little. yellow. different. A weblog by Ernie Hsiung

ernie sells his soul, part 3: if my soul is being sold, it might as well look fabulous

One of the nice things about moving into a place where I’m owning instead of renting is the fact that I’ll be able to do anything I please to it, something I’ve never really had to think about since having a roommate. I’m used to having four white walls and milk crates for furniture and my bed is an old twin bed that I’ve had since high school.

All of the sudden, the condo goes through and suddenly find myself gazing at IKEA catalogues and going to the Z-Gallerie. Wicker baskets and elephant trinkets suddenly become charming and I find myself watching Pier 1 commercials, relating to Kristie Alley.

Eh, who am I kidding - that crazy bitch? Hells naw.

One thing that I’ve been thinking about, however, is the color that I paint the walls. What are my options? Hmm…

I could always go with this color scheme. Purple and yellow are, incidentally, the corporate colors of Yahoo!. If I had to deal with with staring at bright colors at work, then come home to a bunch of purple and yellowness in my living room, I’d probably have a stroke like one of those overworked Japanese salarymen. It would also give me nightmares about living in Sweet Valley High, and I had a traumatic experience already in high school. (Will Jake take me to the prom? Will he take Jenna instead? I’m so confused!)

Hmm… Eddie Bauer colors. All I need now is a vase with fake lilacs, a mini-van full of screaming children and a secret heroin addiction. Still better than hospital white, I suppose.

My friend Don has this orange color in his living room. It actually works because he has a good amount of accessories and pictures and furniture so the color isn’t too distracting. Also, he’s a gay man, and that’s almost a requirement to use orange in one way or another. Sure, I’m gay too, but my decorating-fu is weak, and much skill and training for me is required.

(If I ever make a kung fu and interior decoration reference ever again, I give you permission to shoot me at the back of the head.)

HA! Now seriously, I would only paint my walls this if I had a serious vandetta against my parents. “You want me to live ten minutes from you? Well then, take a look at my NEW PLACE!” I could buy a Hello Kitty flat screen television and I could buy a Sanrio placemat and OMG it would be so CUTE!!! ^_^

On the flip side, I would have to live with myself in a pink house. Ugh, nevermind.

You guys have any suggestions?

Beige. Your house will look like BMV.

My bathroom, hands, legs, part of my face and hair are currently Benjamin Moore’s “Ol’ Blue Eyes”…taking a break from painting to read the blogroll…

Also, he’s a gay man, and that’s almost a requirement to use orange in one way or another.

Like on a website project at work, Ernie? >:(

I wish I had taken more photos of my aunt and uncle’s place in Kansas City. I swear, my uncle may qualify for metrosexual, he did all the decorating, and it’s one of the coolest-painted houses I’ve seen.

All shades of blue. You can’t go wrong with blue. Then you can add accent colors like ywllows, greens, and orange.

paint each room a different color. so if you get bored with one color scheme, just MOVE… to another room.

besides, what screams GAY more than rainbows?

=P

This would probably be way geeky and over-the-top, but I suggest using the same color scheme as your blog. Yeah, that’s right, I’m suggesting you go tones of green.

Go with warm neutral tones.
Sepia, Browns, Tans, and accent with Mossy Greens, Mustard Yellows kind of a woodsy outdorsy thing. Very soothing.
The walls should be flat matte paint for bedrooms, and eggshell or semi-gloss for bathrooms and kitchen.
Got with high-gloss white for the trim-work around doors and the baseboards. Also for crown moldings (if you’ve got ‘em.)
–Laz

Watch a week’s worth (or record) of Christopher Lowell and then decide. I always have to put one room in the house that is deep red (like this very computer room), but I wouldn’t suggest that for your living room.

Might I suggest Benjamin Moore as a brand? Or, if you want to spit in Doug Faneuil’s face, try Martha’s paint.

Hmm .. not that I read interior dec mags, but apparently warm blues in the bedroom, oranges in transient rooms, red in energy rooms [take that to mean what you will] and whites in kitchens are good.

we want to see photos of the condo!

get to it ernie!

Honestly, a little trick for inspiration is to take an object that you like, and use a different object in each room to design your colors upon.

I would take a a number of my favorite web-sites, and choose one for each room of the house. Earthy, calmy sites would be good for the bedroom. Stormy blue, corporate sites woudl be good for an office, and your color scheme woudl be good for the living room.

My suggestion–go places where you can see colors in use (like IKEA or other furnature stores). Hang out there, and pay attention to what makes you feel at home, comfortable and relaxed. Nothing is more important than how you feel in your home. What do you find soothing and energizing? What makes you feel chic and stylish without feeling fake or out-of-place? What can you enjoy looking at for at least a year or two without being distracting? Once you find something that satisfies the above, be brave and go with it.

Oh… just go total faux-Chinese restaurant.

Many of the Chinese restaurants here in the Cowlands are red and gold, with dragons on the lamps and such.

You know you want to!

Buy a rug for your living room that you really like - buy this first, so you can go with your instinct of what appeals to you, without worrying if it matches other stuff. Then you pick colours out of the rug for your paint and other furniture. And because we can assume that the rug was reasonably well designed, we can also assume that all the colours will ‘go’ together, and *tadah* you have a well coordinated room.

Sure, I’ll take you to the prom…
But maybe we could bring Jenna along, too, eh?

;^)

You could always watch a bunch of re-run episodes of Trading Spaces and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy for ideas

You know, I’ve not posted here yet, I’ve been a lurker. But, I’m gonna go ahead and put my 2 cents in here: Blue. Seriously, blue.

Years from now, your initial color choice will matter just about as much as Jake’s prom date choice. Of course, I’m not even quite sure what that’s supposed to mean.

Just don’t paint the kitchen three times in a row, each time using a slightly different shade of yellow. It doesn’t work. My mom proved this back in the early 70’s as she attempted color coordination around harvest gold and avocado green. But if your goal is to really irritate the slave labor (friends) who are helping you paint, then yellow’s the one.

Just so you know. I took a Jenna, but she left during the prom with some cowboy who swept her off her feet. I didn’t even catch his name it happened so fast.

The orange was a nod to the fact that the exterior of my place has that southwestern/Monaco type feel to it and that shade of orange seemed to compliment the arched doorways into the hall and kitchen without being too “Romper Room”.

My suggestion - use the Behr color computer at Home Depot to try a bunch of combinations out…it rocks!

My latest obsession?

Very pale green with very dark grey.

Yeah.

Actually, Jenna’s my sister and she went with some guy named Glenn so you can all back off now before I beat you senseless…

That said, I find myself keeping the white walls (easier to sell again later), but accenting with colors dependent on the room. Black, gray and blue in the living room set off the stereo equipment nicely. Warm greens in the bathroom, cool blues in the bedroom (since I abandoned the grand idea of “growing” it and doing murals of trees and vines on the walls). The kitchen is going to do a steely modern thing when I get to it, but I’ve got a house so the downstairs might get more color attention.

I’d get comfy furniture first and then base your walls and such off of that.

Whatever colors you use, try to carry at least one of them throughout most of the house in some way. This will help tie the rooms together to make the decorating cohesive. Ex: If you paint walls red in one room, use that same red in pillows or other accessories in other rooms. This will allow you variation while still keeping the color palatte from becoming overwhelming.

The easiest way for a beginner who doesn’t have a natural “eye” is to paint the walls of most of the home in one pretty neutral color–a dark khaki, etc. But, not white! Then, use very eye-catching accessories like colorful rugs, colored furniture (red couch, blue chairs, etc.) to add interest. Stay with simply, clean-lined furniture and add interesting accessories (fringed throw pillows, great lamps, chenille throws, statues of naked people) to add warmth and personality. Also, painting the ceilings a complimentary color, or a few shades darker than your wall color, a can really spice up a room. Your best friend here are the color-match schemes at your local Home Depot. They have a computer programs and paint ideas that will help you match colors effectively.

And to think, I almost regretted taking those interior design classes…

Granted, I’m totally lame, but I’ve been thinking about getting some of these. They look easy enough to slap on a wall, and if I screw it up, I can try again.

Black.

At a commune I lived at we had a rule: “If you don’t like it, paint it black.” Yes, there is the risk that your living room will end up looking like a training area for a garage band, but if you are able to pull it off (needs half matte paint, uneven wall surface, white celing, preferebly big windows, good lightning concept) it will be so much better than any pansy ass warm beige.

hey, no Hello-Kitty bashing–ok? You have got to get your HGTV on hon..spend a whole weekend watching nothing but HGTV, you’ll see a gazillion ideas that you absolutely hate–but then there will be one segment on one show that will stand out for you and you will stnad up and shout –THAT’s IT!

Ernie,

Are you sorry you asked for suggestions, yet?

You need a good gay man like myself to come in, tell you to shut up and do it for you. Duh!

What? You are looking at Design Within Reach [www.dwr.com] or West Elm [www.westelm.com]???

What kind of gay boy *are* you!?!?

I would check out the Martha Stewart collection at Sherwin Williams -
it says “classy” and “con” at the same time!

Restoration Hardware paints are the only way to go!!!

I think that the best option is to set all of us loose in your condo (well, I haven’t sugested colors yet), and return 8 hours later with beer and pizza.
Mind you, the beer *after* the walls have been painted.

i had an orange wall at my bklyn apt. it works if you paint one wall a strong color and leave the others plain. i wasn’t sure about the orange but my interior decorating design cousin suggested it and i ended up loving it.

ok, it’s a nit, but her name is kirstie alley, and she could get crazy with me any time she wants. as for colors… i wanted to paint my bedroom elderberry, but was overridden. for a scheme, i quite like green/grey and blue/grey each depending upon the shades of course.

have fun with the new place!

Even though I’m a lurker who doesn’t know you at all, the best living room paints I’ve found are the Ralph Lauren Ballroom Gold (despits the scary, inaccurate sample chip of it at Home Depot) and a friend who went deep eggplanty purple…

dood, are those websafe colors?! holy smokes. you’re picking websafe colors to paint your house! thats sweet! at the top corner of every wall should be the color code like #ccff99!

purple and yellow? it kinda reminds me of Lakers. how about blue and orange? or denim blue and beige? or red? or sage? or…………………ASK YOUR PARENTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! =P

i actually quite like your ideas, ernie. of course, just one room each. you can do the hello kitty scheme in your guest bedroom and i can come live in your house and i can be your personal fag hag… aw!!!

PS: I know it’s broken on Safari. Will fix later.

Why not white with a little shade? Inmy last fla I had all rooms in white where just in each room there was mixed some other colour into the wihite.
I went by what a colour makes with me.
In normal light, all you see is a white room. But when light will shine in, you’ll see the shades of the colour you mixed in. Wonderful!

Hello Kitty won’t keep the ‘rents out. But if you stapled roadkill sporadically along the walls, you might have a chance.

Whatever you choose, don’t overlook the obligatory red front door to ward off those evil spirits.

Three words: Brightly colored ceiling. I have cherry red in my study and I love it. My little brother has midnight blue on his, and that looks great too.

OK, I’ll go back to lurking now.

The walls in my place are dark-orange and grey. It’s also a nice idea to paint one wall pitch black, gives a nice contrast. Good luck with it.

soothing colors in a room with a lock, so you have somewhere to escape your parents.

Soon you too will be walking around your new place saying “I am Dr. Zoidberg, homeowner!” Congrats.

Why not check out a Feng Shui book for colors?

Throw a party and let us all paint murals on your walls…… *evil grin*

start watching a lot of trading spaces.

If I had the opportunity to choose colors for a new place from scratch I would almost definitely use this idea as a guide: [link]

I don’t particularly love their examples but the idea is right…if you happen to find nature soothing, of course. If you’ve always wanted to live inside a microchip or the Moebius-designed world of TRON, you obviously want to follow a different path. Once when I was a kid I tried to talk my parents into buying me green-and-blue grid wallpaper. Thank god they refused.

In addition to watching insipid (but occasionally inspiring) design shows, check out some big glossy interior design (not decorating) books from the library (or the bookstore, if money is burning a hole in your pocket). There’s no way you or any other normal human can afford to do what they do but it might help you with ideas.

Also, ignore the people who keep chanting “blue. blue. blue.” Unless, y’know, you really like blue.

don’t you know that the one of the queer eye guys is doing the pier one commercials instead of kirstie? she was always so darn tacky anyway, i didn’t understand why they chose her. the queer eye guy is a real designer, so he makes a far superior representative.

i’ve heard that martha stewart has a great line of paint colors. like a springy pale green or something. support our favorite decorating jailbird-to-be!

Blue!!

Here’s my advice:

In living rooms and bedrooms, choose main colors which make your shoulders unknot when you get home from work.

In kitchens and bathrooms, choose colors which cheer you up and make you feel energized.

Do think about what furniture and artwork will be in the room and what will work with it.

Less is more relaxing.

Think about artwork and fabric you really like. Are there color themes there to pick up on?

And to be honest, muted versions of your website colors wouldn’t be a bad way to go.

Blue. And yellow for the kitchen.

And use style sheets, not font tags. (For the walls, that is.)

#666633 with #CCCC66 accents.

Chocolate/coco as the main colour. Cream as the accent. If you paled down the chocolate you could get away with different variations in other areas - like an almost purple, or a peach. But that could be boring.

You should go out and purchase a colour book - so you can look into the psychology of colour. There are a few good ones out there by Leatrice Eisman.

The hardest thing in painting your place is determining what you want and how you want to feel. Sometimes it is best to pick a style (like Ikea Hell) and go with that.

no one mentioned it yet but grey specifically #5 is an offset to most colors. so if you are indecisive, paint it grey. it focuses all of your wall art ect. also it is good for resting your eyes between violent shades of color.

:: cough ::

Dwell Magazine

Orange!!! Orange! Orange living room, yellow something…There’s also deep blood red with cobalt blue (the Frida Kahlo house color scheme).

ORANGE! ORANGE! ORANGE!

As one gay man told me years ago, it *is* the color of god. One of the many ways I am in fact a gay man, despite the fact that I am a woman and like women and men. Hmmm.

Orange all the way. The shade of orange you selected is lovely.

Reds, greys, creams and black hehe.

I’m a sucker for red. It’s such a masculine colour yet very very bold. If you had cream walls and then had a feature wall that was red?

Maaaahvelous!

Do feature walls. Feature walls rock!

Reds, greys, creams and black hehe.

I’m a sucker for red. It’s such a masculine colour yet very very bold. If you had cream walls and then had a feature wall that was red?

Maaaahvelous!

Do feature walls. Feature walls rock!

Just as a total random bit of info…. Ralph Lauren paints cover with just one coat and are SO much easier to deal with than other paints.

As for color schemes, you gotta do what you are comfortable with. What colors calm you? Use those with accents of orange…

i’m getting tired of seeing the same entries. you’re not posting as often as you used to. BAH!

Either go for Feng Shui colours, or have a whole Clockwork Orange thing going on. There is no other way. No other way.

Hello Kitty…TV’s? *wants one*

I’m still stuck on the fact that you did the color swatches in CSS.

neutrals. you can’t go wrong with neutrals.

…besides, anything neutral matches with the whole pier 1 thing.

what about the colors here on the sides of your site (blog). I likem.

Nice blogs by the way!!!

It’s all about a feature wall darling.

NO MARTHA STEWART! NO BENJAMIN MOORE!!!

Step OUT there. Get out of corporate paint land…seriously. We are freaks in the middle of a house restoration right now and our vote would be for DEVINE PAINT! www . devinecolor .com Gretchen’s color muse is right on the money. Plus, coverage is awesome so you only have to do one coat.

First condo…first lesson. Cheap paint = many coats of paint for coverage. Blech.

A homeowner! Go you.

Baby blue & beige with black & white accents.

Whatever colors you decide, pick shades that would look good on you as clothing. That way, you will always look better in your house. Why paint your bedroom in a color that makes you look sickly? Go for a color that people always compliment you in.

Ernie sells his soul when trying to decorate. Total of comments? 72 and still going.

little. yellow. different….

Bedroom should be warm colours, like goldenrod or even red, or adobe if you like that sort of thing.

If you plan on furniture from Ikea, lighter colors will work better.

And there’s nothing wrong with repainting every year.

74th post! Lesson learned? There is no shortage of advice when it comes to decorating.

green froth with white trim is the color of the most calming room of my house… I sigh with relief every time I walk into it…

Go with chocolate brown with wasabi or sage or even lime green.

Let me know when “Ernie finally completes the transaction of his sole and gets on with life as a monster” is posted..

Yo Ernie, you must be out of the loop. Kirstie Alley is out and Thom from “Queer Eye” is in as the spokesperson for Pier One. I’ve seen the commercials already (well, they’re playing them over here on the east coast).

Oh, and if my opinion means anything after everything you’ve read above, go with taupe. You can’t beat taupe with accents of cranberry. I’ve recently designed a blog with those colors and it works very well.

I don’t know how easy it would be to handle on a daily basis but I think the purple and yellow is hot.

Purple and orange would be equally as pleasing.

I constantly get people on my website looking for seventies decorating tips thanks to a blog post I once made with scans from a 1977 home decorating book, so if that is your style, I’ll save you the clicks through the search engines (I’m first hit anyway) http://www.easternblot.net/blog/index.php?p=259
(No, my house does not look like that, though I wouldn’t mind if it did. I like red and brown!)

OMG U GUYS TOTALLY FORGOT PURPLE AND PINK

Okay, after much careful thought, I’ve got the perfect decor solution for you, Ernie.

[French accent]
First of all, forget the blue. Blue is all wrong for you! Go with a Safari theme… Accent with leapord prints, zebra prints, tiger prints… throw pillows and rugs. It will be beeeeautiful!
[/French accent]

Perfect for a hip gay guy! My gay friends, Paul and Tom, have a similar decor, and it looks awesome. Classy and fun! Happy decorating…

go totally goth. use black paint to scratch out murder scene figures (you know, the lines left when someone chalks around a murder victim) and then paint blood red over it, so it looks like you have bodies suspended. etch black scrollwork that comes out from the corners, and hang gargoyles from perches. the other wall should be sky blue, with puffy white clouds. the ceiling? cover it with astroturf, and screw in a table and patio furniture, upside down. (always wanted to try that.) the third wall, of course, will house the wall-size terrarium. it’s 2 inches deep, and houses a vertical maze and a motley arrangement of mice, all dyed with fluorescent colors. (when you turn on the blacklight at night, the mice all glow in the dark, which is really cool.) the remaining wall? leave it white, so that you can pull a beaten chair against it and sit, amazed at the wonderland that is your entertaining room.

in the middle of the room, of course, will be the kiddie pool.

i’ll be pretty upset if this reaches 100 comments without ernie posting a new entry.

Actually Rajan, you pissed me off enough where I *won’t* write for a little while. I don’t get pissed off that often, but *THE* way to piss me off is to write comments that are equivalent to “not funny enough,” like my life is a personal sitcom. That personal weblog entry where you talk trash about me is a nice touch as well.

Ok, on second thought, my life *is* a sitcom, but it’s 1) not a sitcom 100% of the time and 2) I’m not your personal court jester. If I *was* everyones personal court jester here, I would be charging a subscription fee for LYD. Which I’ve been thinking about now that more and more bloggers has written books or have gone mainstream.

Awwww, don’t punish all of us for one guy’s faux pas!

Hi, I am a new reader to your site and have enjoyed your writing a lot. Today I am just writing with the news that mine and all typepad sites have been banned in China.

Another blow to free speech and freedom of information in my country. I just want to pass on the news. It won’t be reported in the news media for sure.

It’s a sad day.

Yan

You’re a classy guy Rajan. Just doing my part to get this thread to 100 comments! See, I can be a jerkwad too! Hurrah!

My future deco plans: Each room inspired by a classic VG. One room will be Mario World 1-3, a Sonic room (where I’ll keep my spraypainted blue hedgehogs) and maybe a maze like Pac Man room with motion sensors that output sound: WAKKAWAKKAWAKKAWAKKA.

If Ernie starts a premium service (LYD PRO!) i WILL pay it.

I would be willing to pay a fee to read LYD. As long as I continue to personally experience some of what becomes entries for free.
There. I said it.

Why not ask one of the Mac guys at work? They are bound to have some lovely design ideas for you!

Ernie, you’re the best. Knowing that there are folks like you out there makes this world a better place already!

P.S. World has been pretty shitty lately.
P.P.S. Oh right, my comments. Go with a white living room with apple green accents. It’s refreshing and an instant pick-me-up.

You’ve probably painted already, but if ya haven’t…what about a jade color?

Hello Kitty rules.

My sister painted her room a light (not sky) shade of blue. It turned out to be a really refreshing color, when paired with white (not blinding white, though). But I have to say that what color makes people feel certain ways are entirely individual. So what would you like to look at for a year or more? Just my two cents

Do what I did, I used my movies/matrix obsession to make an awesome living room. I painted one wall to look like the hollywood hills sign, and the white is the shimmery color, and it looks awesome. the other walls are covered in movie posters, and there are director’s chairs and other “movie props” to complete the room, the hallway leading away from that room is done in a matrix theme that the walls are black, with shimmery green code going down the walls. Between code, there are the movie posters, and little matrix figurines hanging from the wall fighting. (the twins and morpheous, neo and the agent)
My bedroom, you walk into it and all the walls are painted to look like “Starry Night”
My kitchen, complete Mickey mouse.
My bathroom, the blandest of them all, pastels and Van Gogh and Picasso paintings.
I’m all about theme rooms!! Have fun painting.
Just don’t let the friends do it drunk, or you will end up like my gay friend, a room with three white walls, and one focus wall (purple, green and orange)
Keep up with the awesome posts, and if I could be as intersting as you, I would be set for life

maybe you should hire a feng shui master to help you out….that way the place would be be “energetically” good and the colors would come together based on the energy and improve the flow of the whole place! i’d offer you some tips but all i know is to paint your front door red — it’s suppose to bring you prosperity.

PURPLE AND YELLOW! NO CONTEST!

I painted a room blue and yellow a long while ago, and I SO regret that I haven’t chosen purple instead of blue ^^

Then again.. apple green and yellow? Hm…

I like the Eddie Bauer. Stick with neutral.

Keep your walls gallery white to bring out the colors of the paintings and posters you choose to display. You can change these anytime and they will always look their best on white. Colored walls create a mood that is fixed and unchanging, can get boring if you chose wrong colors, but if you set the mood with wallhangings you can have a fresh look anytime. Keep the framed Tom of Finland over the couch so you can drop him down off the peg when the parents drop by. Or leave him hanging out, what the hell.
White is great for graffiti too and you can always get more white to repaint without hanging to bring in a paint chip to have matched paint mixed up. (It never matches)
Go white, young gay man.
Second choice, Nala’s Red and Gold fake Chinese restaurant as long as you can get some red velvet whorehouse couches.

feng shui definitely…get the scheme according to the energies…and don’t forget the stock options.

Hmmm, many are matrix-obsessed, so a black background with a myriad of green characters deserves a try. You could hide secret messages within that nonsense, and while away your life reading your walls.
Others are elfic-obsessed. A good combo would be: matrix + lordoftherings. What about an answering machine evoking sth. like: “welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson”.
Now seriously…burnt sienna would do it.

hey now, i LOVE ORANGE but im straight — straight eye for the queer guy!?

The good thing about using orange is that when someone compliments you for using orange you can roll you’re eyes in disgust and say

“It’s not Orange it’s “Soft Pumpkin”
just a thought.

i have been looking for just a plan of a leapord theme bedroom i can go by i it sends me here to all this blah blah blah