House Beautiful...Beautiful Color Inspiration

I may have said this before but I have an addiction. Those of you who know me well are probably thinking "well, we knew she liked wine", well yes, I do like wine but that's not it. It's magazines. I'd like to say it goes with the job. I use them for inspiration and to keep up with everything design, but that's just the excuse I need to enable my habit. My husband John tells me I need a twelve step program and although one of the first steps is admitting you have a problem, I don't think I do. It is true that most of my subscriptions are for shelter magazines and I do have to help out my niece every year when her school is selling subscriptions (it's my duty as an aunt!). But keeping up with my, um, problem has been really difficult recently because four of my favorites (Domino, Cottage Living, Home Companion and Country Home) have all gone under, as in bye bye, no longer arriving in my mail box or waiting for me at Barnes and Noble. The publishers have replaced them with things I wouldn't normally subscribe to and that does give me something to thumb through while waiting for my favorites. So imagine my joy when i saw the new House Beautiful; ah, the Fall Color Issue; and they have truly outdone themselves. It is full of the most beautiful photography and color filled rooms that I paged through from front to back in about 20 minutes and then had to go back through for another look. I don't love every room but what I love is the genius in showing what can be achieved with color in a room.

One of my favorite parts is the middle section (pgs. 94-95) titled "What is Your Color Personality?" It has lists of inspirational books on color, a numerology key to your color personality (a little weird), designers to Google if you love color and iPhone Aps to download.
But the most fun part is color quiz on the very last page. You don't have to turn the page upside down to see the answers because there are no right or wrong ones. It is just meant to get you thinking about color and how it plays a part in your life. So here are the questions and my answers but I challenge you take the quiz and see what your answers would be.

1. What's the first color you seen in the morning? Lots of sunlight and Ralph Lauren's Linen paint on the walls, cut 50%.

2. What color are your eyes? Hazel but sometimes green depending on what I'm wearing.

3. What color do you wear the most? Green or Black

Allison Paladino/House Beautiful

4. What color do you never wear? Tan/Beige...makes me look washed out.

5. What color do you wear when you want to feel sexy? Black of course!

6. What color gets you the most compliments? Apple green and Pink/Fuscia



7. What color is your lipstick? I always seem to pick the same shade of pink/brown, I wear the same Bobbi Brown lip gloss usually. I'm in a rut!



8. What color was your living room when you were growing up? I can't really remember...Mom? Maybe beige.


9. What color was your bedroom when you were growing up? First lavendar and then pink...




10. What color are your sheets? Cafe au lait

11. What color was your favorite crayon as a child? Blue and we did a lot of coloring!

12. What color is your car? Technically it's called Winestone but it's maroon. I like this one!

13. What color was your prom dress? Peach, I think and I hope there's no evidence to prove me right!

14. What's your favorite gemstone? Diamonds are a girls best friend!!!

15. What is your favorite flower? Peonies and then roses...(lavendar, sunflowers, coneflowers...)

16. What color makes you happiest? These ones...


17. What color depresses you? Army green...nuff said.

18. What color calms you? Aaaaahhhh!

19. What color makes you grind your teeth? Hhmmmm, when I first moved out I painted my room a hideous royal blue. Not a good experiment!

20. What color would you like to try, but are scared to? Black! I'm not scared exactly, it's just such a commitment.

These two rooms could make me lose my fear of commitment...I love them!

Images by Rob Southern/HouseBeautiful

So now it's your turn...to respond all you have to do is click on the "comment" link at the end of this post. Choose which browser you want to use and let me know how color plays a part in your life.

Happy Designing...

Michele