Customer Reviews

Annie Sloan's Color Schemes: For Every Room

5 star:		(5)
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3 star:		(4)
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I am quite disappointed with this book. Most colors used in the book are quite vivid and heavy. I have trouble finding the demonstration of nice and soft pastel colors. Also there isn't enough simply yet elegant themes.

But it actually deserve a 3.5 if I could rate it that way. It has two pictures of real room for each theme and many color palette to show various combinations of main, accent and complementary colors.

Presenting over 30 themes and 300 color palettes put together by an expert in color for interior design, Annie Sloan's Color Schemes For Every Room is filled from cover to cover with full color photography showcasing expertly arranged settings according to each of the 30 main color themes, enabling the reader to conceptualize what a Manhattan-color style bedroom or an African Visions-color style kitchen looks like. Very highly recommended for painters, interior decorators, and the cliental who to hire them, Annie Sloan's Color Schemes For Every Room is informative and fun to page through before selecting a favored color scheme.

This book is fantastic. It helped me choose just the right wall colors for my rooms. I had an idea of a color family to use but this book really helped me decide what shade to choose. It also suggested possibilities I never would have thought of. After you are done painting, you'll want to keep this book for future reference in years to come.

Feng shui recommends colors for each area of your home or business. However, turning this into an impressive color scheme often requires advice beyond standard feng shui books. "Annie Sloan's Color Schemes: For Every Room" is one of the very best if you want your surroundings to look as if you've hired a professional decorator.

Let's say that you're working on your Fame and Reputation area, which is often what visitors see first when they enter your home or office. Red is recommended, but... then what?

In Annie Sloane's lavishly illustrated book, you can start at the "Reds Plus" page and choose a color theme. For example, if you'd like a Pacific Islands look, start with Hibiscus Red--a slightly orange-ish red--and accent it with Gauguin Blue, a greyish medium blue.

Next, turn to the Pacific Islands section of the book and see the many other colors that will work well with your basic red and blue "islands" theme. You may want to add Banana Leaf Green, Lagoon Blue, Guava Orange, or Mango Yellow.

And, if these colors don't sound familiar, the book is filled with good, large swatches. You can take the book to the paint or home furnishings store to match the looks that you like.

If you'd prefer an African Visions theme for your Fame area, Ms. Sloan suggests starting with Ghana Red and Clearwater Green. If your tastes are more traditional and favor antiques, choose the Neoclassical colors of Aubusson Pink and a lovely bamboo shade of brown called Sandstone.

For your Money area, instead of overloading the corner with purples, choose an Elizabethan Pageant theme, and a muted Lavender Sachet shade, accented by a lovely pale Cambridge Blue. If you favor vivid colors reminiscent of fine art and the coast of France, Ms. Sloan offers an Impressionist palette. Or, Mambo Carnival colors may liven up an otherwise sedate or dark corner.

What I like best about this book is that it helps me to break out of the "crayon box colors" approach to feng shui. I'm using this book when decorating, but also for innovative color combinations in my art and photography.

If you're working with color for any reason, but especially with feng shui, I heartily recommend "Annie Sloan's Color Schemes: For Every Room." --Aisling D'Art, Feng Shui editor, BellaOnline

How many people can put together a room's palette, in the right tone and hue, all the way down to the third accent color. Not me.

This book was fun to study. The colors she picks really do work well together. I sort of felt like I was cheating a bit to think to just lift the entire palette from the page and use in my apartment, but on the other hand, "traditional" color schemes use standard collections as well.

I liked the Manhattan styles most. Yes, they did remind me of some "crisp" apartments I've seen.

How many people can put together a room's palette, in the right tone and hue, all the way down to the third accent color. Not me.

This book was fun to study. The colors she picks really do work well together. I sort of felt like I was cheating a bit to think to just lift the entire palette from the page and use in my apartment, but on the other hand, "traditional" color schemes use standard collections as well.

I liked the Manhattan styles most. Yes, they did remind me of some "crisp" apartments I've seen.

I agree with a previous reviewer. You won't find many references to pastels/softer colors. Expect to see representations of 'extreme' color schemes that - in my opinion - must of us won't use in our homes.

I bought this book as well:

The Color Scheme Bible: Inspirational Palettes for Designing Home Interiors

I found this book MUCH more useful and suited to my tastes.

We love this book for our house. It had been a rental property before we purchased it so ALL the walls were slumlord white. By looking through Annie Sloan's book, we were able to formulate a plan for the house before buying any furniture or painting any walls.

Each scheme presents about a dozen colors. We mix and match them in each room, using them on the walls and in the furniture, rugs and artwork. Our approach is more traditional so we have left our baseboards and framing white. The book's schemes use saturated color in every part of the room, and a heavily decorated look. For us, this has been an example and a pattern to follow rather than a set of rules.

Determining a set of colors for our house that matched our sensibilities has made every subsequent design decision easier and less stressful. This book is great!

I got the pruduct fast, and it is just what I expected it to be, a great book