By Catherine Baldi with Julie Feinstein Adams
I have a lot of conversations with homeowners and interior designers about color. Working primarily in the Bay Area, I’ve noticed that few homeowners choose white, especially for exteriors.
I have my own ideas about this. Like, maybe it’s just too gray and foggy here for white. People want color to brighten things up!
When I travel to sunnier, southern locales (relative to our latitude), I see more candy-colors than muted tones, and far more white exteriors, perhaps inspired by the contrast against bold, blue skies. (Think coastal Greece, a hillside frosted with white houses, as an extreme example.)
But lately, white seems to be making a comeback. My company has seen an uptick in designers spec-ing more whites. White works well as a background, a neutral classic that highlights the art and furniture when used in interiors.
As a painting contractor, I love color, and yet I have to say, choosing white — whereas this used to be a “boring” default color — now we find it often elevates a space. Did the fact that Benjamin Moore named its “Simply White” as “Color of the Year” in 2016 have an influence on the growing trend?
At the time, the company noted in a press release for the announcement: “The color white is transcendent, powerful and polarizing – it is either taken for granted or obsessed over,” said Ellen O’Neill, Benjamin Moore Creative Director.
She continued, “White is not just a design trend, it is a design essential. The popularity of white, the necessity of white, the mystique of white is quantifiable in our industry. Of the top ten best-selling Benjamin Moore colors, variants of white occupy five spots. It was inevitable that we would ultimately recognize white as our Color of the Year.”
Frankly, white exteriors are still quite rare. But interiors...? Yes!
For this topic, we talked to a number of our favorite local designers about their favorite white paint colors for interiors, and projects they loved that featured this color (that isn’t really a color, but is).
Mead Quin: All White by Farrow and Ball, and Simply White by Benjamin Moore
Quinn Morgan: Benjamin Moore’s Capitol White, Simply White, and Heron White
Dawn Carlson, MAS Design: Sherwin Williams’ Incredible White
Laura Martin Bovard, LMB Interiors: Benjamin Moore White Dove