Break free of the color recession!

 

Milkos | Deposit Photos

Why is this woman sad? I'd guess it's because she's wearing neutral-toned clothing in a neutral-toned room. But maybe that's just me.

Alert hearth/myth readers know I've complained about the neutralization of our interiors many times over the years. (I won't bore you with links. Trust me when I say there are a lot of them.) I've blamed it on HGTV, but it's not just me -- and it's not just interiors. I was chatting with a friend about textiles today. We talked about how in times long past, the rich and powerful dressed in purple and red because the dyes were so expensive. Clothing in saturated colors conveyed status; poor folks wore neutral colors. But nowadays, it's flipped: the wealthy are wearing black, grays and tans, and colorful clothes are for lesser folks.

Cars, too, have become endlessly neutral. An article in The Atlantic this week (that should be a gift link) quotes a study that tracks new car colors. In 2004, the share of new cars manufactured in greyscale colors was 60 percent; in 2023, it was 80 percent. Wonder why nearly every car you see on the road is some variation of black, gray, or white? Now you know.

The homogenization of the American color palette began around the end of World War II, according to The Atlantic article, when developers needed to build new housing stock fast for returning veterans. Limiting the housing styles in a subdivision and the colors of those new houses was a way to meet demand quickly. Then HOAs decreed that uniformity was best. (And doesn't it just figure that HOAs would be part of the problem?)

As for boring car colors, the article puts part of the blame on federal environmental legislation passed in the 1970s, including the Clean Air Act of 1970. Lacquer paints didn't meet the new pollution standards, and more ecologically acceptable paints were more expensive, so manufacturers began limiting the colors that cars came in. 

We've been convinced over the years that neutral colors are better for resale value for both cars and houses, but surveys have shown that colorful finishes actually sell better. Yet here we are, stuck in grayland, even though it could be taking a toll on our mental health. From the article: "A review last year of more than 100 studies of the effect of color on emotion found that gray consistently triggered fatigue, boredom, or sadness." 

This neutralization of our world has been going on for decades now. Color experts, according to the article, think the myths about bland colors being best have become self-fulfilling. They don't believe bright colors will be coming back to our environments anytime soon. 

My friends, you know what to do.

As for me, once my leaky solar windows are fixed next year and the damage from the leaks is repaired, I am drenching my living room in this specific shade of turquoise blue. I mean it.

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These moments of color-drenched blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. No more gray!

Sad neutrals, begone!

One of the few good things to have come out of Social Security withholding my benefits for way too many months was that it allowed me more time to think about some of the things I want to do with this apartment. 

That's also one of the bad things. Over the past few months, I've spent an inordinate amount of time checking out various blogs and online magazines for redecorating tips. Kitchens are the biggest moneymakers -- HGTV quotes HomeAdvisor as saying a regular kitchen remodel today can cost between $14,611 and $41,432, or about $27,000 as the midpoint -- so of course there are a blue billion articles full of advice on improving your kitchen. Bathrooms are the next biggest gold mine in terms of remodeling, so there are a lot of articles on that, too. 

I say "moneymaker" and "gold mine" with good reason. Virtually all of these articles -- like every article about redecorating in general -- is designed to make you feel inadequate. Because their advertisers, or in the case of influencers, the companies bankrolling them, want to convince you to do something to make your home more comfortable/luxurious/minimalist/maximalist/coastal grandma/spa-like/easy to sell/whatever. For the last few years, as near as I can tell, what you were supposed to be striving for was a farmhouse kitchen with a minimalist aesthetic everywhere else, or something. Anyway, there was a lot of beadboard. And everything from the walls to the sofas to the kitchen cabinets was supposed to be white. A slight deviation from white was allowed, as long as you stuck to neutrals. So beige was okay. Then gray had a moment, and so did greige, an unholy alliance of beige and gray.

It should have been apparent that once designers got on board with greige, neutrals had just about run their course. So now the self-appointed experts are doing a 180. Color, we are now told, is in. No more sad beige! 

Some folks have not quite gotten the hang of this color thing. Here's a screenshot of a Facebook ad I've seen a couple of times. It's from a video posted by an influencer (or maybe the company set up the account themselves -- it's hard to tell these days) who says that with this quilt, her sad beige days are officially over! 

So I'm looking at this and thinking, "If that's your idea of color, honey, we need to talk."

Alert hearth/myth readers who have seen my art quilt headboard and who recall the saga of the stripey chair will understand why I say that. I've never been a fan of neutrals; I lived in apartments for too many years, where all the walls were white unless you painted them yourself and made them white again when you moved out or you didn't get your deposit back. If there's something in my space now that's a neutral color, there needs to be a damn good reason for it -- and resale value is not a good reason when you don't intend to move again for a really long time. And there had better be something fun nearby to balance the bland.

Now I get it. I do. Bright colors take some getting used to. Generation Jonesers may have a leg up on it, given that pop art was, well, popular in the late '60s and early '70s. Some of it is still around; Peter Max, who helped to define the genre, did this poster for Earth Day 2000, 24 years ago tomorrow: 

That's another screenshot, this one from Max's website. You can buy this poster there -- signed and dedicated! -- for $355.

Decorating experts and influencers have a long way to go before we're back to including pop-art colors regularly in interior design. Baby steps for now, I guess.

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I have to share this with y'all. At the bottom of the article on coastal grandmother style (admit it -- you thought I was kidding about coastal grandmother style) was a link to an offshoot they called coastal cowgirl. I don't think it took.

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Oh hey, there's an update to my kitchen remodeling adventure: The new countertops are finally on their way! I'll share pics when they're here in a couple of weeks. Also, the twelve-year-old fridge started to go bad, so I replaced it this week. I'm hoping the stove will hang on 'til I have the cash to get an induction model (and new cookware that will work on it, which is another story).

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These moments of colorful blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Happy Earth Day!