Customer Reviews

1001 Ideas for Color & Paint

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I've read a lot of decor books about color. I consider this book barely average. This book is filled with photos of rooms with color swatches used in the room. I often found myself trying to find the color of the swatch in the room. Many times I was not successful. For example, on page 116, the bottom left photo has a lilac color swatch but I did not see any lilac in the room. The sofa, the focal point in the room is a salmon color. There is no salmon color in the swatch.

The book DOES have lots of photos, which is always nice. There are some good-sized photos of some rooms, then renderings (not photos) of the same room elements in various color schemes. Sometimes the renderings work better than at other times. For example, page 30-31 shows a stair and entry/hall area. The renderings are a good representation for possible color choices. Less effective were pages like 62-63 and 130-131, maybe because there were too many elements in the rooms.

There are color swatches pages with only 6 swatches per page. This means sample colors are an adequate size (page 120-21). There is a section on faux, paint and textural techniques. This section included info about the suitability, materials needed to create the look, cost (low, high), time required to create (moderate, high) and a short paragraph on tips of how to do it yourself. There are no step-by-step instructions, just tips.

It seems to me that the publishers may have thought more was good, but even more was better, but for me there was just TOO much in this book. It was as if it was trying to be too many things at once and not doing any of them well.

If you are looking for help in selecting colors for rooms, I would recommend: Color Schemes Made Easy (Better Homes & Garden) by Shelley Stewart (one of my favorites),
Color Harmony by Hideako Chijiiwa (Warning: sample colors are very small but nice book), Color Your Home Beautiful by Martha Gill (gorgeous vibrant colors, fantastic photos) and Color Solutions by BH&G (Several solutions in this Q & A format. Lots of great solutions and information for your color projects). There are even more books on paint and paint techniques but these are just books on color. See my reviews for details about each of these books.

If you are needing a little color inspiration and ideas, great book to have. I like to keep a few of these types of books around just for that reason. There may be a scheme I haven't considered. Many times I find one that works with what I have. The other thing I enjoyed abt the book is that it familiarizes the reader with a few different types of color schemes used...like contemporary ideas, mediterranean ideas, exotic ideas, and a few techniques.

A complete overview of colors, with many ideas, explanations, combinations & pictures.
In "choosing colour" a wide variety of colours, grouped into many chapters r icluded. Colours r grouped, combined and accompanied by photos and explanations. Very helpful are the "colour palette", "harmonizing schemes" and "choosing colour" in each colour group.
In "paint techniques", the descriptions r satisfying & many ideas come up. But the pictures that accompany this chapter r not very convincing of a nice-looking result.