THE STUDIOLO: Color Me Inspired: Red and Green

A cheery holiday table courtesy Style-Files.com

We love color. Oliver has always been very sensitive to subtle differences in color, be it on walls, furniture, clothing, in art, food or even inaccurately-named board game pieces, which distract him to no end (purple and red or eggplant and plum...a story for another day). Needless to say, colors play a huge role in our lives as designers. Oliver and I have lived together in six apartments in two cities, and watching our tastes shape each place has been interesting. We've gone from covering our walls in wild, Disney-esque color to a far more toned down, but still playful use of color. Oliver's own oil paintings have progressed over the years to a calmer, more sophisticated use of color, as have his graphic design work. As an interior designer, the more I work with color, the more I believe that all color combinations work together, you just have to strike the right balance of hue, tone and value.

With that, we begin our first "series" for The Studiolo: a weekly collection of color combinations. While we're not the most Christmas-y of couples, the holiday is just around the corner (at the end of the week!!), so we thought we'd start with the most expected color combination this time of year: red and green with, perhaps, some unexpected results due to expert treatments.