I'm Blue.....are You?

Ok, I have a confession to make - I seriously LOVE the color blue. Some designers have a signature item, trick, or method that they use, and I'm beginning to think that my signature is the color blue.  In any shade, shape, pattern, fashion, texture, fabric or form.

I went through a phase in the early 90's where I fooled myself into thinking that I loved dark green instead, but quickly realized by 1995 that blue was truly my color.  I even wore royal blue eyeliner and mascara in high school to prove it.

Let's see, in my own home…..
My dining room walls are Valspar's Carolina Club Inn Aqua
My master bedroom is Sherwin Williams Halcyon Green (don't let the name fool you - it's a greeny blue)
My master bath is Restoration Hardware's Pale Silver
My kitchen is a Valspar Shark Loop walls with white cabinets and KitchenAid cobalt blue kitchen countertop appliances
My son's room is Sherwin William's Honest Blue
My daughter's bedroom is Sherwin William's Bubble
My guest bedroom is another Valspar Lighthouse Shadows
....and my bonus room has accent walls of Sherwin William's Refuge

My dining room I decorated 7 years ago and would still not change a thing about it! Carolina Club Inn Aqua paint.

I most recently heard that the color blue has the most pleasing and versatile variations to any other color under the rainbow. I think this might be why I have painted a version of it in almost 75% of my home. I've also realized that it is never a hard sell for me to convince my clients to love and embrace blue as a color in their home, in varying shades and tones.

That is, until a couple of months ago when I started a project with some new clients and the first thing she told me was that she hated the color blue. My initial reaction was 'holy crap, what am I supposed to do here....?!?', but I quickly regained composure and her husband and I convinced her that she actually really liked a navy blue and a leaf green color combo. Phew......all is right in the world.

You may have already seen this photo from my Facebook pages. Loving this new color combo!

I am actually really excited about adding green back in the the mix. It's been awhile since he made an appearance outside of being a hint in aqua blue, and I think it's a refreshing color to bring back. (Plus, it matches my kelly green purse and Converse All-Stars.) In fact, this is such a great color combo that another client of mine jumped right on board and we are also decorating her family room in this color story. I'm thrilled about creating two rooms with such a fun and fresh color statement!

Inspiration Room 1

Inspiration Room 2

The other side of this new color story is navy blue, which has been making a huge comeback in home decor since the October 2013 furniture market. I am excited that my kitchen (done in navy, slate blue, and white) is finally "back in style". The color navy is a classic color that looks great dressed up or dressed down, can be masculine or feminine, and can also be modern or traditional. I have painted 5 rooms in Ben Moore's Newburyport Blue just in the past year with pleasing results. Both the husbands and wives love it, and it's a fun and classic pop to all of the lightened gray walls that we are seeing out there these days.

My inspirational room that makes every guy want to have a navy blue home office. Bring on Newburyport Blue!

In my own home, I'm updating my kitchen window treatments (back when "country" was in I still had my navy and white checked valances) to this navy, blue, and white Suzani pattern from Thibaut's Enchantment collection. I absolutely love this pattern and collection. It's going to be a great way bring some new life into my newly popular navy blue and white kitchen!

Thibaut's Halie Circle in Navy Blue

More fun things to come with my current projects for both my clients and myself! Looking forward to posting pics of everything very soon!

-Melissa

Focus Group Findings, Take 2!

With the help of another one of my clients, Teeny Parks, we hosted our second focus group last week and had a great time meeting some new like-minded women who love home decor!  They were excited and full of ideas and we feel so energized with all of the feedback and suggestions we have gotten so far from both groups!

Meghan, Melissa, and me after Focus Group #2!!

After our first focus group, we updated our color stories and fabrics for a more sophisticated assortment and got a great reaction to the new additions.  Thank you, Focus Group 1!!  Here is a sneak peek at one of our favorite new color stories, Gold and Gray, behind me on the floor in the picture below.

Is it the 10 foot ceilings or my long shirttail that makes me look extremely short here??

Here are our major findings so far:
1) The majority of our focus group attendees are currently looking to update a room in their home. Yay!

2) Each individual item we sell needs to be special on its own. We want our customers to find that one special item that they love for their home! The added bonus we will sell is the ability to put a together a coordinated collection of these individually special items. A collection of "special" items, versus just  collection of "coordinated" items, will make the whole room even more amazing!

3) Our product assortment needs to be age appropriate and slightly ahead of the latest trends. Our goal is to introduce the newest trends to our customers before they see it advertised and sold by mass merchants.

4) Most everyone loves a monogram and it's a classic Southern statement! It's great accent for a room or a gift for a friend.

5) We need to offer an assortment of washable items for those who have children or pets in the home.

6) It's important for our sales reps to have some sort of experience and degree/certification to qualify them as an experienced decorator.

Oh, and here is the beautiful dining room where we hosted our meeting. It's been so wonderful of my clients to help me out - one of the added bonuses is that we have been able to host our focus groups in rooms that I have decorated!

We have one more focus group to go and look forward to sharing our ideas with another group of women and getting theirs in return!  Each group we host we get more ideas and suggestions to refine our concept to be in line with what our target customers are looking for. Can't wait to see what Saturday brings!!

-Melissa