• • • • Charlotte's Color Specialist, Choosing the RIGHT colors for you

Homes in the South Charlotte area are beautiful!! They are big, classy and most have open floor plans.

What's an open floor plan? It's any home that has a layout of many open spaces that connect to different areas of the house. Let's say if you were to stand in the foyer you may be able to see the dining room, living room, kitchen and den. It's very typical to see 3 or more rooms at the same time from standing in just one place.

Some homeowners find it challenging to choose colors for this type of home only because the concern is, where should a color start and where should it end?

Everything I look at turns into a designer color scheme. As I thumb through a Southern Living or a Better Homes and Garden magazine I see color groupings.

It's come to the point where I rarely read the articles. I tear out the pictures and start putting together color schemes from them. For example, one day while flipping through a magazine I saw a photograph of a delicious pizza. Did I get hungry? No. I grabbed my paint fan deck and starting matching up the pepperoni with an amazing burgundy, the cheese was a great, crisp shade of gold and the baked crust was a terrific blend of tans and browns - colors that would look great in a family room

My favorite "Chocolate Lovers" series.
Brown is a great color to start with since it goes with just about any other color. But . . . I don't see brown, I see "chocolate".

I've combined "chocolate" with other delicious combinations such as butterscotch (golds) chocolate mousse (tans) and mint (greens). You can see delicious photographs of these desserts in my Color Recipes© link on my website (www.DecoratingbyDonna.com). Seeing them is so much better then writing about it!

~ A typical Color Consultation for a home about 3000 sq. ft generally takes about an hour and a half.

~ I walk your home and find one inspiration piece or look at the overall feel of the house to come up with a color scheme. Inspiration can come from a favorite painting, vase, area rug, blanket, drapery etc. and base the new color scheme off that piece.

~ Taking architectural features into consideration, I usually choose accents colors on columns, a fireplace wall or a prominent feature in the home.

~ After choosing a designer color scheme, I go back and take pictures of each room for color placement.

~ I compile all the color chips into a color portfolio along with the photographs taken for color placement and mail it to you in a about one week. If you need to go shopping for drapery, furniture or any accessories for your home, you would bring your color portfolio with you to ensure it matches the accessories you want to purchase.

Everybody has someone on their list who has everything.

How about giving them the gift of color? For $125 you can give them a gift certificate for a whole house color consultation. It's the perfect gift that will be appreciated year after year after year!