Test Your Colour Confidence: 25 Days of Whites & Undertones

It’s exterior and renovation season! I have been analyzing countertops, cabinets, tile, and exterior colours with so many of you for weeks!

Two years ago in the summer, I launched 37 Days of Undertones, and it was a big hit. Every day, I would post an image on my Facebook page and tell you the undertones in the colours. You all participated and did so well because you’d read my first ebook and knew what to look for. 

Now that I have a white ebook, too, we’re going to do it again, only BETTER. Remember how you got the answer right away last time? No more, friends. ; ) 

This time, I will post an image on my Facebook page every weekday morning starting Monday, April 20 (5 days a week) until the end of May, and it will have beige, grey, or white as its dominant neutral. You’ll have an opportunity to guess the undertones throughout the day, and I’ll post the correct answer at the end of each day. Make sure you click like so you’ll be able to see the feed and participate.

Who’s ready to test their colour confidence?

This way, I’ll be teaching you how to fish instead of just giving you the answer immediately. You’ll need to have both of my ebooks to understand what I’m talking about! Many of you have the books already, and thanks so much for buying my work! It’s the reason I can continue to help you here on my blog and through all the work I do.

For example, the image below is yellow beige and blue grey. The trim and the ceilings are blue white. This one is interesting because you can see that the white is technically a little stark looking against the yellow beige wallpaper, and yet perfect with the grey. An off-white would have been great with both.

{via Pinterest}

The tile floors below are a very strong and dark pink beige, and it looks like the walls are also a pink beige (although not as pink as the floors, making them appear slightly green beige depending on how you look at it). The kitchen and chairs are all cream, as they should be with such an earthy colour scheme.

{via Pinterest}

Below are green beige walls, which look great because they relate to the coverlet and pillow shams. Also notice the off-white headboard and skirt, cream trim, and cream repeated in the drapery.

{via Holt Interiors}

Below, notice how the desk and bedding are white, but the carpet is off-white and black? That’s fine, especially on the carpet where pure white is harder to keep clean. Even if this carpet had more cream in it, you could use it because it’s on the floor. The glimpse of grey you can see here on the walls is a blue grey.

{image via Centsational Girl}

If you need to brush up on your beige and grey undertones as well as whites, you’ll need both of these eBooks, you can download them here.

My exterior on-demand, on-line training webinar can be found here.

This training comes with my go-to exterior colours, which will narrow down the thousands of colours available to just a useful few.

Here’s what Dawn said about the training:

“This was amazing! I learned so MUCH! I love that you added Sherwin Williams colors to the bonus books and the training videos. 

Thanks!

P.S. We are soon to be replacing our roof and I was planning on doing a charcoal/black, but since doing this training you’ve got me second guessing, since we do have a lot of roof ;-)”

Need the perfect cream or white for your exterior? Find it here in my training.

{via Pinterest}

Need just the right gray for your house or a door? I’ve got a curated list for you to chose from:

{via Pinterest}

Need to know how to choose the right stone or brick for your exterior? I’ll teach you exactly how to do that, so you get a house that looks like this…

…and not like this.

If you are renovating or building a house this year and need a step-by-step plan, you’ll want to watch these videos at your leisure, in your PJs, to make sure you end up with a plan that is beautiful, instead of one that’s full of mistakes. Download this training here.

Here’s what Anna said about this training:

“About a year ago my husband and I were looking at replacing our existing counter top with granite, and changing our back splash. I had no clue on what colour of granite because we have “Oak kitchen cabinets”. Anyhow, we were looking at a granite with colours that had yellow, chocolate brown and cream in it. I think it was called giallo, and a glass mosaic tile that were squares with colors of chocolate brown and cream, what a mess that would have been! 

I was going to spend $7,000.00 on the whole thing, and remember the sales person saying how good the two would look, until I came across your blog and took your webinar last year and this year and stop immediately after listening to every thing you say. Classic and timeless this is what I wanted for my house.  We are now looking at subway tile with a quartz counter top in off-white or cream colours. Thanks to you or we would have messed up the whole thing. And $7,000.00 that would have looked like a mess.  Thank thank you so much.”

For example, I came upon this image the other day:

I see countless backsplashes that seemed like such a good idea until they were installed…

…and bathrooms where a lot of money was spent, only to end up with way too many “interesting” finishes.

So if you are renovating or building a house, there are questions you don’t even know you’ll be asking right now that I will answer in this training.

It might not not occur to you to even question a decision you’re about to make until it’s installed and you are not happy.

Here’s an email from Joan:

 It’s wonderful to have Maria’s advice and guidance in a central resource.

I found Maria’s blog just in time to make smarter decisions in our renovation, and I worked with a wonderful color consultant in the local Benjamin Moore store who absolutely knows about undertones and was able to guide me away from ones that were–subtly–wrong. I can’t thank Maria enough for explaining what to look for and how to ask the right questions and properly test for choosing color all over our house, and for explaining both how to work with fixed elements and how to choose new fixed elements that we can live with no matter how our decorating style might change.

Please pass on to Maria how amazing her writing style is–everything she wants to teach us is clearly described and illustrated, and she always includes, “…and this is why….” With humor and personality. Thanks to her teaching, I think we’ve made our house flow with individuality and elegance, and I now understand why other spaces often strike me as hodge-podge because of my color sensitivity.

Best wishes to Maria, her staff, and her business–with enormous appreciation!

Joan

To wrap up, let’s do a little preview of this undertones game right now! I snapped this in a clothing store because it’s just a classic example of what NOT to do in home decor.

How would you describe the undertones/colours in this vest?

The answer is gold beige and pink beige. Most of you thought it was green beige and that’s because gold beige looks green (instead of orange). So it’s a tricky one!

I’ll be in High Point this weekend! Stay tuned for some updates on trends!