The Color Quandary

What color should our house be? That was a question we started discussing in the summer of 2019 knowing the Arlington Heights Design Commission would review our overall plans in the coming months. While Mike Kollman, our architect-GC clarified that we would be able to change the color later, he encouraged us to put some real thought into what color we would want our house to be, so that whatever we showed the commission was the likely color to be on the finished product. And as we would be buying pre-finished/pre-painted siding, we would have to make a solid decision on color early in the build process.

Mike Baker - my dear Boolo - deferred to me on color, as he always says: “I am not a good judge on color.” I felt that pressure, that anxiety that comes from thinking: how do you figure out what color your whole house should be based on color samples?

It felt like something that could have been a joke on a Seinfeld episode: how do you take a piece of paper that is 2 x 2 inches and suddenly imagine the exterior of a 2500 square foot house covered in that color? Either those paint manufacturers believe in the magical power of the color swatch or they have a really hard time understanding that an ordinary person does not sleep, eat and breathe paint colors. And it wasn’t just a decision I cared about for us, but as Community is a key pillar in our philosophy, I wanted to be sure that the house color palette would fit in well with the neighborhood.

The outside of our original Happy Boolo house and much of the inside palette had been influenced by my parents whose conservative American colonial style decorating preferences feature creams, off-whites and greens. The home I was born in on Grove Avenue in Barrington, the home we moved to on Oak Ridge Lane and the home they custom designed and built has been filled with colonial style wood furniture, upholstery with colonial patterns, brass pineapples and lots of creams and greens.

When I order flowers for my mom, I am always saying “can you fill that arrangement with creams and greens?” as if somehow flowers won’t have green on them already. I’m still amazed at the color transformation my mom has made in recent years as she has migrated her carefully selected conservative Talbots, Brooks Brothers and Nordstrom’s wardrobe to the crazy bright rainbow vibrancy of Zumba clothing (yes indeed for anyone who knows my mom, she is a globally known Zumba figure who fully dresses the part).

Our style had been Shaker or early American with simpler lines than my parents’ colonial preferences, but green — different shades of green — as well as cream and off-whites have definitely been a big part of our decor. My parents’ ideas have influenced a number of our decor choices including the outside color of our home over the years. And while we always appreciated their detailed eye for decorating and color, with this renovation, I wanted to do something different.

For all my formative years, matching colors was also always important which is why if something is a shade off between top and pants, on a powerpoint slide or on some aspect of the home, I can see it. I have frustrated clothing salespeople (as I’m sure my mom has) pointing out the slightest color discrepancy when trying on clothes. So the whole idea of “we need a color that matches or goes well with other elements of the home or fits into the neighborhood” was top of mind. And at the same time, I right away said “no green” as my mom started suggesting: “What about sage? That’s a really nice color these days on the outside of homes.” It was my way of saying “even as it’s been three decades since I’ve lived at home, I am now putting my stake in the ground and striking out on my own with color!”

So for a period of time, Mike and I considered a yellow house - the color of that bright orb in the sky, a naturally happy color. My good friend Elaine’s house is yellow, and I’ve always liked her house. And we have some other yellow houses in the neighborhood.

My friend Elaine’s house. The light sunny shade of yellow always bring a smile to my face.

But then again - what shade of yellow? After looking at many images online and some color samples, we landed on Weston Flax by Benjamin Moore.

At the Design Commission meeting in September 2019, color was a point of discussion by the commissioners. While the Design Commission Chair liked our yellow color, and said it looked “cheerful,” two other commissioners called out that it was too bright, too vibrant. So my color anxiety surfaced again. Yikes I thought, I don’t want our house to stick out - to be obnoxious in its color. And I really don’t want to choose something and then see it on the siding being put up and think: “Oh no that doesn’t look so good!” So once again, I struggled with the dilemma that until you see the whole structure covered in paint, how the heck are you supposed to know what will really look good?

After feeling the weight of the color quandary, I knew we needed some expert help. We were grateful when our designer team Julie Ondo and Kerry Molina got involved in the color selection for our siding. We looked at a range of colors including blues, yellows, greens.

As the time got nearer to when Mike Kollman had to order our James Hardie product, the pressure was on.

Finally on a cold day in February, the three of us looked at all the different colors we were considering against the house - Mike B deferred to us completely. I still could have gone in several directions, and my resistance to green was still there. But then Julie offered her logic, let’s consider this color thyme (a.k.a. green) - notice how it looks next to the red brick. Notice how it is at home among the herbs growing next to your house — she held up the sample to our ever leafing sage and thyme in our herb garden. And she had me sold. Suddenly, green was no longer the colonial green of my childhood home, the shaker green of my early home ownership days, but rather it is the green of the herbs, the plants, the greenery all around our Happy Boolo home.

Julie and Kerry also opened up our mind to another possibility — a two-toned home — something we had seen on a few homes around the neighborhood. As Julie would say “I can see it - darker green on the bottom, and then a lighter shade of green on top. It just draws the eye up to the sunny blue sky.” We often had seen homes where the darker color was on the top, but we were open to this idea.

So we made our decision for our James Hardie siding colors: Thyme for the lower part of the home; nautical white for the upper section of the house; farmhouse white for the trim.

The plan for the two-toned color palette

Thanks to our designer team for reinventing green for us and for innovating a truly unique color palette with a dual-colored home.

Thanks to my parents for biasing me towards green with your detailed attention to decorating as well as to Dad’s investment in Mother Nature’s green all along with his garden and his orchids. Looks like I have found my way back home, but green no longer just says “Myers”; it also says Happy Boolo!

It is the green of the future food forest and edible landscape we will cultivate once the renovation is finished. It is a green from my childhood roots and a green that I can call my own. It is a green I can be proud of, a green that I chose because it was in my own heart and connected to a deeper meaning for me of abundance, land, landscape and bounty.

The final palette!! (To the right of the blue line is the siding with no color on it.)

I made the selection and I feel great about it! Woohoo!!

Stay tuned for future posts to see our siding experts install the full color palette and cover our happy house with shades of green.

Now, what exactly is “LEED” again?

“I come home and she’s making Sausage & Peppers!”