Working With Color | Hour 3

for free. It's free everywhere the free iHeartRadio app. You can also find it on whatever your favorite podcast place is, whether that's Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. Just search for Home with Dean Sharp or The House Whisper. You will find us. You'll find us there. It's not a very common name, the House Whisper. There are a few places that use the

house Whisper. There's a there's an interior design firm I think in Atlanta that fixes up houses in prep for sale, that stages houses for sale that's named House Whisper. And I think there's a real estate inspector. Last time I checked up in I think the Bay Area that uses house Whisper to do real estate inspections, you know, pre sale inspections. Nothing has neither one of those have anything to do with what we do. We design custom homes and every facet of a custom home outside inside the

whole thing. There is a house Whisper over in the UK that I think actually talks to houses. I'm just saying, actually, you know, kind of says things to the house and says that the house says things back to him. And yeah, I don't do that. I don't do that, although people think I do, because when we come into your home, it's it sometimes shocks and surprises people how much we understand about their home that they've been living in for

thirty years that they didn't notice themselves. So anyway, I'm just saying, I'm just saying on our podcast, wherever podcasts are found, house Whisper, it's easy to find and very likely put my name in there as well. Dean Dean Sharp, it's me. You'll see me there, I'm there, and then you can listen hundreds of episodes, all searchable by topic. It's a home improvement reference library that we're building for

you there and by the way. If you're thinking, well, that's all great, but what we really need is Dean and Tina standing in our home. We'll serve up some coffee, We'll give them a biscuit or two just to keep their energy up, and then they can solve our problem for us. Well, yeah, you can do that too. You can book an in home design consult with me and

the tee. You just go to house Whisperer dot Design. Okay, run a little behind and so I've got to catch Yeah, but I'm gonna we're gonna dive back into this conversation on color. Okay, so less than one task one, I don't know, whatever you want to call it. Okay, Principal one. When you are testing color samples, it is imperative, imperative that you reproduce the final conditions as much as possible.

That means large samples back at your house, large samples as large as possible in the target room, on the target's surface, painted over primer, painted over primer. This is critical. I'm going to talk about this sum on the other side of the break. If you're changing the color of a room, let's say, oh, right now, the room is blue, but i'd like it to go like a shade of canary yellow. Okay, do not bring canary yellow home and put a sample of canary yellow on the blue wall.

Why mixed LightWave frequencies into your eyeballs. Suddenly guess what blue and yellow mixed together create green? Yeah, it's gonna be like ew. Okay, So what we have to do first? If you know you're going to change the color of a room, then get the primer up on the walls and get the room white first. Then bring home your color samples, then canary yellow. We'll have a fighting chance of showing you what the end result might be. Canary

yellow with white next to it. Different, completely different than if you paint canary yellow a splotch of it on top of a blue wall. It is going to mess with your eyeballs. Okay, I guarantee it. All right, I got more of this. We'll talk a little bit more in detail about that large samples, target room, target, surface, painted over primer when we return.

is color. Color colors are tricky. So before the break, I told you this less than one, I mean, most important fundamental thing. When you're testing color samples, it is imperative that you reproduce the final condition as much as possible. That's what I spent so much time at the beginning of the show today, And if you missed any part of the show, you should go back and listen to

it on the podcast. But I've spent so much time explaining to you that color is all about various frequencies of light waves getting into our eyes and then the brain interpreting those wavelengths of light. And when there are mixed wavelengths of light coming at various sizes, then the brain struggles to interpret those and those colors change. Because color is not an absolute it is a biological interpretation

of light inside your brain. So that means that every single condition that changes changes a color, always always changes a color. In fact, if you're sitting in a room right now, it doesn't even matter what color. Even if you think you just have white walls, you don't. You don't have stark white walls. You may have bright whiteish walls. But even if you're sitting in a room right now, there is a difference in the color on the walls.

There's one wall in the room that has a lot of bright light hitting it, and then there's another room there's another wall, probably a wall that's adjacent to it, that has less direct light coming to it, and so it's darker. It's just literally a darker color. And you see, so that changes and it keeps changing throughout the day. So that's what I mean when I say testing a

color sample. And I'm serious when I tell you this, because when we as designers are working out colors in a room for a client, we really mess that room up with samples. I mean we really do. We want the largest possible sample on every wall that will be affected, and we want to look at it on the target's surface. Painted over primer, not painted over some other color. Okay, painted over as white as possible to keep it things as neutral as possible, the proper sheen, thechine that we're

going to use, and then we evaluate it. We evalue it under multiple daylight conditions and multiple artificial lighting conditions. So we look at that color in the morning, we look at it at noon, we look at it in the afternoon, we look at it at night when the lights and lamps are on in the room, to make sure this color is the one we want and that it's going to work and perform as we wish in

all of those conditions. And if you think, wow, that's a lot of work, and that's what you pay a designer for to do that kind of investigation to make sure that the colors do what they're supposed to do because they keep changing. So I always speak of a room in terms of colors, not the color. Hey what's the color for this room? Well, we're going to pick a particular color and then it's going to create colors

in this room all ways. And I want to make sure those colors are all working when we want them to work the way we want. Second lesson most colors. Almost all of them have what we call a mass tone and an undertone. Okay, the mass tone, just think of it as the main color, like yellow, okay, yellow, there you go. Okay, but you know if you've stood at a paint store sample wall, that there are you know, five hundred million versions of yellow. Okay. Why is that? Okay,

it's not because of the yellow. It's because which is the mass tone, the main tone. I don't know. You don't have to remember these terms. You just got to remember the principal mass tone or the main color. And there is a background color, which we call the undertone. Okay. It is the undertone always that screws you up, always, always, always it is the undertone. Uh. This is something that Tina is the absolute queen of the union. On she had and I've got a pretty dang good eye for color.

I mean, just patting myself on the back or a man. For a designer, okay, for an architectural designer. I am really good with color. But I pale all of my gifts and powers, pale and bow the knee to the mighty Tina. She has got an eye like unbelievable. I will be struggling with two colors that I'm just trying to narrow something down to. She'll come over and just glance over my shoulder and she's like, well, that one on the left's got a lot of redded and I'm

like and then suddenly I see it. I'm like, unbelievable. I can't believe you do that so well anyway, it is the undertone that always messes you up. The undertone. Do you know what the undertone is? And so here is our third lesson So lesson one, big samples in the realistic setting, okay, as much as the finished setting as possible. Lesson two. All paint colors have a mass tone, a main color, and the undertone. And knowing the undertone is what gives you real directional power. Okay, So how

do you find out what the undertone is? You don't necessarily look forward in the name. The names are just roofy stuff, right, and you're not gonna see it on some color chart per se. But here is the key. This is so exciting. You know what a primary color is? A primary color are the three colors that are not actually in the color spectrum, that are not actually a blending of any other colors. They're simply the true colors, and from those three colors, all other colors are created. Okay,

those three colors are red, blue, and yellow. Okay, not not red blue and green. That's in that's on emissive colors like on a TV. That's RGB. That's on a monitor. Now that I'm talking about reflective colors, the kind of stuff that we put on our walls, it's red, blue, and yellow. More specifically, you've seen these letters before, cmy, cyan, magenta and yellow. And yes, it's four things there. Cmyk K is black. It's just we didn't use the B because that confuses it with blue and other things. It

is it is CM. Why okay, cyan, magenta, and yellow. Why is this important for you to understand what the three primary colors are? And why is it important that when you go to the paint store you actually have a physical card, not your phone. Your phone's not gonna work in this situation because it's a different kind of color that it's projecting an actual piece of paper or a card that has those three colors on it, Cyan,

magenta and yellow. Why is this important has to do with the undertone, and I'll tell you right after.

during the design process is the selection of colors. And colors just can be such a hassle, such a heartache, because they're confusing, and we are demystifying that process. I've spent a lot of time during the show explaining to you kind of the science of how color works. And now we're into these very very tangible pieces of practical advice for you. So far, the main rules are less than one. When you're testing color samples, got to put

them in final conditions as much as possible. That means you put them in the room that they're going in large samples on white primered walls, not on some other colored walls in the target room on the target surface, painted over primer with the proper sheen, and then you evaluate it in all conditions of life, day, night, afternoon,

artificial lighting, the whole thing. The second important lesson to learn is that most colors in the paint store, almost all of them exclusively save three, have a mass tone, which means a primary color like oh, we're going to paint the room blue or we're gonna do something in a gold you know, the mass tone. And then there is this pesky undertone. There's a secondary color there that you don't see that is changing the way it works

in the room. And it is the undertone that is almost always tweaking you when you bring that sample home and you're like, oh my gosh, it looks so much more golden in the store, and now it looks sick screen. I don't understand it. It is the hidden undertone. So just know that that's what's in the paint now. The third lesson is that there are three primary colors. Now, you computer people, I'm not talking about RGB red, green and blue. That's for computer screens. That's not for IRL

in real life, okay, And this is the difference. This is the difference between emissive colors like something that's being projected at you with light behind it, like a computer screen or your phone, okay, or reflective colors, and that's where color is out there and light is bouncing off of it, which is the rest of the world. Okay, So understand that that there are three primary colors that we use. It is c M Y, cyan, magenta, and yellow. Now why is it important? I said this before the

break teased you. Why is it important that you go to the paint store if you really want to understand the color that you're looking for, that you go to the paint store with not a screen on your phone with this, but with cyan, yellow, and magenta on a card or piece of paper printed boldly and beautifully. Those primary colors, the primary colors are primary in that those are the three colors that all other colors are mixed and made from. Okay, The primary colors are not mixed

from anything else. They are that simple color and that only, and there are only three in the gabillions of mixed colors out there. Why is it important? But here you go, because if you hold a mass tone primary color cyan, magenta and yellow up to next to that complex mixed color sample that you're looking at, it will reveal to you magically. It will reveal to you the undertone. Now what do I mean. Let's say you're picking a kind of blue for your room or something somewhere. Cabinetry maybe

very popular these days. I love blue cabinets, love them. So you're picking a kind of blue, and you're looking at all these blues and you're like, I wish I could figure out what the undertones are in these blues that are making them look different. Well, if you take true blue, the primary blue cyan, and you have that physically, and you slide that cyan next to that mixed blue, the presence of the cyan and the sample both hitting your eye at the same time, will reveal to you,

Oh my gosh, there's brown in there. Oh my gosh, it's red. Oh my gosh, it's yellow. Oh it's leaning toward green. It will reveal the undertone to you. There is no more important piece of advice I can give you or color selecting samples than that. To understand color, have the primary colors in your pocket, in your purse with you, and hold them up next to Now, you can also most good paint places will have a chart with the primary colors that you can grab, but use it.

Use the primary colors, hold them up to the samples, and boom, you will see the undertone starting to bleed out. Suddenly you'll see all this red in there. Suddenly you'll see brown, you'll see gray, you'll see green bleeding out, and you'll know, hey, it's not going to be these these are leaning in the wrong direction. I need these. I want the warmer colors, or maybe not the warm I want the cooler colors. I want the greens in there. You'll know, you'll know, oh my gosh, it is a

life saving device. Okay, all right, those are the most important parts. Now how about cheating and finding out selection of colors. So when we come back, I'm going to take the last segment of the show today and I'm going to tell you about two really important tools. One is a color wheel so that you understand complementary colors, triads of colors, those kinds of things. And two, a very very high tech tool for identifying that one color that you saw in this place on the thing, this

place on the thing with the guy. You have a way if you have one of these in your car, or in your pocket or in your purse. If you have this high tech tool, you'll be able to go right up to it and identify exactly what that color is. Take it right to the paint store, and bring that color home with you. I don't care if you put it on an animal, a wall, anything, a leaf of plant. If you find the color that you adore, you can bring it home with you you capture with this device.

We'll talk about it when we come back.

as many times as you need to. And there is a lot of information on color and color theory today. But here we are wrapping out at the end, and I am making our final points so where are the most important points so far? Number one, The color is in your head. It is a biological response in our heads to different wavelengths of light, which makes it tricky

because cheaps changing all the time. But we get our arms around it by testing color samples in their home condition the final conditions as much as possible, large samples, target rooms in the target room, on the target surface painted over white primer, not with the old color on the wall, and then we look at it under daylight and artificial conditions all times during the day and night in order to understand it. Second lesson to repeat again.

Most colors, almost all of them, have what we call a mass tone that means just the main color, like you know, oh I'm blue, okay, But there's an undertone underneath it. And it's that undertone that gives us problem. That's why at the paint store, it just looked blue at the store, and I brought it home and now it's green. Or it looked blue at the store and I brought it home and now it looks purple. Because there's an undertone that leans towards the cool end of

the spectrum or the warm end of the spectrum. The undertone is what always sneaks in and gives you the problem. So how do you determine where the undertone is? Third principle, there are only three primary colors cmy cyan, magenta and yellow, or you know, blue, red, and yellow, but it's actually cyan, magenta, and yellow. Have those colors on hand. Okay, not on your phone, because that's a different quality of light on hand, on a card, on a piece of paper. Grab one

of the charts from at the paint store. Hold the suspect tone up to its true color. It's pure primary color, so a blue sample. Hold it up to cyan, and it will reveal the undertone to you. You'll see it, you'll see what direction it's heading, and you'll make much much better decisions at the paint store with the samples that you are bringing home. And finally today, now there

are a couple of tools for picking colors. This is not so much the you know, defining the color samples properly at the store, but for picking colors in general. Get yourself a color wheel. Now, this you can do on your phone. Okay, because this is not again about getting real specific with the tonality of a color. But

this is picking a color theme for a room. Because of the spectrum of colors, there are complementary colors on the color spectrum, and a color wheel is a device you can also go down to a place like hobby lobby or Joe Ann's or Michael's or an art store and you can pick up a color wheel, an actual physical color wheel, and you spin it around and you

can see it reveals complementary colors on a spectrum. So like if you're like, well, my furniture is going to be this color, what else will work in here with that? And then you look at a triad or a dual opposite color or a quad color. All of these kind of configurations are revealed on this very small simple tool that is a color wheel. Color wheels will cost you five bucks. Okay, you can order one on Amazon today and it'll be here this afternoon or tomorrow, and then

you can use it. You can also and like I said, because we're not comparing real specific color shades, you can also download a color wheel app on your phone. And the app that I use is literally called color Wheel, and you can download it and you can use that for preferences and then use the primary color card like I said, when you're actually at the store zeroing in on the samples that you're wanting to target. So a color wheel. And finally, this is a very high tech tool.

And this one's gonna set you back ninety eight dollars. Okay, go to online, go to a nixsensor dot com, nixsensor dot com, nixsensor dot com, and take a look at the Nix Mini three. It's the third generation of the Knicks Mini Sensor. This is a pocket color analyzer. And I say pocket because it is about it is about the size of a walnut. That's it. It pairs to an app on your phone. And this Nixcolor sensor, it is so so dang accurate, and it is so effective.

It literally enables you. It's all charged up. Keep it in your purse, keep it in your pocket, keep it in the car when you're out looking for stuff. It literally allows you to walk up to any surface, anything at all. Okay, Like, oh, I love the brown on that leather sofa. I wish that was the color that we could paint the cabinet. Well, pull out your next sensor, open up the app on your phone, walk over, push

the next sensor. Onto the surface of that brown leather sofa, and within two seconds you will have that exact color fully analyzed into breakdown of scientific colors CMYK Pantone colors. But best of all, the Knick's Library has ga billions of all the major paint shades of the major paint brand. So mine, of course, is set to Benjamin Moore, and so I will put that NIX sensor. You tell me, Dean. At this store, I was just shopping for furniture, there's

a table. This table is kind of a brownish gray. I love this color. That's the color that I want on my cabinets. I don't know how to get it. And it's like, tell me the store I'm going in. I find the table, I put the nick Sensor down there, and boom, it shows me the top three matching shades and colors of the current Benjamin Moore color lineup in all of their paints. It is such, it is such a cheat. I hesitate to tell you because it makes me look like a wizard. But the fact of the

matter is, you know, it's all transparency, full disclosure. Here for ninety eight bucks, you can have this amazing device in your pocket. I think most places. I think, if you go to Nix, it's just the Mini three sensor, it's gonna set you back one hundred bucks. And but it's a game changer. It is a game changer. You can put it on a pet, you know, like, oh, I love the I love that kind of blackish brown on my pet's nose. Just stick it on his nose

for a half second. You'll find out what that color is. It is so so voud. Oh. If you're patching, like you've got a room, You're like, I don't want to change the color of the room. But this room, this white paint in here is like fifteen years old and it's bleached in the sun. And now we've got this little area up here of damage. I don't have the paint anymore. What can I do? Put the knick sensor right up next to the damage on the good paint. Still register it. You'll go get a tiny little sample

from the paint store. It's going to match, and you'll be able to patch that little hole without repainting the whole wall. Anyway. There you go, my friends, A crash course in color theory and the practicalities of choosing color for your home. And the tools to get it all done in Ah, there you have it all right. Hey, it's Mother's Day today. I'm just going to leave you this very very short thought. Motherhood is hard. You know, that's no news to anyone. It is not a sprint.

It is a marathon. It's often a very very thankless job. And what's even harder is you know you have no control over the results because you know, just like we did, kids grow up under good circumstances, under bad circumstances. But even under the best of parenting circumstances, kids grow up, they make their own decisions, and they become their own people. Motherhood is tough. It can also be deeply, deeply rewarding.

And today is the day that we just celebrate it for all that it is, in all of its beauty, in all of it goles, in all of it's imperfection. And the fact is, you know what, for most moms, it's simply unavoidable because it's built in and it's who you are. It's the nature of he who you are. I love this quote from the author Robert Heinlein. He said, motherhood is not a biological relation. It is ultimately lee

an attitude and you know what, that's so true. You can pick the mothers out of the crowd anytime, any day of the week. It's not about biology. It's about an attitude, and they carry it with them and they do it every day without fanfare, and they do it well well. Today is the day. Today is the day for us to give a little fanfare for all the moms out there, and I honor you and I wish you the very very best of Mothers days today. And for all of you who have moms, which is literally

one hundred percent of us, make it happen. Reach out to the moms in your life and make sure they know that they have not expended this energy in vain that you have noticed and that you know it's true. And with that, I encourage you all to get out there in this beautiful, warm, sunny Southern California day, or whatever the weather is like wherever you are across our beautiful nation, and as always, get busy building yourself a beautiful life. And we will see you right back here next weekend.