M Carlson Blog

As the temperatures start to drop, M Carlson’s exterior painting projects start to unwind as well.  We are quickly fulling our clients exterior needs and are extremely thankful to those clients who are patiently awaiting their interior projects to begin.  The holiday’s are coming quickly around the corner, so if you too are contemplating a fresh new look to your entertaining areas, now is a great time to contact M Carlson Painting.  We book up quickly for those projects that need to be completed before all your family and friends come to celebrate Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas and New Years.  We also understand the stress of home improvement, so in effort to make these projects go more smoothly plan ahead and get on the schedule now!

We hope everyone is enjoying this wonderful fall and looking forward to seeing you indoors!

The M Carlson Family

A Few Quick Updates from M Carlson Painting:

First and foremost, thanks to our wonderful web designer, Brent from Flicker Creative, M Carlson Painting has just launched a NEW website.  We are very excited about this change, we hope our past, present and future clients find this site easy to navigate and full of great information.  We welcome any feedback!

Secondly, speaking of great information, sign-up to receive our quarterly Newsletter.  You will find this has everything from great decorating tips from interior designers, interviews from professionals in the industry about trends and for fun we update you on what is going on personally within the M Carlson Family.  Sign-up take on a few seconds.

Finally, our blog can now be easily found on our home page.  With some help from our newsletter writer, Karen, we will be posting helpful quick tips in the painting world, new products that are of interest and all types of fun free ideas to freshen up the color of your living spaces.

Hope this fall is filled with a warmth of colors!!

The M Carlson Family

Listen to Matt on Around the House radio show.

Around The House Interview

So it is January, it is cold and a warm cup of coffee (or coco/tea of course) would sound so nice. Well, lucky for you readers of the M Carlson Blog we happen to be giving away gift cards to Starbucks for simply signing up for our quarterly newsletter. Still not confident about this commitment, just take a peek at the newsletter on our website. We have designed this newsletter for our clients in the hopes you will recieve helpful design tips, cleaning tips as well as stay connected with what is going on in the M Carlson family.

Hope to see your name on our next email blast! Until then stay warm and have a cup of Joe on us

The following article is an excert from the Home Owner’s Resource Guide. I feel that our readers could benefit from these great tips on how just a touch of color can spice up your living environment.

To read more interesting tips on how to improve your home go to http://www.homeownersrg.com/

Painting Tips From Hirshfield’s: The Power Of Color

How To Put It To Work In Your House
Whether you are redecorating or settling into a new house, never underestimate the power of COLOR to transform rooms, create moods and alter ambience. In the Twin Cities, no one knows color better than Hirshfield’s. With 110 years of decorating history, this family-owned and operated business offers an unrivaled selection of paints and wallcoverings, fabrics and window fashions. And at the core of every fashion statement, design scheme or decorating plan is color. It’s what breathes life into a 100-year-old farm house, multi-level townhome or spacious suburban rambler. According to the color gurus at Hirshfield’s, it’s not all that difficult to take advantage of the power of color in your house. But it does take a dash of daring and some basic knowledge regarding how to utilize color to your advantage.

According to Hirshfield’s and The Paint Quality Institute, here are some of the ways you can tap into the power of COLOR:

Manipulate your sense of space with color.

For example, you can make a small room appear bigger with light monochromatic colors and a white ceiling. (Monochromatic colors are different tints of the same color – such as, different shades of green are monochromatic.) Light colors reflect more light (real or artificial), giving the impression that the room is open and airy.

• If you have a large overly-spacious and impersonal room, reign in the space with dark bold tones for the walls and an even darker ceiling. Consider using dark warm colors such as reds, apricots and golds. These are colors that people find comforting and intimate. • Another tactic to visually shrink a large room is to divide the wall space horizontally with a chair rail. Paint the upper and lower portions different colors. You could also add texture to the walls by using sponging or rag rolling techniques. This will help shrink the room even more.

• Do you have a low ceiling? Paint vertical stripes on the walls to visually raise the ceiling. Your stripes do not have to be sharp contrasting colors. They can be stripes of the same color but different gloss or sheen. Or, the stripes can be monochromatic. Another trick is to paint the ceiling darker than the walls. This will help to lower the ceiling. A particularly effective trick is to extend the ceiling color down the wall about 6 inches. This wide paint molding will do a great deal to visually lower the ceiling.

• Do you have a narrow hallway or a long thin room? Use color to “square it off.” Paint a dark color on the narrow sides. Paint a light color on the longer walls.

• Pay attention to sun exposure. Use warmer hues (reds, golds) in a shaded and north-facing room. Use cool color tones in a sunny southern exposure.

• Give your entire house a more cohesive look by using paint colors between adjacent rooms that have some relationship.

• Painting an entire room? The more area you cover, the more intense the color will seem. If you are painting a solid wall surface, consider selecting a slightly lighter color value. But whatever you do, be sure to put some color in your decor.