Putting Sizzle in the Splash

Greece, is one of the most beautiful countries in the world! Whether you have had first-hand experience, or are a screen-top dreamer, you will agree that the gorgeous beaches, blue waters, and white-rimmed sand are extraordinary. This was the inspiration when Hands On Painters was engaged to paint the Five Oaks Swimming Pool diving board base in Catonsville.

Five Oaks was originally built in 1931 and was a public facility until the 1950’s when it incorporated and became Five Oaks Swimming Pool, Inc. It is one of the oldest in Baltimore with one of the last high dives in operation. The dive was transformed by using a Grecian-inspired blue. “I like taking the use of color to the next level. Nothing is wrong with a white or silver base but the blue is really striking,” states Jonathan. “I can’t imagine a better color for an outdoor summer diving board.”

The Family Room – Organic & Modern

When you close your eyes and picture the perfect space for feeling at ease, it’s no surprise you might be thinking of the family room. It’s a warm and welcoming place where memories are made, and everyone feels at home. As we’re looking for ways to give this sacred space the style it deserves, we’re taking a look at how the organic modern trend is taking over.

Modern organic living room with exposed beams, minimalist furniture and neutral colors.
Featured Colors: Mystical Shade SW 6276 (Walls), Cool Beige SW 9086 (Ceiling), Angora SW 6036 (Foyer)

WHAT IS ORGANIC MODERN?

We’re warming up to a look that doesn’t belong to one design style, but three. When the clean lines of modern decor and the natural elements of bohemian design come together, they create a unique look. It’s a pairing that’s cozy and inviting, making it the perfect fit for family rooms and living rooms. Add a dash of minimalism to create an organic modern space where beauty and function go hand in hand.

ACHIEVING THE LOOK

Simple shapes and sleek silhouettes are the foundation of any modern style. When you’re looking for a softer touch, throw pillows and woven knits create an inviting and elevated combination. For an extra dose of earthy charm, bring the outdoors in. Adding greenery is one of the quickest ways to breathe life into your room.

Living room vignette featuring a floating cabinet Room is full of neutral colors and natural materials.
Featured Color: Angora SW 6036

An except from TINTED A Blog by

New Life for Old Basements

Have you forgotten about your basement over the winter? Well, it might be time to make the old look new again. This is the place the laundry piles up and the yard furniture has been stored. What about the muddy boots and Fall/Winter decorations that are piled up?
Spring, is the perfect time to renew or re-invent your basement/cellar into something that is fresh…a play area, hobby room, or storage space. Warm up your basement without spending big bucks on a fancy “club” basement. We specialize in renewing old and historic basements. We will take the time to transform your space from something cold and utilitarian to something warm, inviting, and modern.
Simple touches like cleaning up the ceiling with a coat of paint, and making sure your utilities, and doorways have a uniform color can make a world of difference. We use quality water blocking primers and finish paints that will prevent interior and exterior moisture from penetrating your basement walls resulting in that damp musty smell. The result is a uniform, quality finish that blocks moisture, reduces odors, and turns your basement into a comfortable usable space.
Contact us to discuss STORAGE SOLUTIONS, DUST CONTROL, PAINTING FLOORS & PIPES, LAUNDRY SOLUTIONS & MODERNIZING.

We are proud to have won Angi’s Super Service Award for the 15th year!

We are proud to announce that we have earned the home service industry’s coveted Angi Super Service Award (SSA). This award honors service professionals who have maintained high service ratings and reviews on Angi in 2021.

“These outstanding businesses have helped homeowners not only maintain their homes, but also evolve them into spaces that can handle life, work, school and entertainment under one roof,” said Bryan Ellis, senior executive at Angi. “Our homeowners’ consistent positive reviews make it clear: these are the top pros in our network. Congratulations to this year’s Super Service Award winners.”

Angi Super Service Award 2021 winners have met eligibility requirements. Pros on Angi qualify for the award by obtaining 3 or more services-performed reviews in the previous year, maintaining a current and lifetime GPA of at least 4.5+ stars. The SSA winners must be in good standing with Angi and have undergone our verification/screening

“We are happy to announce that we have won the 2021 Super Service Award from Angi again this year!!! We are proud to have won this award a total of 15 times!

Service company ratings are updated continually on Angi as new, verified consumer reviews are submitted. Companies are rated in multiple fields ranging from price to professionalism to punctuality.

For over two decades Angi has been a trusted name for connecting consumers to top-rated service professionals. Angi provides unique tools and support designed to improve the local service experience for both consumers and service professionals.

What’s New in Restaurant Paint Color Palettes and Design?

Forget starched white tablecloths and muted palettes. Today, restaurants are designed to entertain, to surprise, to create Instagrammable moments — and color plays an essential role. Branding, mood, day-to-night ambiance and the personality of the chef or owner all give a restaurant its custom look. We spoke to nationally known commercial designers to discover the trends they’re creating.

Natural Materials

Natural elements like wood and slate are very popular right now, according to Hannah Weiner, interior designer at Phase Zero Design in Boston.

“The trend is to create cozy, rustic, authentic spaces that lend an almost ‘mom and pop’ feel,” she says. “The effect is created by starting with 85 percent of neutral colors — mostly black contrasted with grays and whites. Once that neutral palette is laid, pops of color are added on accent walls, banquettes, upholstery, pillows and wall décor to give the space a warm feeling.”

Muted Pastels

Tanya Spaulding, principal at Shea Design in Minneapolis, sees restaurant design color going from an industrial, dark and heavy vibe to a lighter, more colorful one.

“Designers have been using gray as a primary base for restaurants for a while now, but I’m seeing that transform into muted pastels instead,” she says. “Incorporating these colors into smaller areas, like on a private dining room wall or on pillows, provides energy and life to a space, and can easily be updated every few years for a fresh look and feel.”

Plants

Another trend restaurant designers are seeing this year is the incorporation of indoor plants.

“Biophilic design — a way to connect people in a building to nature — is very popular right now,” says Alicia Kelly, senior interior designer at Studio K in Chicago. “There’s a new emphasis on sustainability and nature, so designers are using leafy greenery, succulents, air plants and trees as essential elements.”

Beyond Trends

Restaurant designers pay attention to what’s trending in dining décor, but most focus on creating a custom experience for the brand and the space.

“We actually like to avoid trends and go with what is unexpected,” Kelly says. “It’s more about creating a mood and telling the story of a particular chef or owner. Colors create feelings and energy, so we focus on the atmosphere first, choosing colors that can evoke the mood for daytime or nighttime dining.”

Weiner agrees, noting that not all restaurants can be designed in a cookie-cutter way. “Many of our clients have strong identities already,” she says. “So our job is often to use their brand colors in a unique way to create the atmosphere they want to achieve.”

How Do You Get out of a Color Rut?

Trying to pick a color for a painting project? You look online to see that the latest color trend is the same old color. (Grays, anyone?) It doesn’t take long before specifying the same colors from project to project puts you in a color rut.

Encourage yourself to break free of the same-old, same-old can seem like a tough task, but there are effective methods to help expand your tastes and for you to stretch your palette.

You never know where you might be color-inspired. Heading outdoors is a great place to start — landscape and sky views offer soothing, unexpected color combinations. You might also visit museums and historic houses; they are rich with masterful color combinations.

Discovering unusual color combinations in rugs, textiles and other personal items is another straightforward way to reflect your tastes. And you might also consider alternative inspirations, such as capturing the colors of your favorite city or taking in the eye shadow wall at a makeup store. When you can describe the color inspirations used in your home or business to friends and family as clearly as you can envision them, it’s a sure win.

The end of another year…boy time flies!

Although it will take some time to fully “recover” from the effects of this pandemic, we are getting slowly back to a new normal. It is hopeful to start celebrating with family and friends this holiday. Please know that the deadline to get painting done before Christmas is December 15th. So, if you procrastinated (we won’t judge) click “yes” below and we will have someone contact you right away!
Now, as we move into our slow season we’d like to offer you 10% Off winter interior painting. This discount is ONLY valid in the months of January, February & March (sorry we cannot offer in December or for existing contracts). When “life” happens…we are here to prepare, repair or refresh your home (or business). Thank you for being part of the Hands On Painters family of friends and customers!
So, from everyone at Hands On Painters, I’d like to say thank you for your continued loyalty and trust.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Zawacki

Color for Difficult Spaces

An excerpt originally published in STIR®

Rarely is a room perfect. Low ceilings, soaring walls, odd angles, no windows, oddly configured corners – the list of common obstacles goes on. It’s sometimes easy to forget that spatial and functional challenges can often be solved with color. Here are some colorful suggestions to help you deal with pesky decorating dilemmas.
  • A room with no windows. Lighter colors – especially yellow-tinted paints and textiles – help reflect the light you’ll need in a room without windows. Painting the trim white and using white or light-colored furniture will also help throw the light around, as will reflective surfaces, such as glass-topped or mirrored furniture and mirrors hung on a wall. And to help “bring the outdoors in,” consider hanging some prints depicting nature. Landscapes and outdoor scenes that include windows and doorways lead the eye outward, creating the illusion of added space and light. And above all, make sure you install top-quality lighting.

  • A long, rectangular room. To counteract the bowling alley effect of a rectangular space, divide it into functional squares, which are actually easier for the human mind to integrate, says designer Mark McCauley, ASID. How to break up the space? “Use a large plant at the point of demarcation, large artwork, or a bookcase or curio,” he says. These items will divide the space into two halves, each having a separate function; for example, dining room for eating, living room for conversation and TV watching. If you’d rather have the room serve a single function, but you want to give it a more squared-off appearance, paint the two narrower end walls a darker color and the longer walls a light color. This will create the illusion of wider end walls and make the room appear more symmetrical.

  • Oddly shaped room. You can physically change the proportions of an oddly shaped space with built-ins. Not only can built-ins hide construction errors, but they can serve as interesting focal points while also providing extra storage. To draw attention from a sloping ceiling, uneven floor or a misplaced corner, place a colorful area rug in the center of the room to draw attention away from the periphery and create a central living space.

  • A low ceiling. Put down a darker floor covering, be it a wooden floor, carpet or tile. Paint the walls with a lighter color than the floor, or use light-colored wallpaper. If you can, use white paint for the ceiling, since this always gives the room maximum light and instantly draws the eyes upward. Hang wall art featuring strong vertical lines, which give the impression of height.

The Surprising Relationship Between Spices and Paint Color

By Amanda Lecky

If you’ve ever been inspired by the rich red of cayenne or the intense gold of curry while cooking, you’ve reacted to the natural pigments found in spices. In fact, it turns out that when it comes to color, spices and paint share an ancient history.

The chemical compounds that give spices their vibrant colors tend to fall into several categories, including chlorophylls, the greenish pigments that all plants contain; carotenoids, the red, orange or yellow pigments that give paprika, saffron and turmeric their brilliant hues; and flavonoids, the yellow pigment found in cassia cinnamon, for example.

Plants use these different natural pigments to help capture the energy of sunlight for photosynthesis and to attract insects and animals to aid pollination and seed dispersal. And for centuries, humans have also adopted natural pigments — many of them derived from the same spices they used for their native cuisine — to add vibrant organic color to their surroundings. The paint used in 50,000-year-old Persian cave art contained saffron, just as classic Persian “Jeweled Rice” does. And the same turmeric cooked into a Tibetan curry also gave Buddhist monks’ robes their golden hue.

Today’s synthetic pigments have made it easier to surround ourselves with these earthy hues — and tap into our instinctual appetites for color.

“Spice tones create in us a very visceral connection to color. They’re rooted and anchored, they come from the soil — which is very comforting,” says Sue Wadden, Director of Color Marketing for Sherwin-Williams. “Of course, if they’re bright — like a cayenne-pepper red — these colors can be stimulating, so you have to decide what kind of effect you want when you’re deciding where to use them.”

 

 

EPA Lead Certified – Did You Know?

Did you know, Federal law requires all contractors performing renovation, repair or painting projects that disturb lead-based paint in homes, child-care facilities or schools built prior to 1978 to be certified and to follow specific work practices to prevent lead contamination?

Hands On Painters has completed the certification process and has been trained by an EPA-accredited national training firm. Team members are trained in; Regulations, Prep Work, Dust Containment, Clean-Up, Record Keeping, & Job Site Supervision

If you have a building that was built before 1978, make sure your contractor/painter is EPA certificated!