Beige-i-fying My House

The name of this blogsite is called Be Brave. Lose the Beige.  While BBLB is not just about color, I’m absolutely crazy about color, all colors, the more the better.  With that in mind it might not come as a surprise my house is filled with color.  A crimson red kitchen, lemon drop yellow living room, and funky art adorning virtually every living space.  I’m simply, utterly, and completely not a beige fan. Has anyone really ever taken stock of how much beige there is in the world? Beige houses and buildings, beige sofas, beige walls, beige purses, beige clothing. Can you honestly say you actually like the “color” beige? Sure it “goes” with a lot of things, but does that fact alone deem it worthy to occupy such a vaulted place in this society? (Vaulted by virtue of the fact it is everywhere!) There are so many words representing beige– cream, tan, ecru, biscuit, fawn, camel, mushroom, taupe, sand, and oatmeal—a testament to its prevalence in our society, but at the end of the day—it’s still beige!

When we decided to put our house on the market, our realtor suggested we hire a “House Editor” for guidance in neutralizing and de-cluttering our home.  While I would not be described as a hoarder (I love throwing things away), I do love collecting funky artwork- a fiberglass Hand chair; a foot stool (literally a shoe jutting out from beneath the ottoman); melon head ceramic sculpture; Dr. Seuss-like teapots, and much more.  Probably most offending is a court jester-like chandelier in our dining room.  Six colorful “jester hats” sit atop flexible metal arms.

The editor only had to glance at this piece to know  “that definitely has to go”.  She and our realtor have said, “this is not a judgment on your taste” (hard not to believe since all my favorites have been locked away in a storage unit).  We don’t want potential buyers to be distracted by the art work.  It is bad enough you have a 7 color mosaic back-splash in the kitchen.

Following a month of remodeling, every wall in my house now plays host to beige paint; our red carpet has been replaced with- you guessed it- beige; half of our art collection now lives at a friend’s house, but worst of all is the new chandelier-  everything about this chandelier is beige- it’s color and its lack of character.

New Beige Chandelier

The irony is not lost on me. I’m starting to wonder if the universe is trying to teach me a lesson-  this has been such a color transformation for me.  How could someone who has written a blog since 2009 entitled Be Brave, Lose the Beige end up with a beige-i-fied house?  If anyone has any ideas as to the lesson I should learn, please let me know.

 

New Year’s Resolution-Try Introducing More Color In Your Lives

This is post two of my 10 days of New Years resolutions. As I’ve mentioned previously, Be Brave. Lose the Beige is not just about color (although I’m crazy about colors..all colors, the more the better). Be Brave. Lose the Beige is really a life choice. It’s about exploring the playful side of your life by escaping incessant to-do lists and experiencing more joy and fun in your life.

 Resolution Number2- Try introducing a little more color in your daily lives.  

After all, do we really need all that beige? Beige sofas, walls, and clothes? I recently exercised my creativity muscles (see post above) by creating drawer and cabinet pulls like the ones featured in the photo below. These polka dotted, flowered and heart filled clay knobs are now affixed to my cupboard doors and drawers at our beach place. You don’t even have to go to the trouble of making your own. Web stores and brick and mortar stores abound with fun, colorful knobs and drawer pulls. The color combinations alone will all but guarantee delight each time you reach inside for a cup or bowl. Somehow color and whimsey can imbue even the most mundane task, such as setting a table or pouring a glass of milk a lot more fun.

So, go ahead, be brave, lose a little of that beige and take a step toward coloring your life.

 Running from meeting to meeting, checking off the to-do list- that isn’t really living. Discovering the playful side of life. Spreading joy. Being colorful…clever…creative.  Now that’s living!

This is post three of Be Brave. Lose the Beige’s 12 days of New Years Resolutions. Even though Be Brave. Lose the Beige isn’t just about color, today’s post is. Be Brave.Lose the Beige argues that running from meeting to meeting, checking off the to-do lists, etc. isn’t really living…it is, however, a fact of life. We do run from Parent-teacher sessions to board meetings and on to client conferences. So, let’s accept the inevitable and try to have a little fun with it. Why not try wearing something really fun when you are making the meeting rounds…as an example, try wearing colorful tights. I have and they single handedly make the meeting more fun for everyone involved.  

Introduce More Color into Your Life

 

Resolution #3 Try Networking in Color

 Recently I attended a women’s networking function at a law firm. Now even the word, networking makes me cringe. It sounds so pretentious and artificial. So, in an effort to introduce a little levity to the mix, I wore a rose colored dress and psychedelic, zig zag pattered tights (photo below). This insertion of color in the midst of a sea of black and navy blue suits caused quite a stir. Young women, middle aged women, law partners and bankers, came up to me throughout the evening saying things like, “I just wanted to meet you, you’re so bold”. People said I was the “life of the party”, all because I deemed to wear a colorful pair of stockings. I had a ball and maybe this act will inspire other women to break out of the beige box and delight themselves and others.

colorful tights

 So..Resolution #3- Try Networking in Color

 

 

Santa’s 12 Tips for Celebrating Christmas- “Color Your Christmas”

Dreading those holiday hassles? While there is so much to enjoy during the holidays – kids coming home, the colorful sights and delicious smells of the season, the anticipation – it can get overwhelming. Today begins 12 days of blog posts featuring my “Santa’s 12 Tips for Celebrating Christmas”. These are clay sculptures I created which have been made into Christmas cards. 

The name of this blog and our company is Be Brave. Lose the Beige which tries to  inspire and encourage Lady Boomers (and anyone else who will listen) to live their lives creatively and with fun. So why shouldn’t the holidays be celebrated in the same way?

The first of Santa’s 12 tips (see image below) is called, “Color Your Christmas” and features Santa Claus draped in colorful Christmas Lights, the message being, keep the color and delight in the holiday season.  

 Hope your holiday this year is “ideal”. 

 

Be Brave. Lose the Beige meets Weight Watchers

Two weeks ago today I started on Weight Watchers.  I toyed with the online version of Weight Watchers a few years ago.  This time around I’m going to the meeting version of WW, the one with accountability built in- the weighing in front of other people kind of accountability. I’ve spent the past two weeks tracking every morsel I put in my mouth, and every step I take (ok so perhaps going to the mailbox should not count as “activity points” but, what the heck).

The meetings I’ve attended include motivational lectures with titles like, “Snacking Smarter” and “Produce Power”.   During my very first visit, the meeting leader distributed a brochure urging participants to “color up to your plate” as a dieting strategy.  The color comes in the form of orange carrots, red peppers, yellow squash, and green leafed lettuce.  All this rich, beautiful “color” costs the dieter 0 food points in the Weight Watchers World.

Hearing this I could not help but think of Be Brave. Lose the Beige (the name of my website and journal).   Color is a defining characteristic of BBLB.  While I am crazy about color (all colors, the more the better) the color component of Be Brave. Lose the Beige is really used to encourage people to think creatively about their lives and make interesting choices ( An interesting life is a choice after all).

I feel like Weight Watchers is a good choice for me.  Any system that uses color to achieve a successful outcome is the place for me.  

Fiesta Ware = Color Therapy

The title of my blog is Be Brave. Lose the Beige.  While Be Brave. Lose the Beige is not just about color, (it’s really focused upon women’s empowerment) I am absolutely crazy about color.  I believe color can even serve as a metaphor in our quest for self discovery.  I was recently certified as a True Colors facilitator.  True Colors is a personality assessment modeled after the Myers Briggs indicator.

So, I was delighted to see and hear a story on CBS Sunday morning last week about Fiesta Ware.  Are you familiar with Fiesta Ware?  It is a line of dinnerware in a rainbow of colors which flooded into homes during the Great Depression.  In 1936, William Wells thought America’s spirits needed a boost.  He went to his designers and said, “This is what’s going to be good for the Depression:  People need to brighten up their table, people need something to be happy about.”  And that is how Fiesta got started.

I can’t help but feel we are in a similar situation in 2012.  So many families have been hurt by the economy.  I’m not suggesting fiesta ware or color will solve all our problems, but just as William Wells suggested, maybe it can make us a little happier or even more optimistic.  I know color has that effect on my life.  I hope it can for yours as well.

True Colors Meets Be Brave. Lose the Beige

I was recently certified as a True Colors facilitator.  True Colors  is a color version of the Myers Briggs indicator.  The founder of True Colors, Don Lowry  liked using color as a metaphor to translate complicated personality theory into practical application.

It was kind of a no brainer marrying True Colors with Be Brave. Lose the Beige, since there is a fun color centric focus to the process of identifying your color spectrum.  While Be Brave. Lose the Beige is not just about color, I liked the idea of using color as a metaphor in our quest for self discovery.  Yes, even at our “age” as Lady Boomers, there is still room for self discovery and increased self awareness.  My colleague, Jackie, and I have been conducting a four week study during Lent.  The Lenten season provides an excellent opportunity for journeying into the wilderness of your selves and gaining an appreciation for your own skills, talents and abilities, as well as that of those around you.  Once our participants (and there have been at least 25) identified their true colors (blue, orange, green, or gold), we encouraged them to engage in a “brightening” exercise in which they illustrated their color spectrum.  The following are a couple of photos of our Lady Boomers’ art work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As an an avowed “Blue”, I have loved listening to the stories from our Lady Boomers and beholding their creative efforts.  I look forward to more.

 

 

 

 

Resolution #3- Try Networking in Color

Running from meeting to meeting, checking off the to-do list- that isn’t really living. Discovering the playful side of life. Spreading joy. Being colorful…clever…creative.  Now that’s living!

This is post three of Be Brave. Lose the Beige’s 12 days of New Years Resolutions. Even though Be Brave. Lose the Beige isn’t just about color, today’s post is. Be Brave.Lose the Beige argues that running from meeting to meeting, checking off the to-do lists, etc. isn’t really living…it is, however, a fact of life. We do run from Parent-teacher sessions to board meetings and on to client conferences. So, let’s accept the inevitable and try to have a little fun with it. Why not try wearing something really fun when you are making the meeting rounds…as an example, try wearing colorful tights. I have and they single handedly make the meeting more fun for everyone involved.  

Last week I attended a women’s networking function at a law firm. Now even the word, networking makes me cringe. It sounds so pretentious and artificial. So, in an effort to introduce a little levity to the mix, I wore a rose colored dress and psychedelic, zig zag pattered tights (photo below). This insertion of color in the midst of a sea of black and navy blue suits caused quite a stir. Young women, middle aged women, law partners and bankers, came up to me throughout the evening saying things like, “I just wanted to meet you, you’re so bold”. People said I was the “life of the party”, all because I deemed to wear a colorful pair of stockings. I had a ball and maybe this act will inspire other women to break out of the beige box and delight themselves and others.

 So..Resolution #3- Try Networking in Color

 

Resolution #2- Color Your Life in the New Year

This is post two of my 12 days of New Years resolutions. As I’ve mentioned previously, Be Brave. Lose the Beige is not just about color (although I’m crazy about colors..all colors, the more the better). Be Brave. Lose the Beige is really a life choice. It’s about exploring the playful side of your life by escaping incessant to-do lists and experiencing more joy and fun in your life.

 Resolution Number2- Try introducing a little more color in your daily lives.  

After all, do we really need all that beige? Beige sofas, walls, and clothes? I recently exercised my creativity muscles (see post above) by creating drawer and cabinet pulls like the ones featured in the photo below. These polka dotted, flowered and heart filled clay knobs are now affixed to my cupboard doors and drawers at our beach place. You don’t even have to go to the trouble of making your own. Web stores and brick and mortar stores abound with fun, colorful knobs and drawer pulls. The color combinations alone will all but guarantee delight each time you reach inside for a cup or bowl. Somehow color and whimsey can imbue even the most mundane task, such as setting a table or pouring a glass of milk a lot more fun.

So, go ahead, be brave, lose a little of that beige and take a step toward coloring your life.

 

 

Be Brave! Forget About that Beige!

 Before Christmas I spent a morning on a “Tour of Homes” fund-raiser for The Atlantic Center of the Arts, a really cool arts in residence program in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. One of the homes was described as a Tuscan-style Italian country home owned by Jeffrey and Paige Gehris, who also own the fun, colorful Garlic Italian restaurant in NSB. Their home is the very definition of my “Be Brave, Lose the Beige” mantra. There is no beige or taupe to be found in this house. Beautiful, natural wood imported from their property in Vermont comprise their circular staircase, overhead beams, bookshelves and floors. I fell in love with the turquoise, lime green, pumpkin walls in the various rooms and the purple or yellow ceilings in others…all very tastefully done. Their majolica pottery embellish their beautiful kitchen which is also equipped with a cobalt blue cast iron stove imported from England. This was the most beautiful home I’ve ever visited. Their brave choice of gorgeous rich colors is further evidence you don’t always have to choose beige or taupe to be tasteful.

Hope 42 Day Interview

I really enjoyed my interview today on the Hope 42 Day show on Blog Talk radio.  It was fun being an ambassador for hope (and color and creativity)  If you would like to listen go to http://tinyurl.com/lk9fmg.