Art deco furniture and decorative pieces blend functionalility and lavish accoutrements.
Sleek, cool, functional, bold, industrial, smart -- the adjectives go on and on to describe Art Deco furniture, designs, fashion, and color-schemes. The Art Deco movement (1925-1940s) borrowed colors from nature and industrialized Europe and American landscapes and applied them to both functional and romantic art and design. Art Deco houses in the '30s and '40s displayed muted greens, creams and ruby reds highlighted with chrome and gold details. When coloring a house in the Art Deco style, consider mixing natural hues with the color of machinery.
Instructions
1. Architecture, exterior and interior designs from the Art Deco period show playful design mixed with functional application.
Browse through Art Deco furniture. If you're lucky enough to already be surrounded by chunky, sophisticated, square or rotund furniture of the Art Deco period (1925-1940s), you have the ideal color-scheme in front of you from which to base your house color choices. If not, take a gander at a yard sale or flip through a local garage or estate sale selling vintage Art Deco furniture. Examine the colors of those lipstick red vanity tables and glossy-brown and cream inlaid-wood cabinets. Snap a few photographs to capture the color patterns. Note how the colors work together. Take these color samples to a paint store to see which colors you can whip up for your home.
2. Pinks, greens and pastels plus solid designs characterize the Art Deco movement.
Study Art Deco artwork. Flip through a color photography book full of Art Deco artwork or take a trip to a gallery or exhibition focused on Art Deco artists. Select colors for your house that complement those the artists used: tawny autumn shades, muted greens, muddy pinks and eggshell blues. Or borrow the robust pastel and solid colors found in work by artists Jean Dunand, Michel Dubost, Gustav Klimt and Séraphin Soudbinine.
3. Shades of green define the Art Deco movement.
Note the greens. In any photograph of a 1930s office, home or living room the predominant color is green. Jade, Chinese, juniper, foam, mint, sea, fern -- all of these natural but slightly muted greens invaded the Art Deco period. Sort through paint samples or through Art Deco catalogs to find the greens you would like to use. Add beige, brown or small amounts of blue, pink, black or silver to tranquilize that natural green into a more industrial shade.
4. Pick through costume jewelry, like Bakelite. The 1930s and '40s brought costume jewelry fashions that emphasized Hollywood glamour. Visit any antique shop and ask for jewelry made of Bakelite, one of the first synthetic plastics. Choose colors for your house that mimic these eccentric bracelet and necklace colors. Load your home with blood reds, amber tones, gold and chrome details, creamsicle oranges and clear emerald greens. Where possible, apply these practical but enjoyable colors to exterior shutters, eaves and doors.
5. Cocktails exemplify Art Deco technique.
Study choice cocktail recipe books with color images of mixed drinks. Those ice cubes, round- and square-rimmed glasses, and sunlit-colored whiskey -- stirred or shaken with a metallic mixer -- create an Art Deco living room in a glass. Borrow those earthy colors, translucent touches and metallic hints found in olive-plopped martinis and add them into your home's color-scheme.
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