Leon Murphy
AT HOME WITH MARNI JAMESON: The right color pop can make big impact for small price When you've been writing about home design for as long as I have, certain expressions really begin to wear.
Please, living in the tropics with three dogs, I spend a good amount of time taking the outdoors back out, sticks, mud, mosquitoes, frogs. First of all, picking a background wall color is already triple-black-diamond difficult, but selecting a look-at-me accent color, that perfect-pitch purple pillow, is way harder, like making the winning move in a game of four-dimensional chess blindfolded, for me anyway.
So when a design friend of mine recently introduced me to Minneapolis designer Lucy Penfield and said her specialty was "living in color," I thought maybe she could help me with my pop predicament. In under three minutes words like azalea, parrot green, peacock, mango and jalapeño were punctuating our conversation.
We talked about her new collection of exuberant throw pillows for Missio Home, launched this month, and designed to add, you guessed it, pops of color to a room. Marni: I get so tired of hearing designers tell me to add a pop of color. The pop can be small, like a red bowl, or large, like a turquoise accent wall. Marni: What are some examples of ways we can add unexpected dashes of color. Lucy: Surprising color can show up in a hot pink throw, a chartreuse ottoman, a canary yellow desk chair, a gutsy piece of modern art, or a stack of books with all cobalt covers. For example, a strong neutral, like a sandy off white, can be your 60 percent base.
But then, she adds a print scarf, leopard-print shoes, and bright red lipstick, and it's a fail. Add too much color, and you can't see the accent anymore.
In Florida, where you have a brighter climate, and water all around, you can use those bright, brilliant colors. Brightly colored pillows are such a great kick start if you want to change up a room.
A great throw pillow is a small investment that yields a high impact and can truly make the room.
