Inside design: Jane Hall

Jane Hall lives and dreams in full Technicolor. Her business name sums it up nicely: Jane Hall It's All About Colour. Jane, an advocate for the boutique paint line C2 Collections of Colour (distributed across North America by independent dealers), started out as a visual artist and frequently found herself advising clients on what colour to paint the walls behind her canvases. In the 1990s, she began painting fabrics and creating her now-signature line of painted furnishings. In 2001, she opened a full-service interior decorating business, and from her downtown Toronto storefront she guides clients through colour, fabric and furniture choices. STYLE AT HOME asked Jane to share her expertise on bringing the best of colour into our homes.

S@H: It seems to us that lots of people want to bring colour into their homes, but few have actually taken a chance and done it. Would you agree?
JH: Yes. I gave a speech a few months ago, and I asked the audience to raise their hands if they like colour in their homes – 75 per cent raised their hands. Yet when I asked how many actually had colour in their homes, only 20 per cent raised their hands. It's odd to me that we fly to the Caribbean, buy expensive coffee table books, take photos of bright objects because we're drawn to their colour, and then paint our homes taupe. I hate taupe – a mixture of brown, black and white – it's like living inside a dead mushroom! Most people are just so deathly afraid of making a mistake.

S@H: But a lot of people do make mistakes with colour. What are some of the most common?
JH: Part of the problem is that there are these mythologies around colour, like painting a small room a dark colour will make it appear smaller. I can tell you right now that painting a closet white is not going to make that closet appear any bigger. Now, how you light the room will make a difference in the perceptible size. If you have a solitary 16-watt bulb illuminating a darkly painted room, then, yes, it will look closed in. But light it well, and the room will open up and bring the colour to life.

Another myth is that a colour will get darker once painted on the walls. Most people will get a paint sample strip with, say, six or eight tones on it, choose the colour they really like and then buy one tone lighter. In my experience, the truth is that paint colours get lighter once on a wall, and that surprises most people. So many people paint a room, are dissatisfied with the results and then say, “But this isn't the colour I chose.” I'll hold up the sample, which is an exact match, and tell them, “No, it's just not the colour you wanted.”