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Understanding Undertones

Maria’s Main Bathroom: Before & During

07/06/2012
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This is one of our dated bathrooms which will be renovated soon. It was so hard for me to get past just the colour in here. See the chair rail? If you have it in your house and you don’t have wallpaper above it take it out! Photos by Maria Killam I didn’t touch this…

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How to Inject Fresh into Your Earth-Toned House

07/01/2012
22 Comments

Yesterday I posted my Styled Interiors board from Pinterest on my Facebook Fan Page and one of my readers commented that it was her favourite board and wondered if I would post more images on tablescapes for coffee tables and end tables. So I clicked over to Ralph Lauren Home because I adore the styling…

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Wall-to-Wall Carpeting is the Most Comfortable: Yay or Nay?

06/24/2012
44 Comments

If we were being genuinely honest we would have to say that probably the most comfortable interior environment ever invented is the middle-class suburban home. In other words, comfort, physical comfort, is wall-to-wall carpeting, lots of sofas and chairs, and everything very clean. – Fran Lebowitz Pinterest When I saw this quote the other day,…

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Green Yellows are Mostly Bad: Before & After

04/22/2012
23 Comments

My lovely client Lynette called me to help her fix the colour in their newly renovated bathroom, it was not working. Before Although this colour did appear in her surround tile, it did not improve the appearance of her bathroom. Since the undertone of her gray tile was purple, that was the colour I selected…

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Why Pink Beige Should be Banished Forever

03/15/2012
pink beige undertone
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A while ago I received a comment from a reader who said “Oh Maria, your aversion to pink beige is just silly.” Valid comment if you have not seen what I’ve seen right? So for the record, these are random images I have found from real estate listings, so you’ll get just a glimpse of…

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A Perfect Example of how Complex Colour Works

03/02/2012
7 Comments

Annie sent me this photo and with a question, ‘Are my sofa’s pink beige?’. She said in her current house (2nd photo) they looked yellow and in her last house (photo below) they looked pink. And she was absolutely right. The reason why complex neutrals are so complicated is because they change depending on which colours are beside them.

The wall colour below is BM HC-105 Rockport Gray (the whole room is the same colour but the light coming in from the left makes it look lighter in the photo) which has a green undertone. This pulls out the pink in her sofas.

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Consultation from Pink Beige to Green Beige

02/24/2012
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This couple called me because they had already unhappily been living with pink beige walls (BM Bar Harbour Beige) for the past 7 years in their living and hallways. Then when they renovated the kitchen and installed new tile in the hallways, the tile that she was clear had zero pink in it before it…

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What Maria Killam and American Idol Have in Common

02/17/2012
11 Comments

Some of my readers have said “I have not bought your book because I have trouble seeing what you are talking about on your blog”. Turns out, when someone shows you, “That’s green beige, that’s blue gray”, you can see it immediately. Then it just takes seeing it over and over for you to start noticing undertones on your own. This is the second of a two-part guest post written by my Design Associate, Irene Hill.
“My first post, How Maria Saved my Paint Life, started to tell you the story of how meeting Maria at one of her True Colour Expert Workshops changed the way I see and specify paint colours.

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How to Mix Yesterday with Today in Your Renovation

01/22/2012
19 Comments

The best money-saving advice I give my clients every single day is dedicated around the correct way to introduce finishes from today into your dated, 20-30 year old (or more) space.

For example, recently I consulted with a client who had plans to rip out everything in the bathroom except the one-piece shower/tub. She sent me some images in advance of our consultation of some combination sink/vanity units she planned to purchase to replace her existing vanity.

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‘Must Have’ Tools for Colour Consulting

08/11/2011
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In my True Colour Expert Workshops I always ask “Who here thinks I have some kind of magical ability to see colour?” Everyone always looks at me like they’re thinking ‘Really? Is she that arrogant?’ Two or three might raise their hand. Blue gray Calcutta marble countetops, slightly pinky Crema Marfil Tiled Floor & roman…

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Do you Understand Neutrals? Take the Bathroom Test

05/22/2011
34 Comments

source I have lost count of the number of times I have been hired to help a homeowner ‘correct’ a colour issue created by a designer who chose finishes without knowing how to combine the undertones of the colours and neutrals of the tiles or granite they had selected. This bathroom of one of my…

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