Keep dingy colors out of the kitchen

From the latest issue of Real Simple:

Two of this year’s “new” shades — sage and curry — sound decades away from the avocado green and harvest gold that distinguished so many interiors in the 1970s. But guess what? The colors are exactly the same.

Wait — so there are no new shades under the sun? Not really, says Patricia Verlodt, president of Color Services and Associates, a color-consulting firm in Wonder Lake, Illinois. When color experts like Verlodt devise palettes for their corporate clients, they draw from a vast bank of existing shades, renaming their picks to pique interest. (Harvest gold? Ho-hum. Curry? How worldly!)

Verlodt searches constantly for fresh ideas, consulting flower and rock guides, cookbooks, baby-nam books and even maps. “People think of places when they think of colors,” she says. So move over, linen white, and make way for next year’s Tuscan beige. (page 247)

I’ve never understood how they, whoever “they” used to be, got away with calling those colors gold and avocado. That green doesn’t look like the skin or meat of any avocado I’ve ever eaten. But it looks less like sage! Renaming the old harvest gold curry seems to be a more appropriate tag.

I’ve mentioned before how there’s no such thing as a bad color, but there are poor applications of colors. Apparently the above snippet refers to paint colors and not appliance colors. Regardless, I feel the need to warn Patricia and her decision making peers to keep these colors — whatever they’re called — off of kitchen and bathroom appliances!

These are very poor applications of these colors.