Hue Are You? with Meredith Heron
Hue Are You?
Designer Spotlight: Meredith Heron
Ever met a redhead that is full of life, confidence and verve. Well of course but you have never met this redhead who is a bold and fearless with her color palette and its use in interiors. I don't mean crazy wild with color but calculatingly bold. She is Meredith Heron from Meredith Heron Design in Toronto Canada. Both a renown designer and a past host of an HGTV design show, Meredith pours her passion into every design project whether she is working in NYC, Naples, a lakehouse or a ski chalet. I can't wait to hear how she works her magic with color so here it goes .....
Susan Jamieson: What one color represents your design style?
Meredith Heron: WOW! Tough, tough, tough answer to give. I had to ask my team and they are a bit stumped too because I embrace colour so fervently in our work.
Indigo is my go to Neutral because it is universally flattering. I also use a deep Mallard Green (which has a ton of blue in it) as my other MUST use colour. I painted my husband’s office in this rich hue and am about to do a high gloss kitchen in it. I look best in jewel tones so I tend to design around these - does that make me incredibly vain or do I play to my strengths at work and in fashion? On the flip side, I am pretty passionate about certain pastels. I love a Smoky Iris - not blue, not grey, not mauve but a healthy mix of all three. And I use certain shades of blush as a power colour - again universally flattering, paint it on a ceiling and BAM you don’t need that plastic surgeon just yet.
““ I SEE MYSELF AS A STORYTELLER, CLIENTS HIRE ME TO WRITE THEIR BIOGRAPHY BUT NOT WITH A PEN BUT RATHER I WEAVE THEIR STORY THROUGHOUT THEIR HOME “”
SJ: Do you use color as a dominant role in your designs or as an accent?
MH: I’m known for using colour - a lot of colour but I’m judicious in it’s application/allocation. I love for example, to use colour on my custom millwork, especially in a high gloss lacquer and I routinely paint the room out to match the colour of the millwork to make the room feel bigger - tricks the eye when you don’t see stops and starts. I also use bold colour/patterned marble on as many surfaces as a client will let me. Wallpaper too is usually a statement making aspect of a room’s design in my world and fabrics all have colour and pattern in abundance. However, many of our rooms are paler walls with colourful fabrics or my custom area rugs. Artwork too is often where we bring a huge dollop of colour. So I don’t think I use it as an accent per se because our colour choices are very deliberate and bold but they don’t necessarily hit you over the head as soon as you walk into the space. I really enjoy designing rooms that reveal themselves to you, layer by layer each time you visit. You get more from the subsequent visits… love a room with a few secrets too.
SJ: How do you feel about matching colors in a room?
MH: I am a woman and a designer with many opinions that I’m not afraid to share and one of these is that I am religiously opposed to Matchy Matchy. I go out of my way to purposefully and skillfully UN-match colours in a room. They relate, they have to, but if all the shades of green in the room are the same, the room feels fake, forced and well amateur. Nuancing a colour palette in the room is a lot like nature. If you look out your window you’ll see hundreds of variations of green and they all work together. Knowing which ones to combine in a room together and how that combination will play out as your eye drinks in the room is a skill. I have it. I also go out of my way to include what I call “Some Ugly” in a room. Again, it’s a tactical decision to break up a space that looks too perfect, too in unison - I want some tension. That’s what makes a space feel lived in and fully appreciated.
“MY POINT OF VIEW AS A DESIGNER IS THAT OF A STRONG FEMININE - IT IS MAXIMAL. MORE IS ALWAYS MORE.”
SJ: What color represents your personality?
MH: I’m a redhead - you want me to just pick one? If I wear Cobalt or Emerald green I am stopped in the street by strangers to comment on how striking my outfit is. I’ve also learned to embrace that I look good in an Acidic Citrine too - I always thought any variation of yellow was verboten for me but I was proved wrong. Same with Fuchsia. I tend to prefer cooler hues though. My living room used to be accented with Pomegranate and Blush but it was too warm for me so I switched it to Smoky Iris, Citrine and a deep mossy green with cobalt lamp shades in my foyer and that feels decidedly more like me.
SJ: What color comes to mind when you talk about:
Your Favorite City .........
MH: I love Rome and Florence - when I think of Rome I think of Putty - the colour of stone walls and Florence I think of the green in the Duomo.
The House You Grew Up In .........
MH: I moved A LOT as a kid but I always remember this Palm Frond Wallpaper my mom had in our kitchen. It was mossy green on white. Ironically I have a Palmetto Palm wallpaper in my foyer in black on white that is SO much like this paper my mom had. You do become your mother it would seem.
The Last Fabulous Dinner You Had ...........
MH: We had the best meal of our lives in Hakone, Japan at Nobu. I mean it was mind blowing. I think of a Japanese Maple Leaves - that burnt red. We arrived in the middle of a typhoon and when we left, the rain had stopped and the trees were all lit up. It also reminds me of Tuna Sashimi - OBSESSED.
Your Favorite Flower .............
MH: Lilies are my favourite flower for their smell and I love to include them in client reveals because the scent is so evocative and happy to me. I prefer the citrine ones that are a white/yellow/green ombre.
Your Favorite Season .............
MH: I used to think Fall was my favourite time but it may now be spring. I love when the deep violet Irises come up on our lawn or my clematis comes back to life. I’m so proud that I have enabled the clematis to thrive and each year when it comes back I’m so proud.
Your Favorite Piece of Art ...........
MH: My husband and I both are photographers and we travel a lot so for sure our own photos are my faves - we have a huge photo of our son Luke when he was 3 blown up in our dining room. It’s a shot I took when he was in the Atlantic Ocean and all you can see is his white blonde curls and this cobalt blue plaid shirt he had on which stands out against the grey sand and the rushing water of the ocean.
“AT MEREDITH HERON DESIGN WE CONSPIRE TO EXCEED EXPECTATION”
Your Favorite Room in a Home .........
MH: I never have a fave room going in to a project. To me the favourite room reveals itself to me at the end of a project - kind of the way you know which wall feels right to have your bed against. As for having a favourite project/room that we’ve done - that’s like picking which kid you love the most. I’m always thrilled with Navy or Deep Green rooms though. If you want a deep saturated room design, I’m your girl.
Your Favorite Beauty Product ............
MH: I have this miracle mineral spray exfoliator that literally removes your face and gives you baby fresh skin (I’m not using it at the moment because I just returned from Mexico and I have a tan that I’m trying to keep!). It’s in a parchment and charcoal package. Love that combo. So chic. I’m not giving away the brand, I don’t want it to sell out. HA!
Your Favorite Article of Clothing ...........
MH: Now you want the Sophie’s Choice of clothes? I love blue denim is a particular medium -dark finish. Not too dark, not too light. I know it when I see it.
SJ: Name a Color You Never Use?
MH: Anything Tan. If you have a yellowy-beige undertone, GO AWAY SATAN!
SJ: Name a Color You Use Frequently?
MH: My living room is painted Benjamin Moore Full Moon, We use a lot of White Dove OC-17 oh and I love SOOT also from Benjamin Moore.
SJ: If You Could Pick a Name for a Color What Would It Be?
MH: You’d think I’d be good at this but I always relate colours to something easily identifiable and I’m not very pithy about it. Mallard Green speaks to me because I can see the feathers of the duck and know that that is the green I’m after. Maybe I’d be better at this if I had a drink.
SJ: Do You Have a Pet? What Color Reminds You of Him/Her? Do You Have a Nickname For This Pet
MH: Currently Pet Free and rather happy about it however, I used to have two redhead cats Dave and Lil Red. They were orange tabbies and they were the BEST! They sort of looked like they were white but had rubbed themselves in Cheezies (they were both huge fans of Cheezies too I mean I think, hypothetically - who would feed their cats Cheezies after all?)
“REPETITION, WHILE ESSENTIAL AS A DESIGN ELEMENT, CAN QUICKLY MAKE A DESIGNER BECOME PREDICTABLE. I WOULD HATE TO BE PREDICTABLE.”
SJ: What is The Now Neutral?
MH: Navy or Blush are power neutrals - Strong Feminine is sexy.
SJ: What is Your Prediction for the Next Big Color Trend?
MH: I see that fabric companies are trying to bring back sand/gold/beige and spa blue/jade green and I’m decidedly NOT a fan of this. I’m sticking with my favourite rich saturated hues and their tonal variations. I think as far as trends go though, painting out all trim and millwork to match the walls is on trend vs contrasting. It’s a great tip if you are on a budget and don’t have the money to replace casing and millwork to something more Wow. Make it disappear and use an interesting colour to do so. I’m SICK of seeing white on white on white with a little grey or walnut thrown in. So bloody dull and without merit.
SJ: What Are the Best Color Combinations?
MH: The best colour combinations are the ones that move your eye around a room and help to tell the story. I’m a professional story teller. My medium happens to be interiors. Finding the touchstone moments in a room and using these to generate that story and highlight/feature the personal vs contrived focal points really speak to me. I love connecting rooms through repetition of colour too. A wall colour in one room becomes a major furniture piece’s ground in the next and so on. It feels thoughtful. The colours themselves come out of this. I choose the wall colours at the very end when I’m being pressured to commit. Until then, I’m constantly revising and editing the design to improve the story.
SJ: Best Advice When It Comes to Picking Paint Colors?
MH:
Paint should be picked last.
Don’t decorate around a $40 can of paint - changing the wall colour isn’t going to make your tired, outdated and ugly sofa suddenly look better. Change the sofa and then pick your paint.
If you are on a budget pick one colour and paint everything that colour, put your sofa in that colour reduce contrast.
If you are going to go for a more dramatic colour, stay away from vivid colours and opt for your blue but look at more saturated or greyed version of it.
Pink and Yellow get 20% brighter on the wall so look at whites that have a hint of the hue you are after…
Never let your child choose their paint colour outright - let them participate give them a choice but you preselect the choices and let them choose from there. Barbie Pink IS NEVER A GOOD CHOICE nor is SUPERMAN BLUE for walls.
