with the talented landscape designer Emily Russell, who who is time challenged in her own right with an 18 month old, we decided to banish excuses once and for all. Thank you Emily!

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Summer painting season is approaching, and EB Color is ready. If you would like an exterior or interior color consultation, I have the time for you.  And just like Tom Bodette... "I'll leave the light on for you".

http://www.eb-color.com/

206-353-0454
    

                                

Year of the Dragon

Happy New Year! Chinese New Year that is…”The Year of the Dragon”. It’s time to get your red on! Why? The color red symbolizes fire and is said to have the power to expel bad luck. Plus is looks awesome.

This morning as I was sorting my red laundry before the weekly ritual of ablution in the washing machine, the ranges of red were striking; pink undies, a maroon turtleneck and an orange sweater all made it into the “red” pile. What a beautiful mélange!

At Colormix 2012, Sherwin Williams’s Jackie Jordan was all over red in this year’s presentation, showing examples of its ubiquitous presence. Photo after photo were displayed pairing varying shades of reds, all working harmoniously.

During yesterday's color consultation, taking inspiration from a beautiful painting on the wall, we combined Benjamin Moore’s AF- 280, “Salsa Dancing”, with AF-225, “Firenze”. The color combo sizzled in the painting and it will on the walls.

Try Sherwin William’s SW2802 “Rookwood Red” on your front door or reinvent your staid study with the rudimentary ruddiness of “Audubon Russet”, Benjamin Moore’s HC-51 . Or, if you choose to exercise restraint, use it sparingly in a small niche with SW 0057 “Chinese Red”.

Whether one wants to go big with red or prefers a diminutive application, it never disappoints. And hey… summoning a bit of good luck just can’t hurt either. Gung Hay Fat Choy!

dragonsappetite.etsy.com

eb-color.com 206-353-0454 ebrown@eb-color.com

Decorate Your Walls With Gum!

Now that I have your attention…the famous gum wall at Pike’s Market in Seattle is indeed colorful, but maybe not how you want to dress yours. However, there are many colorful alternatives to paint in order to add color, and especially texture to your walls. Wallpaper, fabric or tile probably first come to mind. Yes, these are good choices, but let’s go a step beyond and consider options made from natural materials.

First, there is stone, which can be presented in a myriad of ways, including, but not limited to a smooth texture,

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or pieced into a beautiful mosaic,

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or even rough.

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What about glass? No matter its application, glass adds a nice reflective value.

This wall partition adds subtle translucent color,

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while this glass wall makes an artistic statement.

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Personally my dream house will one day have interior columns made out of giant glass prisms to scatter colorful light. How's that for the ultimate?

And ah, metal! Metal can be salvage yard cheap or Tiffany expensive. Think how many different looks one could achieve with the use of metal from a rusty metal wall to a contemporary shining silvery showcase. Scottish designer, Niki Fulton’s enlightening post expounds on the dynamic effects of metallic surfaces.

Here are two contrasting looks, from the industrial,

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to the refined elegance of gold leaf.

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I was taken by this metal exterior on a new distillery on the Fremont canal in Seattle. It could just as easily be used in an interior.

photo by Elizabeth Brown

We can't leave out wood and wood paneling, either solid or veneer. As a color consultant,I often specify a veneer to cover some existing unsightly wood as in a mantel, a beam or ledge when painting is not an option. Again, any look can be achieved, sleek...

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or rustic.

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This is only the tip of the iceberg because, yes, some walls are made of ice.

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What other alternatives can you think of? Decoupaging your bathroom with your Halloween candy wrappers is NOT an option!

Call me and let's discuss all the ways to we can successfully use color in your space!

ebrown@eb-color.com 206-353-0454 eb-color.com

Can Color Predict The Winter?

I just spent a wondrous week in New York with my time divided between NYC and a bucolic setting upstate on beautiful Seneca Lake. In Manhattan, I window shopped, soaking up color palette inspiration. Fur coats were on display everywhere, reminding us of a winter that will soon be overtaking us.

But it was THIS fur coat that really sent me… the one belonging to the Wooly Bear caterpillar, another harbinger of winter. As he crept along the road, I did my best to measure the width of brown versus black in his fuzzy corpulence. According to folklore, the wider the brown, the milder the winter. If you believe this legend, this little guy says it’s going to be mild. Are you convinced of this? I'm not, but the notion certainly bestows the warm fuzzies.

photo by Elizabeth Brown

I’m not a meteorologist, I’m a color consultant. I can’t accurately predict the weather in Seattle, but I do foresee the perfect palette tailored just for you.

ebrown@eb-color.com 206-353-0454 eb-color.com

Six Degrees of Separation

Recently there was an inquiry from Germany from my website contact form that read as follows:

Dear Sirs,

for the renvation of a "Royal Suite" in the hotel "Intercontinetal Genf" the interior designer Tonychi, New York, chose some colours which numbers are not known at us.
Those are: ELKHORN AF-105, WHITE DOWN OC-131, VAN DEUSEN HC-156, CITRUS BURST 364 and SPACE BLACK 2119-10.Please send us a colour sample of each .

Thank you very much.

Best Regards

G. Müller
Project Mananger

Did he just say Tony Chi? The celebrated New York designer? Be still my beating heart! Now, why they just didn't contact his firm for said information is beyond me. I was happy to oblige, send along the swatches and relish the six degrees of separation. And how did they find me? Easy… Google search. I've specified this Benjamin Moore color, "Elkhorn" a couple of times.

As an accent wall for a living room:

photo by Elizabeth Brown

And as the body of an exterior:

photo by Elizabeth Brown

This happy occurrence was a gift. I became privy to a cutting edge palette specified by an urbane designer without leaving my office. The specified colors were “Elkhorn”, “Citrus Burst”, Van Deusen Blue, White Down and Space Black.

I was so taken by them, they inspired an Etsy treasury entitled “Citrus and Midnight”.

What do you think?

Whether you're urbane or folksy, live in the city or the country, and you're seeking professional assistance in assembling your own unique palette, call me for a color consultation and we'll make it work.

206-353-0454 eb-color.com ebrown@eb-color.com