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Written by Kate Smith
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 Whether restoring an historic home to its former glory or sprucing up a teen's room, I think you'll be inspired by the palettes full of colors from California Paints.
Colors inspired by the Historical Homes of America
California Paint gets a thumbs up from me when it comes to providing colors inspired by the historical homes of America.
Working with Historic New England, they have created a guide to color, style and architectural periods so you can easily see the color schemes associated with different periods in American history.
I like that you can see the colors three ways:
- Arranged by hue for easy comparisons
- Associated with various architectural periods, or
- On the 83 historic structures restored by the Newport Restoration Foundation in and around Newport, Rhode Island.
Palettes full of unique, fun color names
For me, the most fun aspect of this site is the uniqueness of their color names. In the Tween and Teen Zone palette, for example, you'll find colors like Knock First, Lighten Up, and Grounded for Life (names any parent can relate to). Be sure to check out the creative color names in the specialty palettes
Their schemes and inspiration section offers a limited library of nice photos to flip through and they recently launched an Online Color Center, a set of media-rich online color tools that enable you to interactively create unique and personalized paint color schemes.
You can now easily view California’s colors by navigating the interactive fandeck or virtually leafing through the electronic color cards. Their color mapping technology makes it easy to search for colors and suggest schemes based on color science and theory.
Having a particular paint problem? The Problem Solving Page will help you identify and give you tips on how to solve your painting problem.
California Paints recently launched a color blog. It is updated weekly and the entries are nicely done.
Go directly to the company website: California Paints.
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Home & Garden 
Kate Smith, founder and contributing editor of Sensational Color is a color expert, strategist and 
