BIZTIPS: BEST OF THE NORTHBAY: PASSION, PLAY, COLOR & ENLIGHTEN

Passion, Play, Color and Enlighten

By Leslie Moore

Want to have some fun? Inspire yourself?

Create a whole new environment in your home and / or office? Bring passion and life into your interiors? Create more natural light and beauty in your living and working spaces? Brand your office or business so it speaks “you and your company” to your clients?

You can do it with color.

Color is the new inspiration in home, office and commercial interiors. It’s hot, fashionable, and the new, affordable way to make a drab interior or exterior eye catching.

Chefs are even using it in their gourmet concoctions to create more pleasing and appetizing food. Color is like a new discovery and, now that it’s been discovered, there’s no going back.

Today’s colors are cross-cultural, inspired by the green movement, nature, technology, fashion, food, values and beliefs. The bright sultry colors of the far East, Latin America and the Caribbean are often combined with nature’s neutrals. No color is wrong. The possibilities are endless. What matters is that the tones work together. You can do cool colors with warm, bold with neutral, go monochromatic or combine bright and bold-as long as they all work together.

The art of balance and harmony that works in space planning and design also works in the world of color. Color isn’t an exact science, so what works in one room may not work in another. All the elements of a room affect how a color looks. How many times have you seen a color in your friend’s house, a favorite restaurant or café, or in your local paint store that you think looks great-only to have it look completely different in your home or office? Colors need to be seen and chosen in the environment where they are going to be painted. Light, whether natural or artificial, can effect colors and every environment has different light. So don’t rely on what you see in another place.

A professional color consultant can help you choose the perfect colors and create a distinct and unique look for your environment-one that expresses your individuality and personality. If your’re beginning with a completely blank “canvas”of a room with nothing in it and no particular furnishings, accessories or art to work around, anything can “go”. It’s the perfect opportunity to come up with a new image and statement. For those with established homes or businesses with existing furnishings art and accessories, a color consultant can help you choose colors that will create new excitement in the room and bring out the colors in your existing items, making them look more visually appealing.

If you want to accentuate an architectural feature of a room, color is a great way to do that. It can be used to focus your eyes and direct them to your favorite and most dramatic art, bring out the colors in your upholstery or help create an illusion of more light and space.

Color is just one part of the equation to creating a new look your home or office. Using redesign methods, often called “home makeovers” in the popular interior fashion industry along with color, is the new and popular way to create quick and more affordable results than with traditional interior design. One-day interior home or office makeovers can be completed in your home using a professional redesign consultant who’ll work with you as a team to create a new look.

I call it “instantaneous” design, and my clients and I have a lot of fun moving furniture, pulling out long-forgotten art, accessories and collectibles, rearranging furniture, hanging art and going from room to room finding hidden treasures that have become forgotten, misplaced or neglected. With a fresh eye and my knowledge of interior design principles (harmony , balance, color, elements, textiles, trends, and spatial planning), we can work together creating a whole new look.

We work together so my clients’ expression of themselves will show in their home or office. They’re the ultimate decision makers on what we use, what they want to emphasize, what’s comfortable, what colors they want in their environment, what style and image they want to project, their lifestyle and so on.

I am there to consult, give feedback, explain basic design principles, and give advice on what works and what doesn’t, all in the framework of what my client’s want to express and feel in their homes. . I am also there to motivate and evaluate. We are creating 3 dimensional art together and we often instantaneously change rooms. It’s what I call Passion, Play, Color and Enlighten!

I love what I do. It is like creating a stage set for a drama. It is a life script for my client and we are creating rooms that they love and want to live in. It’s a process in which we may do color and redesign in the same day or we may do color in one design session and then after the color is up on the walls I come back to help with redesign. How we create is up to my clients and what works with their energy, time allowance, and thought processes. I become completely focused on whatever design project I’m involved with. It can be a very transcendental experience. It’s very interactive and stimulating and brings joy and life to rooms, hearts and minds.

Leslie Moore, owner of Color and Light Interiors, is a color consultant, redesign specialist and interior designer. She’s a member of IDS, Interior Design Society, and United Staging Association. She’s been involved in design since her youth and was an apprentice and associate for Alice Neiman Moore Interiors in San Carlos, California. A graduate from the Rudolph Schaeffer School of Design in San Francisco. Contact Leslie Moore at 707-529-3195 or lmooreleslie@gmail.com