Color for Your Home (Paperback)

~ Christine E. Barnes (Author) "Who needs the color wheel?..." (more)
Key Phrases: palette cards, key fabric, visual temperature, Osburn Design, San Francisco Design Center, City Studios (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Designed to encourage readers to experiment with color selection, this useful guide to home decorating comes with thirteen color wheels and a complete color encyclopedia. Original.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Oxmoor House; 1st edition (September 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0376012641
• ISBN-13: 978-0376012647
• Product Dimensions: 10.6 x 8.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #905,229 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not the best book of its kind, December 14, 2002

By	Amy Hilliard (VA, United States) - See all my reviews

I was not impressed with this book. The pictures were so-so and showed a narrow range of styles. I thought the color choices were boring and outdated. There are so many other books that do a better job of instructing you on how to work with color, and I list a few of them below.

Recommendation: Skip this book.

Better sources (if you really want to use color):
Color Your Home Beautiful: Ideas and Solutions
This book gives you a broader range of color palettes than Color for Your Home and a broader range of styles (although if you like hard core modern, you might want to skip this book because it is just about the only style that isn't represented). Plus, the photos are beautiful.

The Color Design File by L. Geddes-Brown
The design style is funky modern. She does a good job of covering the basics, and there are beautiful photos. I like the fact that there are pockets for your magazine inspirations. The only drawback is she waxes poetic quite a bit in describing colors, but some people might enjoy a more personal style.

Color in Your Home by T. Evelegh
Yes, it has almost the same title, but what a difference a word can make. This is a great book for beginners. This book describes the basics of using color in easy to understand language and with many examples. Instead of being sectioned by color, it is sectioned off into neutrals, pastels, the mid-tones, the brights, and the deep tones. Like the other books, it has beautiful photos.

46 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Go Ahead -- Splash Some Color Into Your Home!, February 5, 2001

By	rodboomboom (Dearborn, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

Amazon Verified Purchase

This book is fantastic, it truly helps the struggling home decorator such as us to go for it with color.

It achieves this through the color wheel. It cautions when first getting into this, that it is not going to take one on an academic lecture, but rather delivers in keeping the concept usable and manageable.

For the first time, this book was able to help us undertand texture, tone, hue, value, tempareture, intensity, complimentary colors, etc.

All with the color wheel concept, which it gives you details using that portion of the color wheel which appeals to you, then shows one how to develop a color palette using compliments, texture, etc.

It also addresses monochromatics and gives some blending ideas about checks and patterns, etc.

A wealth of info, simply, yet elegantly presented in LIVING COLOR! Outstanding!

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars sumptuous and very informative, May 27, 2002

By	audrey (white mtns) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

I went to the public library and looked through dozens of books before choosing three to buy, and this was one of the three. Published by Sunset Books and absolutely loaded with illustrative color photographs, the reader is introduced first to fundamental color theory and then to theories of color combination and the use of patterns and texture. Paint and flooring are the emphasis, and included is a very helpful six step (making a wish list, assessing your space, discovering your color preferences, hunting & gathering (ideas and samples), developing your palette, and editing & auditioning) process for choosing an area's color strategy.

I learned a lot -- about brush-outs, color combinations and schemes, undertones, etc. Great photos!

(The other two books I chose at the library were J. Poore's Interior Color by Design and J. Miller's Color: Period and Regional Style From Around the World.)