A good stylist can come into your home and manipulate the space using paint colour, fabric and accessories to take it from blah to vavavavoom. The secret to making colour work is a little repetition. Truly, I believe that repetition is the greatest decorating device in existence. You can test my theory by looking at any great design photo, or room for that matter. Repetition is always at work.
I’m not suggesting that you go overboard, making everything matchy-poo like the good ol’ days of bed-in-bag. Although, I have seen “repetition overboard” work as a look in itself. But for our purposes, repetition works best when it’s so subtle that you don’t even notice a room’s pale blue and white rug, dark blue coffee table book, and navy lamp. But I don’t want to complicate 
things right out of the gate. So let’s start with the fundamentals...
Let’s assume that you have a great floor plan in place (or at least one you can live with). The next step is a story board. I used to roll my eyes at the thought of this type of make-work project, but it only takes one costly mistake – like having chairs refinished in a stain that reads cherry red against your walnut floors – to make you rethink the value of investing time in a story board.
I put everything on the board (or in a binder or on an iPad). As an aside: I carry a Ziplock baggie with paint chips and fabric swatches, especially of existing furniture, so that I'm never stuck wondering if what I found will work with my going scheme. A good story begins with a picture inventory of everything you own. My design mentor, David Overholt, taught me to take a picture inventory with dimensions of every stick of furniture in the home because you never know where a piece will end up, nor what treasures are waiting for you in the attic or basement. And, you need visual references when you’re shopping. The PI will save you from over buying, not to mention that most people don’t care for changing their old furniture to make it work with the new – we’ll come back to this idea.
Once you’ve collected all your fabrics, selected your paint contenders, and assembled your board of existing and soon-to-be-purchased furniture, you can start playing around with repetition.
Example: you already own a neutral beige sofa and two pink chairs that have faux wood legs, a cheap black side table from the bedroom (that you're willing to paint or leave on the curb), and a silver starburst mirror. You’ve decided that you’re headed in a blue, cream, and pink direction and want to marry it all together.
Okay, okay, this is my living room, and here's how I pulled it all together (because without the repeats, it was a big mess):
- I started with my blue, pink and cream fabrics and made some pillows. I only needed one pink pillow because I wanted the repeat to be subtle. The two pink slipper chairs were enough of a sweetie-pie statement to make.
- I loved the Barbara Barry pillow fabric, but knew that if I didn’t repeat that same blue colour somewhere else in the room that my four pillows would read as four blue dots at waist level, so I had bands of the same blue sewn on top of the cream silk drapery panels to lead the eye upward.
- Next, I needed to unify everything with paint. I played it safe with the creamy walls and carpet tiles, and then had all of my desperate furniture spray-painted the same colour, a soft blue: the silver mirror, white bedside table, and even the legs of my pink chairs. Though it’s not in the photo, my black dining table go a coat of the same sky blue paint.
The repetition of the painted furniture is a small and inexpensive detail that really makes the room work. I should mention that my two sofa table lamps (behind the sofa) were $9.99 each. I’m convinced they were priced so cheaply because of their ugly brown bases and shades. The can of $4.99 spray paint in Hierloom white and new creamy shades reference the creamy shades if the wall sconces and...I'll stop now. I think you're getting the picture.
Any questions? Happy to help with your design dilemmas!
*Please send all photos and questions to stylesheetAThgtvDOTca
Samantha Pynn is a design expert and host of upcoming season of Summer Home, as well as The Mix Special and exclusive web series of the same name. She's hosted HGTV's Pure Design as well as the exclusive web series, The Switch. Stay tuned for more of Sam's colour advice coming up on HGTV.ca!
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