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For some, picking a wall color can mean agonizing over little pieces of swatches for days or weeks.  But for others, the right wall color simply comes into the room and, pretty much, says here I am!

I got educated on this issue a few years ago.  A great pair of chairs that many less brazen than me might have passed up, sat waiting for a new home at McKey’s Antiques, formerly next door to Ruff and Ready near 14th and T, but now a part of restaurant Policy.  The chairs, a pair of Heywood-Wakefield armchairs in wheat finish with “wishbone” arms were pretty cool!  I liked everything about them, especially their bright lime green naugahyde upholstery!

At the time I purchased the chairs I definitely knew where I wanted to put them in my house.  I also knew that I wanted a color makeover on my dismal walls but I wasn’t exactly sure what color.  When I brought the chairs home, it was clear to me that the “pop” that these bright chairs were capable of giving just wasn’t coming through against a bland beige backdrop.    Then, as if coming to my rescue, a designer friend came over sometime after I’d had the chairs for awhile.  Almost immediately upon laying eyes on them,  he  accused me essentially of committing” cool chair abuse” because I wasn’t giving the chairs the opportunity to shine as they were meant to.  “I know exactly what color would look great with them,” he told me.

With that, I was on my way to a bold blue beginning!  He didn’t bring a swatch back. He brought a gallon of a beautiful, sumptuous deep blue paint that so dramatically changed the room that it was just unbelievable!  And the pair of lime green chairs seemed to love it too!  They just floated off the wall, as if they were high from the new paint.

The point I wish to make here is this:  Don’t be afraid to let the furniture tell you what color to paint the room.  You don’t have to have the wall color all figured out at first.  Go shopping and get what you like.  Let your pieces dictate to you the surrounding color(s).  Now if your furniture or prospective furniture is in shades of basic brown and upholstered in earth tones like beige, caramel, or perhaps in black or white or the currently popular grey, then you probably can pick a wall color that will work with dark furniture and earth tones.  But if you want to step out of the box a bit and go with something a bit more bold or creative, relax and let the wall color come to you.

Here’s a formula you can use.  My designer friend said he thought of the deep blue shade, a paint by Sherwin Williams called “bungle house blue” because of its intensity against the light green in the chairs.  “It’s the contrast that makes them work so well together,”  he explained to me.

Gabriel Sandoval who recently moved to DC from Los Angeles is now living in a small apartment in Logan Circle with stark white walls.  In late August he went shopping in Mid City’s furniture row and found a set of four 1960s medium blue shell chairs at Good Wood. He bought them!  Sandoval pointed out that his small apartment, increasingly filled with either contemporary modern pieces, like a sofa from Crate and Barrel and mid century modern furnishings from neighborhood stores on 14th Street, needed to make a statement.  Sandoval thinks he’ll wait to choose a color for the white walls until after he’s moved a few more pieces of furniture in.  But, it was clear that whatever color is chosen, it will have to live peacefully with those blue shell chairs.

Washington has for so long been known as a city where people take few risks.  I’m not speaking about politics here, obviously. I’m talking about fashion and decorating.  Traditionally, many folks in this town have felt the need to fit in and not rock the boat too much. Don’t get me wrong, though. There definitely are people in DC who have always felt confident enough to follow their own style.   The good news is that this is happening more and more as people move to DC from other places where a style template isn’t nearly as de rigueur.  Places like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and many European and South American cities.

 Many of the vintage furniture stores in Mid City get new items in every week, unlike the contemporary furniture stores whose items may change only once a year.  Shopping the smaller, vintage stores offers the opportunity to find one -of -a -kind pieces regularly, especially if you enjoy the hunt  This gives you the opportunity to style with pieces of furniture, art or other accessories that you aren’t likely to find in someone else’s home.  It will help rid your décor of a “catalogue look.”

Michelle Grove and her husband both get it!  One recent Saturday they were out furniture shopping on 14th Street and noticed a slatted back lounge chair outside Hunted House.  You know the kind I’m talking about.  The iconic 1960’s armchair of walnut wood and slat wood backing with a separate back and seat cushion.  This particular chair was upholstered in plaid wool cushions and looked like it might have been in a swinging bachelor pad back in the Kennedy era.