Thank you for your Interest in our Colour & Design Services! Interior Colour & Design Consultation *This consultation is live with me on the phone, this way you can tell me immediately what works and what doesn t work as we go through your house. No random palettes arriving in the mail that you have to wonder about. I will call you for the consultation (in Canada or the US) as I have an unlimited long distance plan. For International clients, we can use Skype. Are you about to order furniture, tile, countertops or cabinets and want to make sure you don t make colour mistakes you ll regret? How much will one colour mistake impact all the remaining choices you will make from that point on? A consultation with me is like talking to a friend whose aesthetic you trust, because you ve read enough of my blog to agree with what I m saying. And after our conversation when your friends ask you why you chose the countertop/floor/paint colour you end up with, you will have the answer to the question WHY. Our consultation will provide you with all the information and ideas necessary to carry the project forward. This includes paint colours and can include furniture placement, drapery suggestions, colours for flooring, accessories, lighting, countertops, tile, etc. I specialize in helping you create a look and feel for your home based on your preferences, likes and dislikes for the right combination of wall colours including soft and hard furnishings to create flow and transition colours from one room to another. To make the best use of time I recommend you prepare a list of questions you d like to have answered during our consult, in addition to writing down the suggestions you receive. New Construction or Renovation If your drywall has just been installed and your colours need to be chosen, I can help you with pulling them all together, I will need photos of the finishes you ve chosen.
Please include photos of granite samples you are considering. I have all the Caesarstone, Silestone and Cambria samples so I will just need the names or style numbers. I recommend that you schedule the consultation prior to finalizing and/or purchasing your hard finishes, ie. tiles or countertops in case we determine that there is a conflict in undertones. If you have not chosen your finishes yet and would like help choosing a preliminary colour palette prior to sourcing tiles and countertops, inspiration photos are helpful but not necessary. Process for consultation: 1) Required: photos posted to a photo sharing site. I prefer Picassa which is now Google + because there is no delay while instantly scrolling back and forth. Once you download them you will need to share the album with my email address via email, (this sends me a link to the album). Next, edit visibility on the album to: Limited, anyone with a link. Photos should be taken starting at the front door of each room in the house including photos of the transition between room to room. Take photos of the fabrics in context with the carpet or the tile in the kitchen or bathroom with the cabinetry and countertop, etc so that I can see the undertones of the colour. If that is not obvious please place a white piece of paper on the tile to include in the photo. EMAILS WITH INDIVIDUAL PHOTOS DO NOT WORK AS THEY CLOG UP MY INBOX AND I NEED TO SCROLL BACK AND FORTH TO VIEW THE PHOTOS DURING THE CONSULT. 2) Photos must be taken during the day (without flash) preferably in the morning or before 1:00 2:00 pm. Photos taken after that time or when the sun starts to set (depending on the time of year) is the worst time to pick colour period. If the space is dark and needs lights, this is fine as long as you do NOT use the flash. Flash distorts the colour and makes it impossible to distinguish. 3) You will also need a fan deck from a paint store. They can be borrowed or purchased and returned (depending on the store). This way when we walk through the colours that I suggest they will be based on your likes and dislikes and you can immediately see which colours I m recommending. I prefer the Benjamin Moore Classic deck or Sherwin Williams. If you can t get either of these decks let me know which one you have in advance as I carry a few others but not every single one.
4) Fees are $250.00 per hour. $350.00 for 1 ½ hours and $450.00 for 2 hours. If we are focused on just a few rooms in your house one hour is all that is required. A 2-3 bedroom house is usually complete in 1 ½ - 2 hours unless there are a lot of design related questions that take up more time (or you have a larger home). Please let me know how long you would like to schedule and I will send you a paypal invoice. 5) It s important during our call that you are in the space we are selecting colours. This way when I m picking colours you can let me know if I m on the right track. The exception to this is exterior, if your finishes are not installed yet or there is nothing in the space that would influence colour decisions we make. Make sure you have them with you in your current house. A big piece of a consultation is space planning, finalizing accent colours and decorating schemes in the living or great room in addition to kitchen and bathroom updates, etc. The colour is the easiest and fastest part of the consultation (for me). One more thing, the only way an on- line, live consultation can work is I must be able to know instantly what works and doesn t work about your space in terms of colour and design. This is a skill that has taken me 10 years (thousands of consultations in virtually every style of home) to acquire. Calling me BEFORE you buy furniture or make important and expensive decisions on colour of granite, whites for cabinetry, tiles etc is when consulting with me will SAVE you money. As the homeowner, if you make one bad purchase decision, that would have already paid for the designer. And if you are on a budget, you have no budget to waste on mistakes!
White Kitchen Cabinets To determine the correct white for your cabinets, I will need a photo of the finishes going into your kitchen, tile, countertop, flooring, etc. Or photos of your existing kitchen. The backsplash and how it relates to your countertop, and your flooring and cabinets together as well. Sometimes it is not a white that is appropriate but the right warm or even cool gray, or another colour, depending on what your fixed finishes are. The flooring in some cases, will heavily dictate which direction and undertone the colour should be. For example, if you don t have a stitch of white anywhere in your kitchen, including your tile, then white might not be it. Painting cabinets can still be relatively expensive as well as disruptive and time consuming. A consultation with me will give you the confidence to move forward with plans to update your kitchen. EXTERIOR Colour Consultation 1) Photos from the front and back of the house and any other elements such as a detached garage or fencing etc where the colour needs to be coordinated. Choose the time of day when the sun isn t shining directly on the front of the house, as that is the curb appeal side that we will be focused on. It s easier to see the details of the house and the existing colours without full sun.
2) Cost $400, Time, 1 1 1/2 hours. Unless it s a Character home, please send a photo and I will estimate the time. 3) When choosing exterior colour the fixed finishes heavily dictate the colour in addition to the style of the home. Homeowner likes and dislikes determine the final colour choices with the designer guiding you to the right colour. We do this together (same as the interior) walking through the possibilities, talking about what works and what doesn t until we arrive at the colours that are right for your home. 4) Same as the interior we would both be looking at the same fan deck on the consultation so that you an immediately let me know what you like, and we can walk through the colours together, this way we are both on the same page. What you are paying for is the why. (See my post on The 3 most important words in a consultation } Why is the final colour the right one. What you are buying is the confidence to paint your house with the final colour/s chosen. This way you can sleep at night in your newly painted house, happy every time you drive up to it. After all the price of a consultation is a very small percentage of the entire cost to paint the exterior of your home. The cost for a 2 hour Interior combined with an Exterior Consultation is $725.00 (approximately 3 3 1/2 hours in total) Taxes Applicable to Canadian Residents How do you know if a Designer, is worth their fee? The best way to work with a creative person is by referral, and reading my blog is like receiving a referral because you already have a good sense of my clean aesthetic and whether it resonates with you. It s much easier to move forward when you already trust and agree with the advice you are getting. Guarantee Obviously I can t guarantee that the colour will be perfect every time and testing is required whether I m in your house personally or on the phone (see below) however if you are not happy with the consultation and you feel you did not get what you expected, send me a note describing why you are disappointed and I will issue a full refund or credit your paypal account. RATES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE
Recommendations for Perfect Colour; Even if I m in your home personally, there is no substitute for testing colour in the actually setting it will be in. Colours will change dramatically from morning to evening or you simply may not like the colour once you see it on a bigger sample. Testers are available at most paint stores and a test area must be large to be effective. Minimum samples size should be 2 coats on a poster board or for very large areas, a test sample 5 ft wide from floor to ceiling is necessary. What People are saying about on-line consulting: Thank you so much for your time and expertise today, Ben and I both feel that this was money wisely invested and we re so happy that we have a plan now! I will send pictures and probably arrange for follow- up sessions as we work our way through the house. Katherine Jay This client had a large stone fireplace in yellow beige and golds that heavily dictated the colour in her home. Her existing colours ignored the dominant stone entirely so I selected colours from the stone and here is the result: We had a phone consult back in September. It took me some time but the living room, kitchen, dining room, library and sunroom are now all painted. I followed your suggestions and must say I am quite happy with the results. I will admit that I was initially not very excited about the beiges but of course, you were right!! They look fantastic and pull the finishes together. Thank you very Much! Debra. Consultation on renovation I have to say, one of the best things about the services you provide is the ability to provide your clients with peace of mind that they are heading in a cohesive direction (more or less). It is easy to pick nice tile, etc. very hard to picture it all coming together. It really has reduced the stress associated with this reno for me. I have learned a lot from working with you and I m really looking forward to continuing to do so in the future! C. Kowbel
Consultation on kitchen cabinet colour: This client needed wall colours and a colour for her cabinets which did not end up being white because white or cream is only appropriate if there are other elements of white or cream in the kitchen. Huge Thanks to you Maria!! Per our phone consultation, your recommendation is nothing short of genius. Wickham Grey (the wall colour) is beautiful beyond my imagination, ethereal. The other pick, Shale (for the kitchen cabinets), is also brilliant; it's quite dissimilar to any of the typical neutrals and very chameleon, which I love. The consultation was money very well spent. To anyone thinking about it, do schedule a Maria Killam consultation! You will not be disappointed. Jan Diver Consultation on kitchen cabinet colour: This client had bright turquoise tiled countertops from the 50 s and new porcelain tile in earthy tones, butterscotch and taupes, which did not relate to the countertop at all. Here white was also not a good choice because in this kitchen the colour needed to relate either to the countertop or to the floor. I chose a pale taupe colour to pull the floor colour into the kitchen, otherwise she would have ended up with a 7 th colour (white) which would not relate at all to either the counter or the tile, here is her email to me after it was done: Thank you for last Wednesday's color consultation. Though I wasn't very excited about Cedar Key cupboards and Fennel Seed walls (I was hoping for something VERY different from what I have), I decided to get samples and try them out. After painting practice boards, I could see that the colors will look great with my turquoise tile! Yahoo! Thank you again for an eye opening consultation. After the kitchen was painted email from client: The kitchen turned out great. Thanks for all of your great advice, I'm really excited about working with you again. I now think of you as my decorating safety net! Christine. RECAP OF WHAT IS REQUIRED: 1. I need photos without flash, very important, posted to Picassa (or a similar photo sharing site) I need them that way so I can scroll back and
forth to view them. PLEASE DO NOT EMAIL INDIVIDUAL PHOTOS VERY IMPORTANT. 2. Our consultation together starts when we get on the phone so don t worry about emailing me questions in advance. 3. You will need a fan deck. I prefer Benjamin Moore, Sherwin Williams is my second choice, other decks have too many holes/missing colours although I have others if these two are hard for you to find. 4. Also I will need your phone number to call you (in North America) 5. If you are outside of North America I have access to a Dulux or Farrow and Ball fan deck that we can use for the call and we can Skype. I look forward to meeting you on- line! If you have any further questions please call 604.490-6251.