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"   Elaine Barron&amp;#039;s love of color infuses not only the wonderful prize-winning quilts she creates but every room in her house.  Here are some of her tips for using color in the home: \u2022 Inject color with art and other accents. Rugs, in particular, can be filled with color. \u2022 Create harmony with a palette of colors with similar tonal values. &amp;quot;Once you learn about colors, you realize they all go together if they&amp;#039;re the same tone,&amp;quot; says Elaine. \u2022 Be aware of the effect of different colors on each other. &amp;quot;Colors change when you put them together with different colors,&amp;quot; Elaine says. &amp;quot;If a green has a lot of yellow in it, for example, and you put it next to a purple with yellow in it, the juxtaposition will change its look.&amp;quot; \u2022 Remember that the brightness of the colors in one room has to be the same. &amp;quot;I would not make a quilt with bright jewel tones and then stick in some matte-looking colors or muted colors,&amp;quot; she says. The same holds for elements in a room. &amp;quot;If you start with jewel tones, keep along that line, either light or dark.&amp;quot; Up Close with Elaine What are your favorite colors? Green, orange and purple. Basically, green is my favorite color. I&amp;#039;m usually into the autumn tones and sometimes they&amp;#039;re bright. I love color and that&amp;#039;s why the house is so colorful. What are some of your favorite sources of inspiration? I just look around and see everything as a quilt. All my stuff has an Asian touch to it\u2014I see a fabric and I love it and it turns out to be an Asian fabric. I&amp;#039;m totally untrained. It&amp;#039;s from the heart. If you could use only one word to describe your style what would it be? Eclectic. What are five things you can&amp;#039;t live without? Family, family, family. And my dog, Phoebe. And friends. What&amp;#039;s your favorite time of day? From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Usually, it&amp;#039;s warm or sunny; the weather&amp;#039;s usually the best then. It&amp;#039;s bright\u2014but it&amp;#039;s not good for photography, which is another hobby I have, although I&amp;#039;m completely untrained. I take all the photos when we travel and frame them. There&amp;#039;s a whole wall of them in the family room. What are your pet peeves? People who take things for granted and who don&amp;#039;t laugh at themselves. And houses that are &amp;quot;decorated.&amp;quot; Everything in this house is functional; nothing is just for decoration. How does your love of handicraft influence your decor? I will not buy art or accents if I can put a quilt up. My goal is always to put the least expected colors together. Elaine Barron, a self-taught quilter with an admitted passion for color, gladly took on the project of decorating the coastal Massachusetts vacation home that she and her husband, Albert, enjoy all year round. Over a hundred years old, the house had seen its share of wear over the years, most recently as a rental property, before the Barrons bought it. But its waterside location and open spaces more than made up for its rough edges, and the couple welcomed the opportunity to warm it up and make it their own. Before refreshing the rooms, Elaine and Albert added a porch and a large deck, but they basically left the original floor plan in tact. &amp;quot;This is a place with open spaces and it can sleep an awful lot of people,&amp;quot; says Elaine. The latter was an important plus for the couple, who have a grown son and daughter and entertain guests frequently. Parties with up to 35 people are handled in stride. So in decorating the rooms, the goal, Elaine says, was to create a sense of warmth and welcome. &amp;quot;We wanted people who visit to feel comfortable here, therefore the rooms are casual,&amp;quot; she says. But the spaces in the house are also very personal. Elaine&amp;#039;s philosophy of decorating is simple\u2014a house should &amp;quot;speak of yourself.&amp;quot; In her case, the vocabulary is color. &amp;quot;I wanted to put something together that you wouldn&amp;#039;t expect so that, in this way, the house expresses myself,&amp;quot; she says. In the living room, for example, where a kilim rug served as the starting point for the color scheme, the walls are a custom color\u2014&amp;quot;a magenta-like red with a purple undertone,&amp;quot; says Elaine, who conceived of the color and painted the walls herself. &amp;quot;It was a rainy day,&amp;quot; she says, &amp;quot;and I looked at the rug, held it in my mind, went down to the paint store and, I think, drove the people there crazy, because I didn&amp;#039;t get enough paint and they had to keep remixing it.&amp;quot; To keep costs in check, many of the furnishings in this room, including the white slipcovered sofa and upholstered chairs, were recycled from the couple&amp;#039;s other house, while one of Elaine&amp;#039;s handmade quilts\u2014a colorful &amp;quot;picture&amp;quot; of the house\u2014holds pride of place over the fireplace, adding both character and charm. Atop gleaming hardwood floors, other patterned area rugs\u2014from the new striped rug with burnt sienna, yellow, black and off-white hues in the entry foyer to the Oriental with cream and turquoise blue tones in the dining room\u2014set the tone for the color scheme in other rooms, too. &amp;quot;Some are old, some are new, but they&amp;#039;re all beautiful and they bring all kinds of colors into the house.&amp;quot; says Elaine. &amp;quot;Color is the warmth that makes people feel really welcome and comfortable in the house.&amp;quot; Many of the original furnishings in these spaces are old, but they mix cozily with new pieces in what Elaine calls an &amp;quot;eclectic&amp;quot; style. And every room is complemented by more of Elaine&amp;#039;s award-winning quilts, including an exquisite three-dimensional Asian-style floral above the bed in the master bedroom. While the rooms feature a variety of palettes, each space is balanced thanks to Elaine&amp;#039;s seasoned eye. &amp;quot;Any colors can go together if you get the tone right,&amp;quot; she explains. And each room includes at least a touch of her favorite color, green\u2014from the hunter-green countertops in the kitchen to the bright grass-green walls in one bath. While color unites the house, most shades tend toward complex autumn hues, and none are stark. &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t like black and white, my personality and my husband&amp;#039;s personality are not black and white,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;The colors in our house express passion and variety\u2014everything is color.&amp;quot; Click here for the resources. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elledecor.com/design-decorate/interior-designers/a1380/a-quilters-home-of-simple-pleasures-48581/>