If you don't know how to decorate, it's not everybody's
skill. If you don't know how to style,
what you can see is OK. My bathroom is dated.
Oh, my kitchen is ugly? OK, I need to RIP it out, right?
But in a lot of cases, both of these spaces just need some
creativity. Maybe the countertop needs to be
replaced, like maybe it's the backsplash.
Maybe we just need to paint the cabinets too.
And but in a lot of cases, you know, I think a lot of people
would be so much happier if they had like a decorated living
room. As I'm looking at these
submissions that I'm getting from people that, you know, are
like, hey, come to my house and do a one day makeover, It's like
everybody has a Gray, the Gray world.
Like everybody's got like a collection of Gray furniture.
And that's and on the other hand, like nothing brings Gray
to life faster than color. You can easily add color to an
all Gray room and totally bring it to life.
You're now listening to Design Curious, a place where you,
creative one, are here to learn about what it really is like to
be an interior designer. And I'm your host and mentor,
Rebecca Ward. If you're worried about how to
succeed in a creative career, if you're ready to learn your next
steps to become an interior designer, and if you want the
satisfaction of doing something you love every day, you are in
the right place. Grab a coffee, a notebook, and
let's dig into today's episode. Hello, and welcome to episode
186 of Design Curious Podcast. This week on the podcast, I am
interviewing Maria Killam. I was very excited to have this
interview because I have been following her for years and she
is just, in my mind, the color expert of all the industry.
Maria is an internationally recognized color expert, design
educator, and the creator of Groundbreaking System for
Understanding Undertones. For 17 years, she taught
homeowners and designers how to create timeless, beautiful
spaces through her blog Color Me Happy, her E Design services and
her globally attended True Color Expert training.
Known for her straight talking, no nonsense approach to color
and trends, Maria is passionate about helping people to stop
making costly renovation mistakes and instead create
homes filled with joy, art and personality.
I know you're going to enjoy this conversation with Maria.
The one episode I did about color way back and was very
popular and I know that people are hungry to find out more
about how they can really understand color because it's
such a part of the design process.
So I think you'll enjoy our interview today.
Let's talk with Maria. Hi Maria, welcome to Design
Curious podcast. It's great to have you on today.
I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me.
Yeah, me too. I was just telling you that the
color episode that I did a while back was one of our most
popular. So I know that people are hungry
For more information on color, how to select it, how to
understand it. And so that's why I sought you
out and asked you to come on the show because you are the color
expert in my opinion, so. Yeah, well.
Let's talk about how you became this expert.
Where did you start getting into the world of color?
Well, I was in a corporate job. I was the sales manager in the
hotel industry and I just kind of got into it.
Just, I don't know, I don't even remember how I got into it at
this very moment. But it's just corporate and it
wasn't creative. And I had been decorating my
friends and family all through my 20s.
So then I started doing some personal growth and development
training through Landmark Education.
And the background of that training is every single course
is always asking the question, are you living your life
powerfully? Are you living a life that you
love? And I was like, no, thank God
not doing other one of those things.
Oh no, That was in my early 30s. At this point, I decided I'm
that's it, That's it. I'm just going to do it.
I'm just going to like quit my job, which I actually would not
recommend that you just drop everything and start a start up.
And that's basically what I did. And I put an ad in the Yellow
Pages and the ad said we use what you have to create
affordable, incredible interiors at the bottom.
I wrote expert color consultation.
Well, the ad worked and went in, someone called me and she said
I'm looking at all these beiges and I see that, you know, some
have like pink undertones and some have green undertones.
Can you help me with that? And I said absolutely, I had no
idea what she was talking about. And of course I decided, well, I
bet, of course she didn't hire me.
And so I decided, well, I better figure this out.
So I found a five day color course in San Francisco led by a
woman called Joanne Day, who I'm sure is long retired now.
That was 28 years ago now. So I flew down, I painted for
five days and I decided I was going to be an international and
color consultant. I came back, I wrote it on a
sticky note, stuck it up on my mirror and basically, you know,
it's like, who knew I would get there through writing A blog
called Color Me Happy, which I had still write twice a week.
So yeah, I've been doing that for 18 years.
I started writing my blog in 2008.
So there are a lot of people that use my content as a total
and complete resource for their new build and their renovation.
You know, every question they have, I had someone e-mail me
the other message me. And then she's really like, I'm
just looking because, like, I can't.
I'm doing a commercial hallway. And I just want to know, like,
which Sheen? And then I didn't respond right
away because I was in a meeting. So then a little while later,
she sent me a note. She goes, oh, don't worry, I
found it on your blog. I'm like, Yep, that's how it is.
So yeah, So then started writing my blog.
And the world changed after that.
And I just was convinced up until that point that maybe I'm
just going to be broke forever. Maybe I'm going to have to marry
money in order to have it. I started writing my blog and
that's when the world changed and now I have a 7 figure
business training and teaching homeowners and designers how to
choose paint colors, how to choose finishes for everything
in the home, how to do that in a timeless way.
I think one of the reasons why people, they find me because
they're looking for paint color and then they, one of the
reasons they stay is they're intrigued by the whole timeless
conversation because nobody talks about that.
You know, most designers are just like going to trade events,
for example, like they want to get up on what's trending so
they can put that in their clients homes.
And my philosophy is very different from that.
So, so that's that's kind of long, but.
Anyway, Well, yeah, so then you took that course on color and
then just started did did you fall in love with color?
Did you like? I did.
With you like because I. Totally did.
Yeah, they can't see those undertones sometimes and I
think. Well, I mean, yeah, Fast forward
after I did that, I started working at a Benjamin Moore
store and then I started painting up these 8 1/2 by 11
boards, which I still sell on my website today, a collection of
50 neutrals and whites. And it comes with my
understanding undertones, color wheel that I invented.
Yeah. And so I started to do color
consultations using those big boards because that's what she
did. You know, what I learned in this
course in San Francisco was that she would paint up these huge
boards and leave them in people's homes.
Well, I couldn't do that. So I started painting up the
bigger samples. And you can't actually make the
correct choice in the minutiae of the correct and most useful
neutrals unless you have a big sample to compare.
Like you need to be able to pull out those big neutrals, pull out
a range to go, oh, OK, yeah, this is pink beige, not green
beige. Oh, this is, you know, taupe,
not Violet, grey. Because the minutiae of useful
neutrals is really small and finite.
Because one thing I noticed when I was doing color consultation
after color consultation, I mean, I've done now I've been
like, really, I've been in over 20,000 homes now in my career,
like virtually and in person. So what I've noticed is all the
good neutrals were always like, they always came back to the
same ones. Like I'd walk into someone's
house and plunk down Manchester Town and again, that would be
the right color. That would be the right one.
And I'd be like, OK, really. Like there's a system here.
So that's how the system was kind of born was because I just
noticed like which neutrals I was using over and over and over
again. So color is actually way easier
than people think it is. I mean, and it's not designers.
It's not their fault nobody learns practical real world
color in design school. You learn a little bit of color
theory, which is not useful at all.
Nobody actually walks into anyone's house and says, I think
I'm going to do a split complementary triad here.
Like, no one's doing that. That's not the way that you use
colors. Right.
Yeah. So yeah.
So you have a color wheel of neutrals, which I think is
really handy. Are those then your favorite?
Yeah, so these are they're, they connect to like 50 neutrals and
whites, which basically are light, are the light to darks.
But so each section has a range of light to darks of the most
useful ones. And they're in the same like
range of value as well, right. It's not like there's three
wildly different green beiges, like they are the same from
light to dark. So, you know, they're just the
ones that whenever you need a green beige, whenever you need
like that pink beige, you pull them out of the collection.
Basically, when you have my collection of 50 samples, they
just pick the color for you. It's a no brainer.
So yeah, I mean, and beige is back and as you know.
Right. Yeah.
And when I started thinking about beige being back, I
thought it's been 16 years officially since beige has been
back. So there's a lot of designers
that have had a really good career already, like a good run,
but have been choosing all the cool Grays and whites for 16
years. So I mean, they're going to be
rusty on the world of beige and well, that's where that's when I
where I come in, right. So yeah.
OK, so you have this grasp on the neutrals colors, but I'm
sure when you're decorating and advising on color, it's not just
everything neutrals, right? You're.
Incorporating color. So talk about that.
Yeah, so I'm the neutral queen, but I'm also the color queen
because the other part of my training, this is the part that
I actually learned in San Francisco, which was super
valuable, and that is that all colors can be described in three
ways. They're always light or dark,
clean or dirty, cool or warm. And so clean and dirty is
actually, once you understand that distinction, like if
anyone's been reading my blog, they would have kind of gotten a
sense of it. But you really go deep on clean
and dirty in my courses and that's when you really
understand how how to create flow, how to create that
cohesion that everybody wants from one room to the other.
And people are afraid of color like they just are, especially N
Americans are just wildly afraid of color.
So my job, you know, what my goal is in this world is to just
bring more joy into people's homes.
That's and that's the other thing I'm doing with my I've
recently rebranded my YouTube channel.
So now I'm doing this decorator renovate one day makeovers.
But basically it's to show that people are so like, because a
lot of people, if you don't know how to decorate, it's not
everybody's skill. If you don't know how to style,
what you can see is OK, my bathroom is dated.
Oh, my kitchen is ugly. OK, I need to RIP it out, right?
But in a lot of cases, both of these spaces just need some
creativity. Maybe the countertop needs to be
replaced, like maybe it's the backsplash.
Maybe we just need to paint the cabinets too.
And but in a lot of cases, you know, I think a lot of people
would be so much happier if they had like a decorated living
room. Because I'm looking at these
submissions that I'm getting from people that, you know, are
like, hey, come to my house and do a one day makeover.
It's like everybody has a grey, the grey world, like everybody's
got like a collection of grey furniture.
And that's. And on the other hand, like
nothing brings Gray to life faster than color.
So boom, you can easily add color to an all Gray room and
totally bring it to life. That's what I love to do.
Like, really, between you and me, like if I could just style
homes all day long, that's what I want to do.
But I can't make enough money doing that yet.
I want to be as Mr. Big in the world of one day makeovers
because they're so fulfilling. And that's funny because that's
how I started. I started my business called One
Day Design. I was moving furniture around
and doing these one day makeovers.
And now I've come full circle 25 years later and or 28 years.
Oh my gosh, like I'm 58. Yeah.
So 28 years later, that is what I'm doing now on my channel.
So yeah, I'd love to show how you can really make a room come
to life with color using or even a neutral room can come to life
with texture and contrast and interesting shapes.
And those are the things that you need to keep in mind when
you are decorating A neutral room.
So yeah, so color is definitely, there is a trick to picking
color that's actually way easier than picking a neutral.
Like you don't really need the big samples as desperately as
you need the bigger samples in neutrals.
And I teach people in my courses how to do that.
So, yeah, what I need to learn, Rebecca, is simplifying my
message a little bit. You know, not only can I
decorate your house, but, you know, I can style it and then I
can pick all the paint colors for it, and then I can help you
pick all the finishes for it. And by the way, I'm obsessed
with fashion as well. I can help you with that.
And by the way, I have a fabulous garden.
I can help you with that. Like it's I'm doing too many
things I think. Multi passionate A lot of
creatives are so. It's hard.
Hard to streamline. Yeah, well, the listeners can't
see all the color that I'm looking at right now.
Talking to Murray. Just got a gold sweater, coral
necklaces and green curtains in the background is just so
colorful. And I love the way it all comes
together. So we do talk a lot about
timelessness, and there's the mindset that goes around that,
and I'm sure you train designers how to do that, but you talk a
lot to homeowners about that, too.
What are your top tips, I guess, for creating a timeless space?
Because it seems like as a designer myself, I think most
clients I talk to, they're like, oh, I want it to be really
timeless. But then they tell me all these
things that they've seen that are trending that they want in
their home. So.
So how do we approach timelessness?
I actually think, and this is one of the things that I tell my
students that I encourage my students to do, is to take all
of the things that are trending right now.
Because what happens with every trend, Like right now we're
moving into the warm neutral English country kitchen trend
and that's what everybody wants. And we're throwing up because
we've gone from like, we actually have been doing a
little more of a like, it's been easier to sell timeless through
the Gray trend than the black and white trend because
everybody was just doing like white marble.
Yes, that is a timeless countertop. 10 years from now
when everyone hates Viola marble because they've seen it
butchered in so many, many, many homes and builders are doing it
so badly, everybody's going to hate it.
They're going to hate it. Right now, most people, you
know, all the celebrity designers are doing it
beautifully. They burkas and all the things
you're like looking at and people grab on to those, to
those inspiration photos and then they go shopping.
But the problem is that they're on a big budget.
They start making purchases based on the budget.
And I just posted this yesterday on my Instagram, right where
somebody can, oh, here's my 12 by 12 Viola marble tile that I'm
going to throw up in my bathroom.
But the one that Nate Burkett's dead is a full slab, so it
didn't end up busy and blotchy and nasty like the one that you
end up with because your budget became a factor.
About a year ago, a little more than a year ago now, I met Brent
Hall who wrote Where is this book?
I actually have it on my counter building a timeless home in an
instant age. And he said that beautiful
design has been kicked to the curb and the homeowner goes out
shopping and they end up making all these choices based on their
budget. And The thing is, is that people
say timeless. It's like a loosely thrown
around word, as you were saying, but when the homeowner isn't,
they're not in the business, right.
So when the homeowner starts to become aware of design, it's
when they're start, they start working on a project.
So then they start, you know, and maybe they're at their
friend's house or maybe they go travelling and they go to a
hotel and they start to see like, OK, like they start to see
that they look at the world from a different lens because the
lens they're looking at it through is, OK, I'm doing a
renovation. Like what do I want it to look
like? So then they think that because
the trendy neutral always seems like it's, it's totally
timeless, right? Like black, white.
Oh my gosh. I mean, doesn't every room need
a hit of black totally timeless until it's completely overused,
until it's the only hardware choice that anyone slaps on
their cabinets in their kitchens and their bathrooms.
I was just looking at one yesterday.
A designer or somebody, a follower had sent me this, a
kitchen that was all white countertops with like a pink
beige stain on the cabinet. So she's like, why does this
bother me so much? And then there was these 6 inch
black poles, like from out of nowhere.
There was no black in his kitchen, but it had black poles.
And that's exactly what happens. The trends get big and then
everybody adopts them, but they don't know how to take them and
put them in their house. So then they just throw in
what's trending. Like right now everyone's
starting to do is they put in the Viola marble shower, then
they put in the pink beige floor.
But the pink beige in no way relates to the Viola marble.
But beige to people is, is they see that number one, they see it
as neutral and #2 pink beige looks kind of creamy when it's
on a small scale until you install it.
And wow, now I got pink beige floors and pink beige is, is
always the default neutral in, in the beige trend, right?
Just like taupe was the default neutral in the great trend
because taupe is warmer than all the Grays, but it's cooler than
all the beiges. And so there's always a default
neutral that everybody chooses. And then that's how their house
ends up being a hot mess. So if you follow my advice,
which is to keep your finishes, you know, in the world of like
whites and creams and now you can like, you know, maybe a
little bit of black and white, like a little black and white
small scale tile, like some basket weave in your bathroom,
like and introduce it and sparingly.
Now you can change up your bathroom or your kitchen
whenever you want. You can just paint the walls,
You can replace the wallpaper like it becomes a thing of joy
and beauty forever. Instead of what people are doing
right now is they're throwing in everything because the trend,
the pendulum has moved from black and white and and
relatively simple, unless you overdo it with the black to now
we're back to like Taj Mahal and Viola marble and people are
craving like warmth and they and the and we're back to pattern,
big busy patterns. So we're right back to the
Tuscan trend when everybody put in property and tile everywhere
with a gold countertop. First of all, that was a flash,
right? But that became the default
kitchen of the Tuscan trend and bathroom.
And it was done wrong over and over and over and over again.
And that same thing's going to happen now.
And it's happening, starting to happen already, like, and you
know, and that's how the cycle goes.
And then the next homeowner hates their house.
Or if you live in your house long enough, you then hate that
trendy stuff he put in because you're married to those bossy
neutrals. Forever.
Forever you have to work with you get a big blotchy countertop
in your kitchen like. You're stuck with that color
scheme forever. There's nothing you can do.
And so you like it in the beginning, but then after the
trend is over now I hate it. So yeah, that's and that's how
the cycle goes and everything gets thrown in the landfill.
So really what I teach is sustainable just because it's
timeless. People talk about sustainable
design, but what's sustainable is not having to renovate every
10 years. That's just more sustainable
than anything else. Yeah, 'cause it made me think of
also wood stain colors where like there was a time when red
mahogany floors and cabinets were all the things.
You can't do a lot with that. It has to stay so warm with your
paint colors and everything. That's a challenge.
So making sure that you go with more neutral stain colors, you
can do that's all. Yeah, you know, make it
timeless. That's right.
Yeah, totally. Wow.
Yeah. And I think probably underlying
all of what you just said is that the homeowners need to
recognize that they should get an expert on the job to help
steer them away from just grabbing those trends that they
don't know how to implement properly.
Yes. 100%, yeah. I mean, we work with clients, my
E design department and I, there's, I have 5 team members,
color designers and we put together new belts, renovations,
kitchens, bathroom packages for clients all over North America.
So what's different about what I do than what a full service
designer does? A full service designer, they
collect all the samples for you. They design all the middle work
for you, all the picture molding that everyone's in love with
right now. Like a full service designer is
going to do that and they're going to charge you anywhere
from 7 to $12.00 a square foot versus just buying the DIY color
slash finish package For me, like it's the difference is like
$7500 versus $50,000 and more. So you can sleep at night, you
have Peace of Mind, you've got the packages, all the details
all laid out and that is 100%. You got to have a guidepost.
Otherwise you easily will get distracted by the next
inspiration photo you see on Pinterest and then a lot of or
on Instagram and people don't know right now.
I mean, you know, we're getting a lot of AI images as
inspiration in RE design department or people are sending
in primarily AI images. Well, they're like completely
unrealistic. AI does not have your budget in
mind and, and, and it's filled with picture molding everywhere
and people don't even realize why they actually love that
image as much as they do, but they also don't realize how
expensive millwork and picture molding actually is.
But we're moving away from the white box and that's why the
world of traditional design and traditional elements like all of
this molding is now suddenly trending in a big way as well.
I think we had a two or three-year moment through the
Gray trend whenever, when everybody was doing like they
were just slapping up geometric molding on an accent wall and
painting it. That was a thing for a while to
try to add some interest to the white room.
Right? Yeah.
OK.
So what is lighting you up right now as you see creatively or
like if there's a trend that you actually might like that's
coming down? I know we're recording this
early in the year and the Pantone color of the year is
Cloud Dancer, which again is white.
What's your hot take on that? Well, I, I don't actually
understand why white would have ever been chosen.
I think that that trend is done and dusted.
I think that from what I understand, from what I know
about, like what I've been told about one of the reasons that a
new color gets chosen is because people are requesting it.
It's a color they don't have in their deck and they add it to
the deck. But I can't imagine that like a
barely there grayed out white is going to be in that category.
I just think that we've had enough of the white box.
We're like 9 years into the black and white trend right now.
Like that trend is, is over. I mean, we're moving on.
We've, I mean, you couldn't buy a burgundy, throw a pillow.
Like I'm not off the shelf like this Christmas, especially when
Ralph Lauren Christmas started to be like pitched everywhere by
all the influencers. I mean, it's amazing how long it
took actually for burgundy to come in because I've been
pulling burgundy out of dining rooms for decades.
But it's back in again and everyone loves it.
Brown is back, you know, and it took six years for brown to come
back. We had to really forget what it
used to look like in the Tuscan house.
And we 2 Dec 2 trend cycles later, you know, from the brown
trend to the Gray trend, the black and white trend, we're
back to brown. Like, well, we're back to beige
is where we're at. I mean brown, I don't see brown
becoming as big right now as beige.
Is it? Yeah, beige is it.
That's that's what we're doing to warm it all up.
So I'm excited about the fact that color is back.
I'm excited about the fact that beige is back because everybody
will come running and do my work because they don't understand
it. And, and that makes me happy.
And I'm also excited about my when they makeover shows on
YouTube. And yeah, so that's that's.
Wonderful. OK, well then let's tell
everybody how they can learn more from you.
So you talked about your blog and what's the name of that?
Mariakillam.com OK, KILL AM and yeah, you can also find me on
Instagram. Pat Maria Killam Yeah.
And then there's this is coming out in April.
I have a course in Chicago for designers.
Chicago's training is make 14th and 15th, so if you'd like to
Polish up on your color skills and beige skills or you want to
create a side hustle and that's the place to be.
Yeah, Well, definitely, yeah. And I think that you first came
on my radar. A colleague of mine here in
Sacramento, I think, took your class and told me about how she
learned so much about like, reading the undertones because
she was a newer designer and really didn't have experience
with color. And she really appreciated that
class. So that's when I first heard of
you, but that was years ago now. So yeah.
So, but I, I really do appreciate following your
Instagram account and I'm going to check out your YouTube
channel. Everybody loves the makeover,
right? So.
Yeah, for. Sure.
Great. And we'll put all of your
contact information in the show notes for everybody to find you.
But thank you so much, Maria, for coming on today.
Thank you so much for having me. So you're definitely going to
want to check out all that she has to offer.
Links are in the show notes. Maybe you want to just follow
her on Instagram, which is a lot of fun, or take one of her
classes in person or just check out more of her resources for
understanding undertones, which is very, very important as well.
All that for you in the show notes.
And don't forget, we have that webinar replay for you to
download from Passion to Profit if you are interested in that in
the show notes as well. And of course, I would love to
work with you one-on-one in my design mentor if you're looking
for mentorship in the design career.
All right, that's all I have for you this week.
Next week we'll have another great episode.
And until then, stay creative. Thanks for listening.
If you love this episode, please leave a rating and a review.
This helps me reach other curious creatives like you.
If you have a topic request or would like to contact me, simply
head over to my website ourawarddesign.com or e-mail me
at podcast@ourawarddesign.com.