Colour constantly plays an important role in the art of Design, Architecture, Interiors and Fashion. Designers set trends using colour or the lack of it to introduce anything new and current. The iconic fashion label ZARA for example, launched their Autumn-Winter Collection 2021 using Colour as headline news with models in bold vivid tones on sinuous fabric. The House & Home section of one of our favourite fashion brands TOAST used more earthy autumnal hues of colour to delineate the changing seasons, drawing a visual line with images of falling leaves, velvet fabrics and hand-crafted pottery to prepare us for whats to come. The interiors and architecture industry use the choice of Colour to mark a new trend or feature a new project. Interior magazine The World Of Interiors has an Antennae Roundup page and an Autumn (or Spring) Swatch page that features all things new in the latest Colours.
So it is that we now embark on a short discussion on Colour, its characteristics, and how it influences our design choices. We look into a few of the most utilized spaces in our first project to try and understand the reasons behind the shades we chose for each area wether be it in furniture, wall, tile or flooring. We talk about the paint company that inspires our decisions as well as the other alternatives to help give some practical advice how to use it in your own homes.
Entrance door and hallway in natural shades of wood and white.
Our first room in discussion is the entrance hall and the natural look we give it by using the colour (or non-colour ) WHITE. One could say that White is a “regal colour; a pigment that describes the “honourable and sublime” as written by Melville in the novel Moby Dick. Kassia St. Clair in her book The Secret Lives of Colour, describes WHITE as a colour “intricately connected with money and power.” “Fabrics, including wool and cotton, had to be heavily processed in order to appear white”. It is a shade that constantly serves as a jumping point for new styles. It has the reputation of being a minimalist shade or a safe choice in interiors from where a specific look is created. In this instance, our preference for white as the first colour you see is based on the desire to clean the visual palette of mental clutter and prep yourself for the new. Using WHITE on the walls and ceiling helps make the artwork, lighting, and other decorative accessories stand out. White, when combined with other neutral shades such as a light oak stained wood flooring from REEVE, a Syrian Kilim area rug and a Chinese vintage chest, creates a pleasantly decorated space with an Asian Contemporary feel-a style we wanted to create from the onset. We source inspiration for our shade of White from two paint companies that offer one of the best choices in the current market-Farrow&Ball and Dulux. In this space, F&B’s shade in ALL WHITE is book-matched with a Dulux version for less cost, which was a tremendous help given the considerable wall area involved.
Bauwerk and Little Green Paints are additions to the UK materials market which also offer beautiful and ecological paint colours with White being a very popular choice. Bauwerk, a German paint company, specializes in Lime-based paint colours made from clay, minerals and other natural ingredients and pigments, all of which are left to ‘cure’ by taking in carbon dioxide in the process thus creating a chalky or light- washed effect on application. Their version of white (in this case Chalk) gives a room an antique-wash effect made more interesting when paired with mid-century or contemporary furniture in basic neutral colours (as seen on the image below).
Bauwerk Paint in Chalk
source: www.bauwerkcolour.com
The Little Green Paint Company is an independent British, family-run paint manufacturer which prides itself on creating and supplying ecological and environmentally friendly products made safe for internal and external use. They offer a wide range of basic colours i.e. Whites, made with hints of secondary shades from pinks to yellow to umber to arrive at supplementary tones catering to every specific preference. Our chosen image taken from their Instagram post gives you an idea of how white tones can be used to complement (in this case a country-style utility unit) and give a modern feel to the traditional.
Little Green photo inspiration (IG post)
source: www.littlegreen.com
The transition from WHITE to the lounge, dining area and kitchen in Farrow & Ball’s FRENCH GREY allows for a calm visual change as you move from one room to the next. Whilst we post two images from Farrow & Ball showing our chosen shade in two contrasting interior settings, our project gallery of images also show the versatility of the colour when used in another eclectic setting, helping us create a tranquil and harmoniously balanced interior that adapt with the change.
French Grey in a classic setup via Farrow&Ball, where the lighting and decor helps emphasize old-world Georgian style.
French Grey in a modern setup via Farrow & Ball, where mid-century furniture and fabric bring out the grey pigment giving the room a lovely contemporary feel.
Farrow & Ball described French Grey as a ‘soothing green grey’ which takes inspiration from 19th century french decoration’ but Kassia St. Clare defines it as Celadon or a variating greyish green colour characterised by the presence of iron in the clay and iron oxide, manganese oxide and quartz in the glaze.* Celadon Green by definition, is a term used to describe a green found in artifacts from the Far East i.e. China, Korea, Japan and and even Cairo through the all-encompassing business of trade. With this detail in mind, we browse through more paint companies in the UK market that offer close substitutes to French Grey: Bauwerk Colour and The Little Green Paints, two companies with different approaches to Colour.
Bauwerk Wormwood Green
source:www.bauwerk.com
Bauwerk Wormwood Green, a lime based product, could have been a good option for French Grey. Its chalky, powdery but subtle render gave you that raw earthy effect that can mimic the colours of nature. The Little Green Paint Company also had a shade called Boringdon Green supposedly named after a wealthy Georgian aristocrat 1st Baron Boringdon. Story was that the Georgian interior designer Robert Adam decorated two major rooms of Saltram House Devon in a type of green made to match two urns Adam designed himself.
Boringdon Green via Pinterest
We could have opted for one of these more vivid shades of green but Farrow & Ball’s French Grey is most suited to how we want the space to feel like. The changing quality of the pigment helps highlight the universal style we love. Our gallery of photos below show the versatile characteristics of the colour as it shifts from green to grey-green and back to green depending on where you are at within the space. By using a diverse mix of furniture styles in the form of natural wood-from Philippine colonial tables and storage chests, to mid-century Scandinavian chairs and French Provincial country tables, the ‘soothing green-grey’ wall colour comes alive.
As we move into the private spaces of the Master Bedroom and En Suite, we continue wiht our use of calm soothing coloursto decorate. Our master bed has the Farrow & Ball pink shade of Calamine, described as a “delicate pink with a touch of grey” with characteristics that change depending on the size or position of the room. Because the master bedroom had purposely designed architectural details separated by a cantilevered wall, it was important to counter these structural elements with a room colour that brought back a pacifying effect on the senses. Our choice of a subtle shade of Pink helped us arrive at this without doubt.
Master Bed and Walk-in Wardrobe in Farrow & Ball Calamine
Kassia St. Clare’s book gives you a brief but interesting fact about the' ‘Baker-Miller’ pink as it was named following an experiment organised by two commanding officers at the US Naval Correctional Centre in Seattle Washington, a Gene Baker and Ron Miller. The officers thought of turning one cell into a certain shade of Pink to see what effect the colour had on the prisoners over a period of time. True enough, this ‘Pepto-Bismol’ shade of pink ‘sapped the energy’ out of the men and saw a decrease in ‘aggressive’ behaviour over a series of months. This theory continued to be used on other facilities and was even experimented on weight lifters to see how it affected strength and performance, the over-all conclusion of which was that this ’Baker-Miller Pink’ “sapped the strength of even the toughest man”.*
Baker-Miller Pink locker room.
source: colour studies.com
However, as we come back to our topic on the delicate tone of Calamine pink, we continue to think about the versatile quality of the colour and the many uses it has. When put in a bedroom setting where the main purpose is to end and begin the day in a restful mental and physical state, calamine does the job by instinctively offering you that undisturbed peaceful ambience that allows you to recuperate. It can be a very relaxing colour that gives you that ambience to re-stock, unwind and prepare yourself for the day ahead.
Bedroom image in Calamine Pink
source: www.pinterest.co.uk
There are other paint companies that offer a very similar match to Calamine Pink: Bauwerk Colour’s closest match to Calamine is called Melaleuca a shade with grey/blue undertones for a more masculine or dramatic effect. Little Green Paints also offers two similar shades that mimic Calamine-Dorchester Pale Pink and Light Peachblossom Pale Pink. Both colours come in light or medium shades which determine the strength of the pigments and ultimately the tone of the paint when rendered in interior settings. But having said this, we choose to go back to Farrow & Ball’s Calamine-it has just the right mix of greys and blues that give just the right amount of strength to a feminine colour.
Colour plays such an important role in our daily lives; it helps us function in ways unseen. Using the wrong shade can influence our emotions or our ability to work smoothly everyday. So whatever colour we use, we need to choose slowly and mindfully to ensure that we continue to live happy contended lives.