Help! My bathroom has 3 different undertones!

I got this note from a follower along with good photos of her bathroom (BTW if you want your room or exterior to be considered for my Colour Rescue Series, be sure to send in good photos!) 

Maria, I have three conflicting undertones in my bathroom help!

What if you can’t renovate yet?

Don’t we all have a bathroom in our house we need to eventually renovate? But in the interim, we’d like it to looks as good as possible?

Because the kitchen and living spaces should always be top priority, and less used bathrooms not so much.

There are so many good interim fixes though if you know how to make colour and styling work for you.

See how the walls look too grey with the tile in her bathroom?

Can you tell what the undertone of the tile is? What about the paint colour?

My Understanding Undertones Neutral Colour Wheel

Hop over the my YouTube channel to see what the undertone problem is and my options for fixing this bathroom.

** We need YOUR colour rescue! Send me well-lit, straight photographs with your question to mariakillam@gmail.com. **

Did you know that neutrals aren’t really neutral at all?

A “close enough” colour will easily look wrong once it’s up on the walls and that slight difference in undertone is suddenly a way bigger deal.

That’s why getting neutrals right takes some strategy. 

I’ve got that mapped out for you and you can get it all in just 2 days with me!

If you’re tackling a home project the best skill you can have is knowing how to avoid installing finishes that clash or date quickly.

AND you need to know what to choose first, and what comes next to make sure everything is perfectly coordinated.

It’s all in my 2-day Expert Colour & Design Training!

Plus! You’ll get real life problem solving tools for when the undertones aren’t perfect but you need to live with them. I’ll show you which elements in your space you need to pay attention to when you have competing undertones. And how many neutral undertones you can get away with in one space.

Create your dream business or design your dream home!

Work with me this fall to learn how to make timeless choices (especially in kitchens and bathrooms where it counts), how to navigate the trends, and everything you need to know about choosing colour for any project in my two-day Expert Colour & Design Training. 

And, most of all, I would love to see you IN PERSON! 

Join my exclusive Vancouver session right here at my house in October! (this session is VERY limited)

Or come visit me in Dallas if that’s a better fit in November! 

Book now. The early bird rate and bonuses go away TUESDAY, September 5!

Related Posts:

What Everyone Should Know about Pink Beige

80s Cream Bathroom Refresh; Before & After

Ask Maria: Now that I have your Colour Wheel, Does Everything have to be Neutral?

The post Colour Rescue: Help! My Bathroom has 3 Different Undertones appeared first on Maria Killam | Timeless Colour.

I’m Not a Designer, Should I Still Take Your Class?

Hi Maria, I’m not looking to become a color specialist except perhaps in my own family (and God love them – they already think I am one…I’m not).  I’ve just suddenly been hit with the burden of selecting paint colors for three very large houses (one beach house inside and out-one Pennsylvania farmhouse inside only –  and one giant mid century rancher that I would like to give a giant refresh inside and out) I’d love some peace of mind that I picked the best colors and not have teeny tiny paint chips taped to every wall. so here I sit wondering…do I take a class? Do I get the giant color swatches?? Suggestions would be appreciated.

My Expert Colour & Design Training is for professionals AND homeowners!

Create your dream career in colour and design with this training!

Here’s what True Colour Experts are saying:

The post I’m Not a Designer, Should I Still Take Your Class? appeared first on Maria Killam | Timeless Colour.

In fact, the whole room suddenly looks not quite right. NOW WHAT??

Arianna Belle

I recently received this note:

 Maria, I found you after making an expensive upholstery color choice for my new sofa. I’m wondering if I should reupholster it. Before I found you in your world of undertones, I was unable to articulate what the problem was with the new sofa in the room, other than to say it looks gray and brown during the day.

Now I know that many of the undertones in the room are orange based, which I love, but unfortunately the new sofa has taupe undertones. We don’t want to paint the walls right now. They’re painted Benjamin Moore, Devon Creme. And so I’m assuming I need to find an orange beige fabric for the sofa. Is that correct?

Help! I don’t want to make any more expensive mistakes.

Click here to see my Colour Rescue solutions for this room over on YouTube!

What’s holding you back?

I’ve been in many, many homes over my 25 year career where people are hanging on to their old and dated rugs because they were really expensive back in the day. But carpet prices have become a lot less precious. 

Now that we can buy them online, it’s a lot easier and more accessible. The traditional looking carpet with lots of heavy black is weighing this room down so that the fresh new sofa and creamy pale walls can not lift.

So if you’re working really hard to make an old “expensive” rug work it’s highly likely that it’s holding you hostage.

I want to give you permission to take a few minutes to imagine what your room could look like if you changed out the rug.

Have a little fun and create a mood board! You’ll learn how easy this is in my Shop Online course.

Because so often you’re working much to hard to make something work that’s just not working.

And it’s much more important to create a room that fills you with joy!

That said, there are ways to work with heavier formal antique rugs as True Colour Expert Erika Ward shows us in this post, 

Read more: How to Beautifully Update your Persian (Oriental) Rug

I created a couple beautiful mood boards for this room, so pop over to the video to see how much fun I had!

Hint: there is an undertone conflict between the wall colour and the sofa, can you tell what it is?

It’s sooo easy to go wrong if you don’t know how to identify the subtle undertone shifts of neutrals! 

Neutrals aren’t Neutral

The whole concept of a “neutral” is supposed to be that “it goes with everything” RIGHT??

You probably know from a similar experience that’s simply not the case. Neutrals can be anything but- well, neutral.

And it’s important to know when COLOUR is the better solution.

What everyone Should Know About Taupe

And throughout the grey trend, the go-to neutral was taupe, because it’s cooler than beige, and warmer than grey. And now, since trends are warming up again from stark black and white, taupe is back before it even left the room.

Home Bunch

What everyone Should Know about Beige

And beige is definitely and officially back. Which means that choosing colour and furnishings just got a lot more complicated than choosing black or white for everything.

Prairie Interiors

Not that choosing white was ever as simple as it seems

I think aside from everyone wanting FRESH the reason the white trend took over (HGTV aside) is that it seems simple. Just like black seems like the obvious choice. The truth is, those who know, know that the perfect white is sometimes not even technically white.

This fall I want to give you everything I know about colour

It’s time to say good bye to expensive colour mistakes for good. Sign up today to save your spot in my fall Expert Colour & Design Training. This fall WE’RE BACK IN PERSON! 

Sign up for early bird access to my two live in person dates VANCOUVER and DALLAS. Since we’re together we can continue our conversation by having an evening visit after class!

And I can’t wait to meet you!! We’ll talk about all things colour and decorating. In two days I’ll basically hand you my 25 years plus of experience simply packaged into an easy to learn and use system.

And if you’ve been dreaming about creating a new business in colour, there has NEVER been a better time. Social media provides a platform to reach more potential clients than ever before.

My course is exactly what you need to get started. And you’ll have deeply discounted access to the best colour tools as well as my Business of Colour and Business of eDesign courses to jump start your new career!

Sign up here for all live in person and virtual live dates!

See you this Fall!

The post Help! My New Sofa Clashes with my Paint Colour appeared first on Maria Killam | Timeless Colour.

I get so many questions about splitting hairs between whites. Most often, it’s when someone has chosen off white for their walls and then they’re stuck wondering, “what is the magical trim colour that will look crisp with my off white walls?”

Get the updated version of my Neutrals Undertones Colour Wheel with the Gradations of Useful Whites on the back here!

So first, I RARELY if EVER specify an Off White for any client’s walls. I know that homeowners, designers and builders are going around choosing Alabaster or Simply White for every project. But I’ve been standing firm through this trend saying:

WAIT! There are better options. 

Read this before you paint your walls white

Not least of all because only options you have to create contrast with trim and cabinets if you have Off White walls is with a brighter True White, which I find mostly looks underwhelming and kind of blah because the contrast is pretty meek. It ends up looking like a warm and a cool white. A mismatch even.

Learn about the Gradations of Useful Whites here.

Or – and this is a big trend that I get asked about in my SCWC workshops – to add some colour and contrast, you reach for a mushroom colour (a Taupe, Green Grey or Violet Grey typically) for the trim and/or cabinets. Warm neutral cabinets, I can get behind , it’s a nice way to cozy up a kitchen with timeless finishes, or in a darker tone, distract the eye from dated countertops  (below)!

Wildflower Home (see the dated before here)

But running that same mushroom trim colour throughout your house will limit your wall colour options dramatically. And you might faint when you get the quotes for repainting it when you’re over it.

Source

White walls are not as versatile as you think

When I’m consulting on paint colours, whether in person or online in my eDesign consultations, when a client has True White or Off White trim, it’s a joy because there are endless options for pretty wall colours when the trim is versatile and crisp throughout.

Besides, and I’ve said this many times before, Off White walls seem like the safe and versatile choice, but I’m hauling up my 25 (plus!) years of experience here to convince you they are anything but.

Because stark white walls need plenty of white furnishings to look right. Otherwise the room will just look unintentional,  unpainted or builder boring. And white walls often don’t get along well with pale “white” upholstery. If you know how to compare colours effectively, you’ll notice “white” fabrics are usually in the realm of cream, barely there beige and greige.

What you want is a wall colour that feels fresh and bright without making your furnishings and decor look dirty or dingy. And that means you want that perfect colour that sits back and feels perfect with everything in the room. 

Not to mention, it takes PLENTY of natural light to make white walls look amazing the way they look on Instagram.

And speaking of barely there beige. 

My favourite whites for walls, you may have guessed, are not technically white at all!

Meet the Complex Creams

If the neutrals in your home fall in the undertones of grey, you’ll want to explore the greiges here and here. 

But if you’re looking for the perfect warm look for your walls that is fresh without being too stark,  you need to get to know the Complex Creams. They are the palest beiges categorized by undertone in my system. 

See what they look like in some of my rooms below.

Orange Beige Complex Cream – BM Indian White

In my previous primary bath, I painted the walls an orange beige complex cream to perfectly match the ground colour of my framed botanicals.

Orange Beige Complex Cream – SW Casablanca

And I used it again in my living room to pick up the warm marigold leaning yellow of my sofa. Notice that the room looks like  a warm white. And the Complex Cream walls are perfectly fresh for decorating with colour.

Cloverdale Rice Paper – Green Beige Complex Cream

My kitchen in the last house was painted a Green Beige Complex Cream which gave just enough colour to the walls for the low light conditions through much of the day.

And my new kitchen cabinets are a Green Beige Complex Cream. which I have no plans to change because they look great with the Calacatta Gold marble backsplash. And I’ve run more of this colour throughout the house for flow because it’s such a versatile backdrop for decorating.

Custom Cabinet Colour – Similar to SW Neutral Ground – Green Beige Complex Cream

Here are some of the Complex Creams in my System (below). Learn more about how to get the right neutral undertone for your space by reading my eBooks here. 

Once you identify the undertones of the neutrals in your space with my Neutral Colour Wheel, you can consider which Complex Cream will be best. 

And if you’ve been following me and learning all about colour, you know it’s time to become a True Colour Expert. Get on the list to be the first to know when I release the dates of my Fall sessions. I can’t wait to meet you! We just finished our last event of the season last week!

Follow me on Instagram here to watch my questions of the day and see the trendy and timeless pics of the day!

And if you need help hiding your dated countertops with a dramatic colour, I can help with my Create a Classic Kitchen package here.

Related Posts

7 Essential Tips for Decorating with White Walls

Complex Creams and Why You Need to Understand Them

Fifth Rule of Design: Don’t Panic, Trust the Plan

The post The Best Warm Whites for Walls are Not what You Think appeared first on Maria Killam | Timeless Colour.

Today would have been Vera’s 14th birthday.

Our hearts here at MK are with Tricia and her family in their unimaginable loss, and especially this weekend.

She was extraordinarily gifted artistically (like her mom ) and a kind girl who loved animals.

Remembering Vera

In honor of her memory, Vera’s family and friends have organized to have a commemorative bench installed at Vera’s favourite spot, the Buena Vista off leash dog park in the beautiful river valley in Edmonton, Alberta.

She and her family visited this park almost daily with her adored spaniels Stanley, Mabel, and Iris. Vera was one of those special people that connected with all animals. The shy horse that wouldn’t come to anyone. The skittish dog unsure of strangers at the park.

She created a loving space for all of them. She looked forward to her daily visit with ALL the dogs at the park.

Photo Nicola Gavins

Photo Nicola Gavins

The park bench will be installed facing a clearing full of wild flowers and the shrubby old tree Vera and her friends would climb in while the dogs dashed through the tall grasses.

It will have a plaque with her name and hopefully a QR code that will show pictures of Vera and her dogs. Our hope is that it will be a cherished location to relax and spend time with furry friends, all while honoring the memory of the sweetest girl.

Little Icons

We want to help Tricia’s family raise a few more funds to move the project forward. If you would like to contribute to creating this special and enduring commemorative spot for Vera and her family, there is a GoFundMe account set up here. 

As we remember Vera on what would have been her 14th birthday, let us also take a moment to appreciate the mothers in our lives on this special day.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the amazing moms out there.

xo,

Maria

The post Remembering Vera: A Commemorative Bench at Her Favourite Spot appeared first on Maria Killam | Timeless Colour.

Have an interest in interior design combined with a knack for organization and a liking for providing day-to-day support in an administrative role? Click here!

I wasn’t able to get away, but I sent my eDesign team and my social media director to High Point market on my behalf. Enjoy this recap from my team!

______________

High Point Market is such a great way to really immerse yourself into the design world. And after not travelling for a few years, it was so exhilarating to step outside of our homes, our cities, and even our country (for one of us) to see what’s happening in the world of colour and design.

We are so grateful to Maria for sending us on this colour scouting trip!

What’s new in colour for 2022 and beyond?

Overall, just as Maria predicted in this post, people are starting the really lean in to colour – as in more saturated and bold colours – not just darker neutrals. And that makes all of us at Maria Killam Inc. so very happy. 

That’s not to say that neutrals are going away anytime soon, but there’s more balance in the use of saturated colours with cool and warm neutrals. Just as this post forecasted, everything is warming up.

Wesley Hall Furniture

And FINALLY, there really seems to be a departure from grey as a whole. It was still present, but the greys we did notice were primarily violet grey or taupe, shifting to the warmer side of things. We also saw a lot of blue greys, which typically read as blue and not grey.

Baker Furniture

Cream and white were the dominant settings for large furnishings like sofas – no surprise there. However, when a showroom was absent of saturated colour, bold patterns and chunky textures were used to warm things up.

As you might expect, there was plenty of green on display, but that’s not what we’re going to show you here. Open any shelter magazine or look up any paint company’s colours of the year (COTY) and you’ll find greens everywhere, so this wasn’t a new.

Read more: Greens that are HOT; Greens that are NOT

Nuanced, Rich Colours on Walls

This really isn’t about one colour trending in particular. But, collectively, we noticed richer colours like blues and greens on the walls. Elaborate details like high contrasting saturated colours in upholstery, metal and art decorated the showrooms. 

This lent a dramatic and glamorous vibe, which is a departure from the earthy, natural feeling of interiors we’ve been seeing everywhere.

Again, in metals, brass took top billing and makes a good companion for white and beige furnishings. Deep charcoals are warming up to bronzes as well. (PS. We love this trend in eDesign as well.)

Read more: Is Brass Out? How to Mix Metals like Pro

Eichholtz

1. Terra cotta isn’t just for plants

It’s another shade that’s trending. Here’s a look at the lighter terra cotta that we saw on walls and in furnishings.

Also, if you’re going to install random, geometric moulding on an accent wall, it would be better if you created a removable wall like this one: 

Wesley Hall Furniture

Thibaut

We also saw a lot of deeper, saturated terra cotta that felt more like rust (which was big in the brown trend) or orange to us – and was highlighted in both more modern and masculine room designs. This colour was also used as an accent to warm up charcoal textiles.

Something else we found interesting is that a few years ago overdyed rugs in blue, teal or even pink were everywhere. Here, the overdyed rugs were predominantly a rusty orange. 

2. Colour me happy – yellow is back!

We imagine there isn’t anyone more excited about the yellow colour trend than Maria herself. High Point market finally confirmed that yellow is emerging in home decor too.

The bright, sunny yellow colour (similar to Maria’s sofa) appeared in very traditional, glam or very modern room designs.

Chaddock

And, while most of the yellow we were seeing was yellow beige (like in the bedroom above) when it was integrated as the main colour of the design – the bolder deeper and more saturated yellows were used as accents to rooms that were portraying an overall warmer look with a richer colour palette

Highland House Furniture

A warmer, golden yellow showed up in both furnishings and on walls in a variety of design styles. Don’t mistake this with metallic gold, but rather a more ubiquitous hue like Benjamin Moore Stuart Gold or Bryant Gold.  

Woodbridge

3. A softer version of cognac emerges

Cognac is likely responsible for bringing all things orange forward. And while we were surprised there weren’t more cognac sofas being used in showrooms, we did see cognac and even lighter caramel, butterscotch or orange-y gold hues in all kinds of fabric and decor. 

In other words, cognac has been softened and refashioned in all kinds of ways.

Read more: The 2022 Trends we’re Warming up to!

Chaddock

Remember when cognac first entered the scene? It was mostly just being paired with black and white. And it was really only interpreted as leather colour. Now we’re seeing it layered in rooms as wall colours and other textures like velvet. 

Caracole

These warm oranges are definitely the perfect addition to an animal print, too, which is a classic print that seems to be gaining popularity again in home furnishings.

4. Can gold beige really be current again?

Gold beige is definitely a blast from the past. And we saw plenty of gold beige sofas in modern shapes and new materials.

If you think back to the world of early 90s beiges from the Tuscan era, gold beige was typically paired with creams. But now, in an all-white room, it feels fresh again. 

The furniture lines we saw in gold beige were more streamlined too. We’re not seeing the big rolled arms and oversized nailheads that these colours used to be associated with, and that makes it prettier and classic.

This new warmer gold beige (aka soft caramel) sofa might have more appeal as a safe neutral for the masses – especially if you aren’t committed to colour. And when it’s paired with a richer-looking fabric, like performance velvet, it takes on a whole new feel.

Caracole

By the way, we heard from many showrooms that luxe-look textured fabrics like performance velvet are now available at lower price points. This makes it very desirable for consumers trying to achieve a more curated “magazine” look in their furnishings.

Gold beige also looks pretty with blue greys and when used on a modern sofa shape, looks current when it’s interpreted as a fabric (as seen below), rather than leather.

Wesley Hall Furniture

5. Are you team pink/mauve?

Depending on your age, you might be really excited about the arrival of pink and mauve or you might be horrified. If you grew up with mauve, it’s very likely you aren’t a fan now. And, if you are a millennial, you just might find it super chic.

Is there any colour that evokes a more emotional response than pink?

Baker Furniture 

The pinks we noticed most leaned into mauve, but there were some saturated pops of pinks too.

Baker Furniture 

Did you know that most pinks/mauves look pretty with both beige and grey. Mauve in particular could work well as an accent colour in a room where you are layering in some beige to warm up your existing grey (as seen on this chair fabric below). 

If you’re looking for a calming or romantic colour for your bedroom, consider pink or mauve. 

Hickory Chair

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The biggest and best colour trends

When talking about trends, I like this analogy:

“Trends are like a river: You can try to divert the water’s course, you can go for a swim, or you can sit on the bank and watch. The only thing you can’t do is stop the current. ” – Stephen Orr (editor-in-chief, Better Homes and Gardens)

We discuss trends on day one of my Specify Colour with Confidence workshop. You’ll discover some colour and design history, aka, “What does knowing about past colour trends have to do with me in 2022 and beyond?”

A LOT actually.

To work well with colour, you need to have an understanding of where we’ve been and where we are going. And, I can help you navigate timeless, no matter where the trends are headed. Grab a seat here. 

Don’t just take my word for it… 

I so appreciated your explanation of the past color trends and how to navigate the bossy elements. I’m the artist, not the scientist – thank you for saving me from another color theory course! Amazing 2 days! As a designer of 25 years, I have renewed confidence as I help people transition from our heavily Tuscan architecture to the newer trends. I’ve got my mojo back!!! – Cindy S.

So, now over to you my lovelies? Any trends you are super excited about (read: yellow)? How many of you are team pink?  

Related Posts:

Maria Killam’s Colour Trend Forecast for 2022

Trend Alert: Colour is the New Black

What You Should Know About Beige in 2022

The post 5 Biggest & Best Colour Trends from High Point for 2023 appeared first on Maria Killam | Timeless Colour.

I’m so excited to share my latest project with you because I am so pleased with how it turned out!

My husband Kelly, daughter Vera, and I live in a very cozy 1950’s bungalow (950 square feet). It has only one tiny bathroom that needs to do everything.

I recently painted it a pale neutral (similar to BM Feather Down OC 6) because we were thinking of putting the house on the market and looking for something with just a bit more space. But since the neighbors and location are so amazing, we decided to stay put for awhile.

Tricia’s Bathroom Before BM Feather Down OC 6 (what were we thinking to install that roller blind like that haha)

SO, I wanted to have a bit of fun with this little bathroom since it is the closest thing I have to a powder room.

It’s been painted dramatic colours before, I’ve painted it often in the decade we’ve lived here to suit whatever I was doing with the decor. This time, to really change things up, I wanted to try wallpaper!

I spent no less than 3 days combing through the options on Murals Wallpaper‘s amazing site. There were SO many fun options.

Want to see the shortlist?

When I’m trying to visualize a design project, I often just create a Power Point file and paste the options I’m considering onto slides (with links back to the source) to see how they work with with main fixed elements and colours. It’s a great way to eliminate less viable options quickly and have your shortlist (or longlist) of favorites all in one place to flip through.

I made a general slide with my Ikea vanity and a block of colour that represents my green beige floor tile and had a great time pasting in pattern after pattern (who needs sleep?)

Murals Wallpaper Egret

I absolutely love the look of vintage bird prints.  And I thought the colour of this one was really pretty with my green beige tile. Vera is an animal lover, and this was her favorite pick. But it really is a mural, and it would not work well to wrap as a wallpaper in a tiny room. Sigh, moving along.

Murals Wallpaper Almond Branches by Van Gogh

I also loved this mural of Van Gogh’s famous painting “Almond Blossom”. I thought it would be a better image to wrap a room in. Kelly really loved this one too (romantic soul ;).

I looked at several patterns that would work more like a traditional wallpaper, like these pretty roses below.

Murals Wallpaper Vintage Carnations Wallpaper

And this preppy over sized gingham.

Murals Wallpaper Gingham Blue

And this pretty watercolour brushstroke.

Full disclosure: I had over 90 slides in the file! And I drove my family nuts getting excited about this option and that haha.

So what did I choose?

Murals Wallpaper Roller Blue

They had some lovely Japanese Shibori prints that I got really excited about. And considering that my house is basically mid century modern in design, you can’t go wrong with a clean Japanese aesthetic. I liked this hand painted cross hatch best.

Murals Wallpaper Yokohama

Indigo blue is really so pretty and current. But in my heart, I knew, if I was to paste something to the wall that I could not change on a whim, it needed to be my favorite colour, the one that always exists in my decor, green.

Lucky for me, they do custom colours! I requested this pattern in a leafy green, and sent in a CMYK value for the approximate colour I was looking for. They promptly sent me a proof that was just a bit too clean, Kelly Green rather than Leaf. So we tweaked it and the second proof was just perfect.

Are you ready to see? Ta Da!

Tricia’s Bathroom After

So fun right?

And notice anything else? Funny thing, the new wallpaper snowballed into a partial bathroom renovation haha. When our dear contractor friend, Brian Geckotile, removed the strip of tile around the molded acrylic tile surround, we decided to just keep going and replace the tired and leaky tub, surround, and (why not while we’re at it?) the floor.

It was a big job, but we are so very happy with it!

You can see part of the newly tiled shower surround in this image below. We used a simple 4 inch square true white tile which I think suits the era of the house well. And a white hex floor with green gray grout. Since I didn’t want more tile on the walls to maximize the wallpapered area, we did true white PVC baseboards which won’t swell and crack when they get wet (Kelly installed these, and after a bit of trial and error I think he was pleased ;).

He also did an amazing job of taking these photos for me.

Tricia’s Bathroom After

We were so grateful for Brian’s excellent work on the tile, tub and plumbing. It would have taken us until Christmas I’m sure, to do what he did in a few days. And thank goodness because remember, it’s our only bathroom in the house.

The one thing I would do differently is have a professional install the wallpaper. It was my first time and while the installation instructions were simple and clear, being a newbie, I was in a little over my head. However, it is a very organic and forgiving pattern and I think it turned out alright

Oh, and in case you’re wondering about wallpaper in a full bath, the wallpaper company recommended a decorator’s varnish to protect it from moisture here. So far so good.

And speaking of first times, I ordered this shower caddy set with suction cups because I didn’t have the heart to drill into the new tile. I had it sitting in the bathroom in a box and Vera (who is barely 9) decided to install it during her bath because she needed somewhere to put the shampoo. I was impressed. Straight and everything, just as you see it here. Handy kid!

Drill free shower caddy set

Prints by Stephanie Cheng from Pretty Grit

Because the wallpaper is so painterly, I needed something graphic for the artwork. I found these gorgeous prints on our family vacation visiting friends in Hamilton where they have lots of cute little shops.

And you may remember my recent master bedroom transformation. I really like the way the bathroom holds up to the drama of that room when seen together coming down the hall now.

Tricia’s Bedroom and Bathroom

Here again is an image of our new bedroom.

Tricia’s Black Bedroom

Across the hall, Vera painted her room a fresh blue, BM Serenata which also looks lovely (but her room is mostly a mess of artwork, books and toys, so no photos sorry Here she is rolling her sleeves up again, handy kid.

BM Serenata AF 535

Once again here is the before.

Before

And the after.

After

Next up I’m going to work these fresh greens, blues and golds into our main living space! Which is really kind of backwards. Usually, you would decorate your great room and spin your other rooms off of that which is what we help you do with our Get Me Started package here.

But if a bathroom reno is your emergency, we can help you with that here.

I’m curious about your experiences with choosing and installing wallpaper. Did you struggle with committing to a pattern? Or did you just go for it?

Thanks Tricia!

I’m in Vegas this week in a Business course with Tony Robbins! To move your business forward if you don’t literally go back to school, you need to participate in seminars and learn from the best!

The best colour course in the world is almost sold out in Vancouver this September, we have two seats left, and I’ll also be in Dallas and Charleston this Fall, register here. 

*Wallpaper sponsored by Murals Wallpaper.

Related posts:

How to Shop for Wallpaper

How to Make Earthy Tile Look Expensive

The Best White Bathrooms

The post Tricia’s Classic Bathroom Makeover Before and After appeared first on Maria Killam | Timeless Colour.

I have been in a funk all weekend.

First, Terreeia and I went to a personal development course this past Friday so we could work on improving our communication. It’s not easy being married AND working together 24/7.

Terreeia and I have participated in a lot of personal growth work and our relationship and communication is pretty amazing because of it. But there’s always room for improvement, especially when you work together as well as live together.

Whenever I talk to someone who says “My husband or wife wouldn’t do that kind of course”, I think it goes back to core values. Terreeia and I both value personal growth and feel that it’s extremely important to maintaining a happy and fulfilling relationship.

After all, who taught you how to communicate powerfully inside a relationship? Who taught you how to navigate a difficult conversation? How did you learn how to resolve issues that keep rearing up in your relationship? Why would you want to bury your head in the sand and say things like “I don’t do self-help?”

All of this comes down to communication. If you’re not communicating, your life is not moving forward. If you need to learn how to communicate much more powerfully than you do now, then I recommend this course, it will change your life.

I find it extraordinary that Terreeia and I can go toe-to-toe on so many issues but, regardless of how much we argue, we still love each other deeply. This is what happens when you marry your soul mate and your values are fundamentally the same. I feel truly lucky and grateful.

Anyway, I lasted in this course until 3:00 PM. This work was about accessing your emotions. The premise is that if you don’t explore the emotions you have around the issue you are stuck on, you can’t move past it. I’ll tell you about the course when I’ve actually completed it. Right now I’m too embarrassed.

In all fairness, I was cranky about being there in the first place. Not about doing the course, but about the timing. The longest we’ve been home since August was two weeks and I was tired. Plus this is the weekend I normally decorate the house for Christmas.

Friday afternoon I said something that drew a negative reaction from another participant in the room, I responded in a not-so-charming way because–as many of you know–I have a quick temper, so that was the end of that course. For this weekend anyway.

I was sad all weekend. It literally poured rain here the entire time so I decorated my Mom’s house for the holidays as we watched a Downton Abby Marathon together.

One of the things I most love about my wife is that she is an amazing communicator. I love that NO ONE and I mean NO ONE can talk over her. She is responsible for all the most brilliant ideas that happen in my business.

It’s like I’m the talent, and she is my agent.

We have had a very busy Fall with 5 Specify Colour with Confidence courses and each got better and better.

Since I live and breathe my Understanding Undertones system, I don’t call it ‘A System’ enough.

On the first day of my New Jersey course when I put up a slide that explained that this course was not ‘A formula’, in other words, NOT 2 + 2 = 4. Terreeia quickly wrote a sign and held it up for me so I could see it that said “It’s a system”.

Recently someone called the office and spoke to Terreeia. She said “I have an issue with Maria’s theory about colour, and Terreeia replied, Maria doesn’t have a theory, she has a system.”

So on the morning of Day 2 of my New Jersey workshop, I put up a new slide that said: “Yesterday you learned my Understanding Undertones System”.

At the end of Day 2, one of my fabulous new True Colour Experts said “Since I know Sherwin William colours so well, when you started yesterday talking about Benjamin Moore colours, I started to panic”. But now that I see that this is a System, I totally get it.

That was Terreeia who put in that clarity. Yet again. Like she does with so much of our business.

Before she officially joined me as VP of Business Development last year, she had a business coaching entrepreneurs. She said entrepreneurs like me are generally drivers. We are really good at generating ideas and driving the business. What we are not so good at is managing people.

She’s spent a lot of time in her coaching practice over the years, teaching her clients how to communicate better, or helping them clean up the messes they made.

Penelope Trunk talks about this in her courses on personality type. I’ve done two courses with Penelope here and here.

And Terreeia won’t hire anyone to work with us in our company without putting them through a DISC Assessment first. It’s astonishing how accurate these assessments are.

If you are an entrepreneur, what you don’t need is someone just like you, so you give them a test to be sure you are hiring the personality you need in your business.

Anyway, I am NOT an easy person to be with. In meetings I interrupt her constantly and I’m honest to a fault. You would think honesty is a good thing, but here’s when it doesn’t work:

If I even embellish a little bit on a story, my heart starts to race because I worry that someone might see right through me and find out. So I rarely do it. And I correct Terreeia all the time. And it’s totally unnecessary.

When we were in a meeting with our coach the other day, she said I’d been working on my new website since May. I said “No it was January”. Does this little detail matter in the big scheme of things? NO. But the correction automatically comes out of my mouth and there seems to be very little I can do to stop it.

Life is a work in progress. When you solve one problem, for example, you’re single and you want to be in a relationship and then you find one? Now you have a new problem, making your relationship great.

Do you have a job that sucks and you want to be self-employed? And then you decide to quit your job and start working for yourself? Now you have a new problem? Finding clients.

I feel grateful to have both problems in my life and I’m committed to making them both great. I’ll keep you posted!

Maria & Terreeia

What kind of new problem would you like to have that would make your life even happier?

Related post:

Our First Date

The One Big Secret You Don’t Know

The Secret to Having the Life That You Want

The post Get a New Problem And You’ll be Happier appeared first on Maria Killam | Timeless Colour.

I’ve been thinking about how much holiday decorating I want to incorporate in my house this year because we leave for Palm Springs on Christmas Day for 5 weeks. Every year Terreeia talks about leaving the dark and the rain in January, so this year it’s finally happening.

We have lived in three homes since I started this blog in 2008. The first two were rentals and until we moved to the townhouse where I bought all new furniture, I was embarrassed to show my house.

We loved the location of our first house. It was built in the 60’s and it had sweeping views of the North Shore and Vancouver from the top of Lonsdale. But it was OLD. The kitchen laminate doors were peeling, there was nothing much to show.

After I’d been blogging for about a year, my readers started asking what my house looked like so I gave you a glimpse of my tree in 2009:

Christmas 2009 (see more of this house here)

Then the owners of the first house decided it was time to tear it down and build their retirement home so we had to move.

We really wanted a house with three bedrooms this time so we could have an office for each of us since we both worked from home. But the rent for three bedroom homes was more than we could afford in Vancouver so we found this townhouse.

The only one they had available was north facing and dark! I don’t know how we lived there even two years but we were building our business back then and we worked a lot!

Christmas 2010 (see the full tour here)

When we first moved into this townhouse with our old furniture, I was so depressed looking at the backs of my faded slipcovers, I barely went into the living room until my yellow sofa arrived 3 months later.

Christmas 2011 (Tour of my House)

By this Christmas tour, my styling had improved as well as my wrapped gifts under the tree (compared to the previous years).

Then, the Spring of 2012 we bought our bungalow out in the country and I was missing drapery for this years tour:

Christmas 2012 (see the tour here)

When I watch my progress over the years, I think it’s funny that I was quite convinced that that my photos, taken with a point and shoot camera, were perfectly acceptable. Also, I think it’s even more funny that I thought it was totally fine to take this picture with the sun slanting on the tree from the other room!!

My best tip for those of you starting out right now would be to buy a decent camera and learn how to use it, take lessons if necessary. With the arrival of Pinterest and Instagram the bar for magazine worthy photos has been raised. As designers, we simply can’t get away with bad images anymore. Now, more than ever, they have to be pinnable and repostable.

Christmas 2013

In 2013 I had the house photographed by Tracey Ayton and the following year they appeared in Canadian Living so I only showed you a sneak peak this year.

Christmas 2014 (see the full tour here)

My skills wrapping and coordinating gifts for decoration had improved again ; )

Christmas 2015 (see the full tour here)

I had to do something different this year so I bought white flocked trees from the nursery. Wow did they ever transform the look of my decorations.

In Vancouver we just get rain, it’s rare that we see any snow, I loved the white trees so much that after I took all the decorations off the tree in the family room, I moved it into the family room for a couple more weeks.

Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers! I am so grateful to you all for your love and support over the past 8 years. Your comments and emails mean so much to me and I really appreciate them!

If you’re hanging today and need something to do, I would love if if you’d post a review on  Houzz if you’ve worked with me. You can post one here.

Related posts:

All About Hermes Orange

Do you Dream about Decorating your House?

What is the Colour of Fun?

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The post 8 Years of Christmas Decorating at Colour Me Happy appeared first on Maria Killam | Timeless Colour.

Pinterest

If you are searching the web to find a magical colour to make your room look larger, possibly to sell your house, a paint colour all by itself, is not going to do that for you.

However, it is true, that a white or very pale colour will give you the feeling of a more expansive space, but the real truth of the matter is that a room that shows well is about how it feels more than if it looks big.

I polled a few of my True Colour Expert staging professionals and here were some of their comments:

Some rooms need nothing to communicate their fabulousness and can be shown empty. Other rooms die or absolutely confuse without showing a buyer how it should/could be used. Malissa McLeod 

via Pinterest

So, in case you were looking for the best paint colour to make your room look larger, well first, you should start by choosing the correct undertone. There is no one colour that will do it across the board.

If you are reading this but you’ve already read read 5 posts with headlines that say “Best neutrals that will work in any style of home”, well, no surprise that you’re still reading right?

Because those posts were not useful.

Understanding Undertones® – The Colour System

Out of the 9 neutral undertones (above), choose the one that relates to your finishes the most. It’s not about choosing the opposite colour on the colour wheel. Choosing the correct neutral is more often about pulling the room together by finding the shade that relates the best.

If your house was decorated in the Tuscan Brown trend and you choose a popular shade of grey because you think that’s current? What you need to keep in mind is that the undertones of many of your fixed finishes are more yellow, pink or green beige. If you choose a green or blue grey, you will be adding an additional colour that doesn’t relate to anything.

A Tuscan house will often look the best painted in SW Wool Skein because while it’s not in the grey category and is actually a green beige, there’s enough yellow in it to relate to those yellow undertones or not fight with the pink undertones and you end up with a colour that feels fresh and takes you away from the feeling of beige.

Malissa went on to say:

 It’s not that furniture will make a room categorically larger or smaller – what it does is provide human scale and context to a room that might otherwise be difficult for some people to imagine. In the same way (IMO) one can’t categorically state that a light paint colour will make a room larger and a dark paint will make a room smaller – it always depends on the context.

Many years ago I wrote a post about John Saladino’s definition of human scale that was really interesting, you can read it here.

Ginny Truyens, a Stager and True Colour Expert in Toronto sent in these photos:

“Furniture definitely gives context to an empty space and selecting the right pieces is key to making a small space FEEL larger.

We use white/off white solid coloured, proportionally scaled sofas; glass tables, mirrors, no pattern or subtle pattern in an area rug and art work to bring the eye up and move around the room.

Using reflective pieces as glass, mirror, metals… helps bring more light into a space; which helps to expand it. Using chairs, tables…with tall legs to see more floor space, also helps to expand the perception of more space.”

{ Before }Submitted by Ginny Truyens

{After}  Design by Ginny Truyens, True Colour Expert

Carolyn Soltesz from Style it Home said

We know that only 10% of the buying population has the ability to imagine what they cannot see. An empty room is lifeless, while requiring the ability to visualize furniture placement and function of the space.

Placement of properly scaled and demographically pleasing furnishings will not only show ample size of the room but create the emotional connection that sells the home. Unless you are in a very hot market,vacant rooms often translate to necessary price reductions In order to grab attention from the bargain hunters!

Thanks to my True Colour Experts for adding their expertise to this post!

Terreeia and I popped into an Open House in Siesta Key, Florida (below) when we were there last weekend. The walls were entirely painted in a dark, pink beige shade and the house was completely decorated in the Tuscan trend.

When we were leaving, I thought I’d give the real estate agent a colour to re-paint the walls if the place did not sell, so I asked her how long it had been on the market.

She quickly replied ’38 days’ because there’s so much space and because it’s ‘So beautiful’.

I left without saying a word.

One of my new True Colour Experts from my course in Upper Montclair this past week said she had been looking to buy in Florida for a long time but even the brand new subdivisions are still building dated Tuscan homes.

Maria Killam and Marianne Pawlicki

Here’s my class in Upper Montclair, New Jersey from last week!

New Jersey Class | Photo by Melissa Bolinger

Check out my new blue suede shoes from Stuart Weitzman!

Loved this class so much! We really had an amazing three days! I’ve done so much on-line consulting with clients in the East, it’s no surprise that I was in 4 cities here this Fall. I probably should have been born a New Yorker since I’m as blunt as them, haha.

Two designers who worked together came up to me at the end of the class and said they wished they had attended five years ago!

So don’t wait, I’ll be posting my Spring schedule shortly!

I’m in Manhattan this weekend, this is the view from our hotel room. I love New York so I can’t hold a course this close and then not stay for the weekend even though I sure miss being home!

Follow me on Instagram to see more of New York this weekend, we’re home Monday night!

Related posts:

Styling, Waxing and Country Living in New York State

I Heart New York: Where to Start When Defining Your Look

What It’s Like to Be the Boss of a New York Magazine

The post Which Paint Colours will Make my Room Look Larger? appeared first on Maria Killam | Timeless Colour.

Interior Design by True Colour Expert Andrea Brooks

I usually don’t have time for a manicure until the day before my colour workshop begins.

Last Tuesday, I was in a nail salon in Tampa, chatting with the woman sitting next to me. She said she actually followed my blog because she was renovating her house. This is how our conversation went:

BM Edgecomb Gray Decor pad

I painted my walls Edgecomb gray but I’m not convinced that it’s the right colour.

Have you re-decorated yet?

No

That’s why you’re not convinced, this is a colour that sometimes looks beige, sometimes it looks green and sometimes it looks like the perfect neutral gray.

And sometimes it looks white, she said.

Because you get a lot of light, I responded. And since you’re probably not redecorating with  earth tones, as long as that neutral doesn’t clash with your existing fixed elements, it’s probably perfect.

Thanks! That makes me feel so much better!

It doesn’t seem to matter how many times I’ve said it in this blog, so many people still think “If I just nail the paint colour” (no pun intended “It’ll be downhill from there”.

A colour, like the dining room at the top of this post, is easier to love in an empty or undecorated room than a neutral.

Related post: Are you Waiting for your Paint Colour to Propose?

BM Edgecomb Gray Image source

I get a lot of skeptics in my classes who wonder how I can possibly choose paint colours not to mention, tile, countertops, and fabrics, on-line for my clients.

What they learn, is that getting colour right is way more about choosing the right undertones and way less about lighting. If you’ve chosen the correct undertone that works with all your furniture and your paint colour looks wrong at 11:00 am in the morning for 2 hours but it looks great all other times of the day, it’s easy to forgive that.

Maria’s Understanding Undertones Colour Wheel – The System

Designers will often explain away the wrong colour by blaming it on the light when really, they’ve just chosen the wrong neutral in the first place. When they watch me walk through the nine undertones in class during our in-class exercises with hard finishes and fabrics, and see the difference between ‘meh’ and ‘wow that’s perfect’, well everything changes after that.

Related post: How to Choose Paint colours that Work with Your Lighting

Tampa True Colour Experts

Seth Godin in his blog today said:

Education is the answer. Change what you know, change what you believe, and you change the actions. Learn to see, to understand, to have patience, and you learn to be the kind of person who can make a difference.

Educated people create other educated people. The standards go up when education is present, because the cost of being the least educated person in your tribe is high.

Very soon, in the design world, it will not be enough to be the designer who is still saying “Colour is hard, all you can do is test it and hope that you get it right”

There’s no hoping in my courses. You either get the colour right or you don’t. It’s no longer this mysterious, I’ll-never-wrap-my-arms-around-it phenomenon.

Love these two colour blocked True Colour Experts in Tampa – Sharon and Karen

So if you’ve recently painted your walls and you are less-than-impressed? It’s probably more about the decorating that needs to happen next, and way less about the paint colour.

Related post: How Much Heavy Lifting can a Paint Colour Handle?

From Tampa, we drove to Sarasota this weekend for a little R&R. Then we fly to New Jersey on Monday afternoon, my Upper Montclair course starts Wednesday, there’s still two spots left if you want to jump in. Register here.

The post Help! I Still Don’t Love My New Paint Colour appeared first on Maria Killam | Timeless Colour.

Whenever someone asks me what to do about white going green in the summer because of the green reflecting from outside, I tell them you need to add more orange to the colour to kill the green.

It’s a fine line though, if you add too much orange, you’ll end up with a peach living room in the winter when there is no green reflection.

Read on and you’ll see what happened, take it away Tricia:

Tricia’s Backyard

I love everything about summer. The long warm days, dinner al fresco, road trips and working in my wild overgrown garden (above). I can’t get enough of all the lush green-ness outside.

However, INSIDE, my pretty cream living room turns sickly green from the North East reflection of all that green outside. In the winter, (when I chose it this colour) when the light reflects off the white snow, it’s totally fine, but in the summer, it bothers me every day (below).

It would be fine if it was just for a couple hours of the day, but nope, it’s sour green all day long. You can see how lower down the wall, where the reflection doesn’t hit it, it’s fine.

I’m sure most people would hardly notice. And if they did, they would think, “meh, it’s green from outside,” but for colour obsessed me, it causes constant low grade irritation that erodes my very sense of well being…I know, get a grip right? But just LOOK at it! Lime-SICK-le green! Haha.

Anyway, I know this is not an uncommon problem, and my colour scientist mind wanted to know if I could fix it.

The colour is Ralph Lauren Architectural Off White. I chose it ten years ago for my trim to work with the cream floor tile we had installed in the kitchen and bathroom. I love everything Ralph Lauren, and this colour looks just beautiful on the trim pretty much everywhere in the house, especially in the south facing bathroom where it is bathed in beautiful light.

When I got tired of the green grays and beiges that I needed for the walls to contrast with my cream trim, I decided just to paint everything the same cream, which, in general, turned out beautifully.

But in my low light living room, with reflections from the giant trees outside, it has too much of a green cast, so what to do?

When RL paints were no longer available at Home Depot for awhile, I used a very similar cream for other areas of the house that was a smidge peachier by C2 paints called Breathless. It’s always beautiful in both bright or low light.

I confess that not a small part of the reason I love the colour is that it is named after an old movie called “Breathless” where a very young Richard Gere seems to constantly be just emerging from the shower His hapless girlfriend has a classic eighties transient apartment with a peachy toned cream on the walls which apparently inspired the colour

See that peachy cream colour battling the shadows in there? Oh, right, it’s hard to notice anything other than him. Anyway, I noticed it, because I am always analyzing decor in movies

It is actually based on a more stylish black and white version of the film from 1960. Here’s a shot from the original movie.

A scantily clad Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg in Jean-Luc Godard’s original version (a must see).

So I really just told you about that so that I could post a pic of Gere in his prime

Also, I wanted to see if a slightly peachier cream, like Breathless, would cut down on the green cast in my living room.

I ended up testing a colour just a teensie bit cleaner and brighter than Breathless called Wedding Cake, also by C2, because who doesn’t want a space that is just a little bit brighter these days? Here’s the test board:

When a friend was over for coffee, casually flipping through the paint chips I had strewn on the table, she came across Wedding Cake and said “Eewww” and tossed it aside.

Truly, who wants peachy icing on their walls? Yet it turned out to be the answer. Just shows, you can’t judge a paint colour by it’s name, or even it’s apparent colour when it is sitting on the table. Here is the after:

Do you hear the angels singing in my head? Because I do every time I look at it

In the spirit of full disclosure, and because I’m sure that many of you will notice, yes, my vintage chair and sofa are a little on the pinky side. Pinkier than my cream walls for sure. But with all of the retro wood tones in my room (which I love because I watch too many old movies probably), pink beige was not the answer for this room. I’m stretching the rules and I assure you that in person, you would never notice, even I can live with it

Here’s a shot of the other corner of the room with the big window that brings in not-quite-enough light filtered through all of that greenery.

See how Mabel is looking very suspicious of the camera? That’s because in our 9 years together, she has learned that usually when I’m “up to something” things fall, crash, and make loud scary noises  But she puts up with me.

I got her a cow skin blankie to coordinate with her coat and keep her couch from getting too furry, see? We’ve had a long standing disagreement over whether the couch is hers, and apparently she’s won, haha.

Artwork by Phil Darrah at Peter Robertson Gallery

Here’s a view of the wall that gets flooded with warm West light all afternoon (above).

Artwork by Phil Darrah and Graham Peacock at Peter Robertson Gallery

I’ve been working on styling these shelves, it’s a challenge because they are pretty dark, but I like the wood.

We so often get questions from you all about how light exposure affects colour, so I really wanted to share this with you. Reflections and exposures often do affect the colour you paint on the walls. Especially when you are working with lighter colours.

That is why it is so critical to use large samples to finalize your colour and see how it reads in the context of your room.

However, it is also true, as Maria says, that 95 percent of the time it’s about getting the undertone right first. At the testing phase you can tweak it if necessary.

The other thing is that with everyone wanting beautiful white and bright rooms like the seductive blown out images that are all over the internet right now (below), it can be disconcerting to conclude that your own low light room can’t have the look you so crave to create.

From Four Generations One Roof

I’m putting forward trying a peachier cream (if it works with your fixed elements of course) to create a light and bright feel when greige and white feel drab and shadowy.

Understanding Undertones® – The Colour System

To get technical using colour theory, the cool end of the spectrum is blue, and the warm end is orange (yellow and red), you can battle the cool shadows with a bit more warm orange.(above)

Pinks and yellows should work the same for shadows (if green is not your issue). The reason this works for green in my case is that adding more red to my cream helps push back against it’s compliment, green. Does that make sense?

BM Navajo White Image via Home Design Etc.

So if you have a lower light room or a green cast from outside and you want to make it look brighter, try a creamier, peachier colour than you would normally consider. Good ones to try are BM Navajo White OC 95 and BM Indian White OC 88 and some of the other peachy off whites that live in that neglected section of the colour deck, can’t hurt to paint up a board and see what it looks like

Thanks Tricia! This was super helpful to have a real, live example of fixing a white.

As you know, this week I was at Maison & Objet, you’ll get my 2018 trends report this week.

I’ve been with a group of designers this week, and inevitably the conversation comes back  to colour when they hear what I do.

When people hear about my Understanding Undertones® system, one of the first questions I get is always about lighting.

“How do I get colour right while dealing with a North facing exposure?”

“How do I handle the new LED lights in a kitchen?”

And the list goes on.

Many people still live under the false illusion that if they could somehow predict how the light was going to ‘change’ the colour, before it went up, well THEN, AND ONLY THEN, could they FINALLY get colour right.

Well I’m here to remind you AGAIN, that getting colour right is about using large samples to get to the right undertone and then, finally actually choosing the correct undertone.

Anytime a designer confides “Maria, the colour went pink (or green or something wrong) after it went up and it was the light” I ask what the colour is. And every time, it was originally a pink beige or a green beige. So no surprise that it went pink or green when it was installed.

I have over 350 graduates on our private Facebook True Colour Expert page which is very active with lots of members posting about their projects, analyzing what to do, asking for help, and very little conversation goes on about how the light changed the colour.

Related post: What it Looks like to be in a Private Forum

It’s also how I’m able to specify colour ONLINE.  I have conducted literally hundreds of colour consultations this way. From paint to wallpaper, to fabrics and tile, it’s about knowing the 9 undertones in the colour wheel above.

The same thing applies to sourcing furniture and fabrics on-line. Once you see the 9 undertones, you can coordinate colour palettes for your clients like we do in our offices every day. I’ll teach you how to do that on Day 3.

Once you know what all 9 undertones look like on interiors and exteriors and how to spot them, how to compare colour so that you AND your client can see that you’ve chosen the right colour, well your whole world will change.

The salon in our hotel the first morning of my stay in Paris when I woke up jet lagged at 3:00 am.

So, instead of looking around at the colour and thinking “I like this taupe room”, you’ll more accurately say “Look at how this pink beige and red room is so pretty.”

Nothing wrong with the pink beige in this room (above) because it’s used intentionally. And you’ll notice that there are no other conflicting undertones to make it look bad.

Related post: In Praise of Pink Beige

Different from the exterior of this building right outside my hotel on the same street (above). You’ll notice that the store windows at the bottom of this photo (along with the oversized casings) are pink beige and they make the rest of the yellow beige stucco look dirty. And the windows are green which clearly was not the best choice here either.

However the Juliet balconies and classic lantern chandelier remind you that you’re still in Paris, even if the owner of this building didn’t use the most attractive colour scheme.

While I was having a Spritz in the cafe across from this building the other day, I struck up a conversation with a frenchman, who after we exchanged what we did for a living and I pointed out what was wrong, he saw it immediately.

That’s the most amazing thing about neutral undertones, the minute you see them, you can’t unsee them ever again.

I spend A LOT of time distinguishing pink beige in my workshops because it’s such a tricky neutral undertone.

Related post: Why Pink Beige Should be Banished Forever

This was our breakfast room. The lighted mirror sconces were my favourite decor item in this hotel. Nothing wrong with this monochromatic pink beige colour scheme.

It’s my last night in Paris and it’s raining today. It was raining when I arrived last Monday too! We’ve had a lovely week of nice weather otherwise.

Hope you are having a lovely Labour Day weekend!

The post How to Fix your White Room (If it Turned Green) Before & After appeared first on Maria Killam | Timeless Colour.

via Traditional Home

So last year at this time I said I would renovate my bathrooms in the Spring but then it didn’t happen. I got busy, did not have a contractor and that was the end of that plan.

It was a client living here in Chilliwack (who I’ll tell you about very soon) that jolted me into action. I corralled my dear friend Jan Romanuk (who designed my kitchen when we first moved into this house 3 1/2 years ago) to come out and help design the millwork for my clients renovation and at the same time I had her drop by the house to look at my bathrooms. Again.

Jan Romanuk (here she is in my main bathroom)

So here’s my first dilemma. Jan and I are in a debate about whether you should install a rectangular sink in the same bathroom with an oval bathtub.

She is more of a tradionalist than me and she prefers the coordinated look of an oval tub with an oval sink.

I am sooooo bored of oval sinks since I’ve never lived in a house with a new bathroom in my life. Until we bought this house in April 2012, I rented.

Before I continue with my sink saga, a few things about my master bathroom:

See that small bulkhead on the left corner of the above image? Clearly it’s covering up some kind of pipe but Jan said they should have built the wall out originally because the bathroom is big enough where you didn’t really need the 4 or 5 extra inches. This way you wouldn’t have to deal with a bulkhead at all.

Now, so that it doesn’t get too expensive, we will simply extend it to the end of the wall.

I’m showing you the original photo from when we took possession. I’ve since painted this bathroom turquoise and replaced the light fixture but that’s all I’ve done, so I there’s nothing new to see.

The stained glass windows have to be replaced and I want an oval free standing tub here. A rectangular tub would NOT work in front of the angled walls.

So here are a few images to ponder my lovelies. . .

image via Bloglovin

Here is a square top mounted sink with a built in oval bathtub.

Image via Pinterest

Another contemporary bathroom with a rectangular sink and an oval bathtub (above).

via Atlanta Homes Mag

Here the sink is square and the tub is oval. What I don’t love about this bathroom is that the drain pipe seems to be on the wrong side of the tub. Must have been too expensive to move.

via the Enchanted Home

And here both are oval again.

This is my favourite tub (above) but Jan says it’s expensive. And it probably would look too high end in front of my little windows which will be higher than the tub

Installing larger windows would be completely over-renovating.

image via Lonny Magazine

It will most likely be something more simple, similar to this one (above).

I’ll post about bathtubs when I start sourcing them.

So what do you say? Yay or Nay to mixing and matching rectangular and oval?

If you would like to transform the way you see colour, become a True Colour Expert.

Related posts:

The Best White Bathrooms

The Best Cream Bathrooms

The Best Trim for Bathrooms NOT Cloud White

If you’d like to become the next True Colour Expert in your area register here.

The post Bathroom Dilemma: Rectangular or Oval Sink? Yay or Nay appeared first on Maria Killam | Timeless Colour.

1. Winter or Summer

Definitely summer and this year we are having the best summer we’ve had in a while here in the North West. I love watching the new garden we installed two years ago change and grow.

After

Can’t resist posting the before picture with every opportunity I get ; ) ; )

Photography by Angie Wolfe 

Here’s a new picture with the daisies looking their best. My clematis died this winter so I had to start again, I’m willing it to grow along the soffits where I’ve had plastic lattice installed!

I love my new photoshopped grey roof!

Before

See my new umbrella (above)? Well our old one snapped and broke recently. It had flown off a few times so that must have weakened it. We had brought it from our old house because we needed an umbrella there.

In this house, we have a huge covered deck so I just installed the market umbrella in front of my studio and I loved the resort feel it gave the backyard even though we RARELY use this area.  And if we used a fire pit, it would be at night anyway.

For a few weeks, we didn’t have an umbrella after it snapped in half and when even Terreeia said “When are you going to get a new one?” I laughed and told her she was perfect for me because even she got the aesthetic of just looking at it in the backyard.

Hey, we don’t have a view so the backyard has to be as pretty as possible.

Here’s how are vegetable garden looks these days.

Before

Before

If you are interested in reading posts on the entire renovation including the interior, start here.

2. What’s your Favourite Wallpaper Pattern

OMG I must have a thing for leaves because the first pattern I thought of when I read this question are this banana leaf pattern from the Beverly Hills Hotel.

source

And I have a wall of leaves in my studio too (below).

Green is my thing obviously.

3. What’s the best vacation you’ve taken?

I would have to say a week long trip to Isla Mujeres in Mexico with my sister Elizabeth. It’s a little island close to Cancun. Elizabeth was a flight attendant for Canada 3000 in those days and I could fly stand by with her for only $30. So we picked this spot, took a ferry from Cancun once we arrived and stayed in a great little room above this little mexican restaurant. 

I think I was around 30 years old here. Elizabeth was 24.

Maria & Elizabeth

Unknown guy, Elizabeth and Maria

We even partied with some sailors we met on the beach at night and had a fabulous time! Elizabeth and I were roommates back then. I was recently divorced, we were young and carefree and I always remember this vacation and wish I could re-create it.

4. If you could have lunch with anyone in the world, who would it be?

Julia Roberts

The inspiration for starting this blog came from Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. She’s always been my favourite actress, she’s the same age as me. I even love her name. I’ve always said if I had a daughter, her name would be Julia. Jules for short.

5. Name one thing on your bucket list.

Tuscany.

And I’ll be there in 3 weeks, hooray!!  You’ll hear all about it of course!

6. What’s your favourite room in your house?

It’s hard to decide I really love my house and feel so fortunate that after all the years I rented and suffered with pink beige carpet, bad tile and terrible kitchens, I finally got to buy a house and renovate it to my taste.

I would have to say my living room. I look at it all day long walking back and forth from the bedroom wing of the house. It makes me happy.

7. If you could pick any designer, living or dead to decorate your house, who would it be?

Jeffrey Bilhuber. If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you’ll know he’s my favourite, I’ve written posts about his style and how I copy his ability to effortlessly style a room, here and here.

Jeffrey Bilhuber

8. What’s on your night stand?

Books, a glass of water, my glasses, iPhone, body lotion and lip stuff.

The Master Bedroom

9. Backyard BBQ or Formal Dinner?

I like both. Having friends over is certainly more intimate though! Here’s a photo of the daughter of a close family friend from Finland who came to visit my Mom for 6 weeks.

Obviously this photo was NOT taken with the intention of showing it on this blog since the table is NOT styled ; ) ; ) Just keeping it real!

Emma

10. If you could rewind twenty years and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?

Get your personality tested in both DISC and Meyers Briggs. If I had known I had the personality of an Entrepreneur all those times that I’ve been fired in my career (8 times at last count) I wouldn’t have walked around wearing the L (loser) on my forehead as long as I did. For about 20 years in fact, before I started this blog at 40 years old.

I would also have participated in courses with Landmark Education 20 years ago too. Doing Landmark changed my life and completely changed the way I communicate.

If I had done all of these things at 20, maybe I would have arrived, where I am now, faster!

11. Share something you’ve pinned (or bookmarked) and why you love it.

Windsor Smith

I love this living room. And especially the art that totally makes it sing. The flowers on the ottoman. It’s just perfect. And the light fixture! So pretty!

12. What’s one decorating piece of advice you swear by?

Boring = Timeless.

And don’t stop buying lamps until you have at least 30 in your house.

There are so many places for this lamp, on your kitchen countertops, bookshelf, etc.

No one EVER has enough lighting.

Okay so I got to the end of the questions and realized Kate asked a bunch of her own. So I’m posting them here too for the bloggers named below:

1. Share something you’ve pinned (or bookmarked) and why you love it. 

2. What’s your favorite color and where have you used it or seen it used in a beautiful way? 

3. If money was no object, what’s something you’d buy right now. 

4. Share something that scares you, something that comforts you, or both. 

5. The perfect meal? Name it. 

6. What’s one decorating piece of advice you swear by. 

7. What’s your guilty pleasure? 

8. Tell a joke, the cornier the better, or share a meme or show that makes you laugh. 

9. Congratulations, you just won an all expenses paid trip to           !  Fill in the blank. 

10. What advice would you give your twenty something self?

Julia from Hooked on Houses, Joni at Cote de Texas, Lauren at Pure Style Home, Kristie from the Decorologist, Lisa at Lise Mende Design, Traci at Traci Zeller Designs, Linda at Linda Merrill Decorative Surroundings, Scarlett Ballantyne, and Penelope Trunk.  

What about you? What’s on your bucket list?

PS. I’m over on Lisa Mende’s blog today, she’s doing a ‘What’s in your Bag’ series, check it out!

Related posts:

Six Things About Me

3 Things You Don’t Know About me (But I wish you Did)

10 Things I Hate/Love/Share about Me

If you would like to transform the way you see colour, become a True Colour Expert.

The post 10 Questions for Maria Killam appeared first on Maria Killam | Timeless Colour.

Spoiler alert: You might get cranky when you read these mistakes if you realize you’ve made them in your own home. Or you could always start painting some of it. Bottom line: if you are not shopping for furniture, skip this next section . . . then you can just keep being blissfully unaware.

Seriously.

It’s not fun when someone explains why you shouldn’t have bought that $5000 area rug, or that complete dining room or bedroom set. If there’s nothing you can do about it right now, wait to read it until you can do something about it.

Emily is a lovely stylist who lives in LA, and has her own show on HGTV. She’s got lots of videos on her site with fun tutorials on styling, she’s playful, and she’s hugely entertaining.

Here’s the first one:

In this post, Emily gives you the lowdown on which wood furniture you should stay away from. And it’s never good to buy matching sets of anything (coffee tables, dining rooms, and bedroom sets). Good designers go out of their way to coordinate different wood furniture pieces because hey, you can buy the matched stuff on your own. You don’t need our help to do it that way.

Next up, furniture:

Here, Emily shows lots of examples of the style of sofa you should never buy. It’s true that it’s hard to style around furniture that looks like this.

And slipcovering a mistake is not cheaper, by the way. It costs the same as buying new. By the time you pay for the fabric and the labour to re-upholster or slipcover, it’s the same price as a brand new piece. The only time it’s worth it to slipcover is if the sofa was expensive and a good classic style to begin with.

Emily also had a phenomenal post on area rugs:

I don’t think I’ve ever read such a comprehensive post on buying area rugs. I’ve written a few (here, here and here). But Emily has it all here in one place. It’s a must read.

So there you go. I read her blog for hours on Thursday night, even some out loud to Terreeia as she made dinner. I was highly entertained and inspired by her writing style and tough love advice, all wrapped up with adorable photos of her family.

Hubby, Charlie & Emily Henderson

This was the post I read out loud. So funny!

Give them a read, my lovelies, and let me know what you think. Good styling can disappear so many things you don’t like about your house, and we all need all the help we can get, right?

Which post is your favourite?

Related posts:

One More Reason to Skip Accent Tiles Altogether

First Rule of Design: Boring Now Equals Timeless Later

Danger: The First 24 Hours After you Take Possession

The post Best Advice Ever: On Wood Finishes, Bad Sofas, and Area Rug Placement appeared first on Maria Killam | Timeless Colour.

As you might have figured out by now, I travel a lot! I’ve seen many hotel bathrooms over the years that I’ve been writing this blog and never felt compelled to show you one, until today.

When I held my Specify Colour with Confidence course at the Harrington College of Design in Chicago and we stayed at the Palmer House Hilton.

Hotels especially need to install classic, white or cream tile because it’s very expensive to renovate–in this case–1639 bathrooms (which is how many rooms are in this hotel)!

Install a trendy strip of tile around the perimeter of a bathroom shower in a hotel and it’ll immediately scream 1985 or 2002 or 2009. That’s why they are usually not part of the decor.

When hotels do a renovation, they change the vanity and countertop, but often leave the shower tile and tub.

What’s the dead giveaway here that the tub and surround tile are not current? The tub faucet (below).

You can see that this one was installed sometime in the 80’s.

The surround tile was primarily cream with miniscule pink specks in it. The marble floor tile looked new and it was off-white and grey in comparison to the old cream tile.

I like the way the frame around the artwork related to the vanity (below).

The black and white wallpaper relates to the black granite countertop, white sink and tub. If you look closely, the toilet is off-white (not as white as the tub) but because the bathroom is so pretty, you wouldn’t notice.

Beautifully done.

The door and trim is painted cream to blend in with the tile. It also creates contrast with the white in the background of the wallpaper.

The vanity could have been white as well to pick up the white in this bathroom but because it was a dark wood stain, it actually takes the attention from the off-white toilet. I didn’t notice that it didn’t match the tub until I started snapping photos to show to you.

Had the new floor tile been a larger scale tile like a 12″ x 24″ it would have not been as great of a transition with the old 4″ x 4″ tile as the new 12″ x 12″ marble is.

Hope this helps if you’re trying to work with old tile in a new bathroom to update it. Even if you are not updating an old bathroom, this is a great way to combine white and cream in a brand new bathroom too!

By the way, all these images were taken with my new iPhone 6. I no longer carry around my little Canon camera in my purse because the camera in this one is so much better.

Who loves their iPhone 6? Every designer should have one!

Related posts:

Is your Bath Perfect? Or Perfectly Nice?

The Best Cream Bathrooms

One More Reason you Should Skip Accent Tile All Together

The post A Classic Cream and White Bathroom (How to get One) appeared first on Maria Killam | Timeless Colour.