On Color and the Skill of Self-Discovery

I’ve seen many theories on why we stopped embracing color - from cars to clothing and house finishes, the choices have been shrinking from a wide palette to a small list of “safe” choices.

My theory? It’s down to the economics of skill and identity.

Neutral palette does make houses more marketable and selling stainless steel appliances is more efficient than keeping a colorful fridge inventory - but the colors haven’t actually disappeared.

High-end interiors still boast bold deep shades. Luxury appliance brands create stoves in fire engine red and vivid orange. The colors and textures exist where professional help to navigate the options is available.

The skills needed to successfully execute interiors in color go beyond understanding design and color theory.

It’s almost impossible to get a truly velvety rich multidimensional dark color without graduating from home improvement store brands. Knowing proper application techniques of highly pigmented paints are often beyond the DIY skill level, unless streaks and visible wall irregularities are acceptable.

Using wallpaper with brightly colored patterns demand solid experience to make seams look good - and some textured varieties, like grass cloth, are prohibitively expensive to justify mistakes and redos.

But skill can be learned, with multiple books and video tutorials available on demand.

The real deterrent is understanding what you like.

Back during colorful 50s era, ads for Formica and bath fixtures showed entire interiors set in typical family home, providing an inspirational map on how to copy the look. The illusion of choice simplified the decision - do you look better in pink, blue, yellow or turquoise interiors?

Now the inspiration pictures are endless and rarely easily translated to a typical suburban homes. Beautiful professional photos set in grand houses with intricate architecture and tall ceilings need to be heavily edited to look good in an average house. But what does “look good” means?

Without universally accepted design map on what art style, color combo, pattern and texture is “in” and which one is “gaudy”, one must look within to figure out who they are.

It’s interesting that individualism has not translated cleanly to individualism of self-expression. Retreating to the safe neutral choices feel simpler, but doesn’t answer the question - what do you like? What art style speaks to you? And more importantly, what makes you happy?

Figuring out design and sense of self is worth the effort, even if it requires learning new skills and occasionally painting the wall wrong color.