Matching the decor - stories

[framechick]

I just read a thread in which Audrey's signature "I don't care what color your sofa is" was the subject of heated debate. The fact of the matter is that I don't much care what color it is either but have to contend daily with people who have invested quite a bit of time and money in choosing their sofas.

People bring swatches and paintchips all the time. I've also seen drawers and cabinet doors, faucet knobs (would you say this frame is pewter or nickel?) wall sconces, chunks of crown mouldings, lamps, and a rather large unevenly cut piece of sheetrock with the pattern the client was having painted on her walls. (it was she who introduced me to faux as a verb, as in "I'm having my walls fauxed")

What have people brought you to match?

[Charles Lowry]

Framechick, Janet can tell you the color-matching stories, but I have a suggestion. Go to your local video store and rent a copy of, "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House". It's an old '40's movie with Cary Grant and Myrna Loy. There is the most hilarious scene in it where Myrna Loy is describing, to the painter, what colors she wants. It's ROTFLMAO funny!! Try it, you'll like it. It's also a good old movie for dissipating stress after a bad day. It's one of my favorites. Let me know if you see it.
Sorry to get out of the thread a bit, but that movie's worth it. Carry on.

[Audrey]

IMAGINARY COLORS.

This may not sound as bad as a chunk of "fauxed" wall, but it gets really old. I get women in all the time who have some color in their heads that they INSIST I try to approximate, but words like "beige" and "off-white" are apparently dirty to them. I get, "Well, it's kind of...eggshell? Maybe with a bit of taupe...almost a linen...perhaps a bit more wheat?"

This is not a Talbot's catalog, for God's sake. I don't even think they know what color they're thinking of; they just like watching me dump my entire mat collection on the counter, only to ask me, "Does anyone ELSE carry mats? In a BIGGER selection?" We carry Bainbridge and Crescent; I really don't think any other shop could do any better. *sigh*

So it's a draw, Framechick, between the women who want the EXACT shade on their paint chip--which won't even match their eventual walls!--and the women who have some mythic color in their head that I spend two hours trying to find.

Not to mention I think trying to match your wall paint with your mats kind of defeats the purpose of mats....WHY NOT FLOAT IT?

*groan*

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I don't care what color your sofa is.

[Kit aka emrr]

GRAMMAR ALERT!!! GRAMMAR ALERT!!!

Faux is NOT a verb; craft is not an intransitive verb; scrapbook is not a verb.

Thanks, I feel much better now.

I agree that it can be frustrating to play 'guess what color I want the mat to be'. (Aren't you glad you don't work in a paint store?) When customers seem to be heading in that direction, I usually suggest that we forget about the mat. I mention that the whole point of custom framing is that the customer gets to design the frame he or she wants. Then I start stacking frames. Most people find this a new concept and personally, I love the look. One of my favorite combinations is a big gold Castellano, Florentina for color, and a gold fillet. Once they've gotten over that shock of "all pictures don't have to be matted" you'll be ready to move them on to the idea that frames don't have to be the same color on all four sides. Isn't this fun? I love it. http://www.thegrumble.com/framer/ubbs/cool.gif Kit

[FramerDave]

This reminds me of the people who, when looking at mats, will turn it over and look at the name of the color. They invariably say something along the lines of "Well this won't work, it's aubergine. I'm looking for more of an eggplant color" despite the fact that it's the exact color that would work. The fact that you could call it sheep dung and it would still be the same color seems to escape them. This also applies to antique white, eggshell, bone, ecru and sickly white.
Ahhh...customers. Can't live with them, can't shoot them with tranquilizer darts.

[Audrey]

I had a very annoying, condescending woman bring me a pillow from her bedspread, and an old Windberg that was matted in this truly horrible peach colored mat. She had just gotten married and she was "updating" all her husband's "salvageable" artwork.

Trouble was, the creamy linen mat that I suggested for the print--it looked fabulous--was "a little too buttery" compared to her "sour cream colored" bedspread. (Maybe she was hungry.)

I pointed out that we didn't have a mat that would EXACTLY match her pillow, and that in cases like this, it's best to complement the artwork; the print was not even hanging over her #### bed. LOL

She was determined to force a color on the print that would match the pillow--SHE KNEW BEST--and I gently informed her that if she felt this strongly, she should either get another print, or leave the current one on it; either way, forcing another odd mat on the picture would be a waste of money.

She went with the original linen, and as I'm ringing her up, she snaps, "God, I just CAN'T believe how hideous that peach mat is! Why would ANYONE put that mat on that artwork? It doesn't even GO AT ALL!"

And I couldn't help informing her that THAT is what happens when people try to force a color on artwork that doesn't work, in order to match their decor. "Take it out of the room you framed it for," I said, "and it doesn't make any artistic sense at all, does it?"

She agreed, rolling her eyes at other peoples' stupidity.

Totally unaware that I had just described what she'd spent the last forty-five minutes doing.

http://www.thegrumble.com/framer/ubbs/biggrin.gif

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I don't care what color your sofa is.

[Janet]

I've had a woman bring in a sofa cushion, along with photographs she took of all the walls in a sunroom because she wanted to frame her (now grown) three son's baby portraits to hang over the sofa. 25 year old photos of her babies. One child was dressed in bold primary stripes, another was dressed in pale green plaid, and the final son had on a navy romper suit. There was no way I could talk this customer into allowing me to frame each photo individually to be hung in a hallway, her bedroom, or even better yet, in the room that each grown son & wife use when staying back at her homeplace. I made a trip to her house trying to prove my point. But in her case, she enjoyed reminding me that "the customer is always right." So, I'm now in the process of putting these 3 photos in one large frame to hang over that sofa that does not have ANY of the colors in any of the photos. I only pray she will not tell anyone that I did this framing job. I really think anyone seeing it will be so shocked at the sight that they will be speechless and never begin to think about who could have done the framing.

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How cheap do you want it to look??

[PAMELA DESIMONE,CPF]

One thing I find helpful when people are matching colors is to bring out a piece of glass to place over the mat board. The glass always changes the color, sometimes just enough for a perfect match. To those of you carry Bainbridge and Crescent only- I also carry Miller. Miller has colors B & C don't. Also, all their colors, including black core, are available in 40x60. I resisted carring Miller for a long time, I didn't think I needed another mat company. I was wrong. It sells as well as Bainbridge.

[carladea]

All the above and so much more! Many times, when people ask for colors such as "Taupe" or "Mauve", I simply fan out a bunch of reasonable colors and let them show me what exactly they mean. Not all "Taupes" are made the same! Some times you can spend forever just picking out the right White!
And "Cherry" frames--I'm convinced I don't have a clue what Cherry really is!

[po' framer]

Hey, Janet

Maybe you can have Charles get some stickers made with your best competitor's name on them and keep them handy for an occasion like this!

[framechick]

Kit - I hope you didn't think I meant that I thought faux really is a verb. . .

Charles - Mr. Blandings. . .happens to be one of my all time favorites. I especially like when she adds so many rooms that the upstairs is bigger than the down.

Now, my latest color disaster:

I work alone many days. On one of those days a client came in while I was already helping someone. She proceeded to help herself to samples. She was framing scanned reproductions of portrait photos (see another thread) with a very yellowish sepia hue. She chose a pink moorman suede (sorry, don't recall the name)and a dark distressed frame with gold beads (LJ Giotto). Two different people who work with me came to me during the process sure that I had gotten the mat number wrong. It really was dreadful. The client picked it up today and couldn't have been happier. Phew!

[Kit aka emrr]

Framechick - of course I NEVER thought that YOU thought ... You just accidently stumbled across one of my soapboxes. The gerunds are bad enough but the verb forms drive me crazy.

How does everyone else feel about customers helping themselves to corner samples?

Never mind - that should be a new topic. Kit

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Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana

[Charles Lowry]

Kit,we had a problem with gerunds in our perennial beds. We called in some action verbs, and the only thing left were dangling participles. Now, if I could only, and I do mean only, get rid of those pesky comma splices!!

Janet won't let me deal with customers. I only recently found out that I'm color blind. Imagine my surprise, when, after 50 years, my wife tells me I'm color blind. I just overcut openings and snicker when one of 'those' customers comes in.

[MerpsMom]

Ooooo..........another linguaphile: love it when that happens. Charles, consider yourself on the alert list. It gets you nowhere and you can do nothing about it, but the honor has some merit. http://www.thegrumble.com/framer/ubbs/smile.gif

[Rick Granick]

Many of the instances of cluelessness described in this thread remind me of the joke about the person calling to order a Medium pizza, and wanting it cut into six slices because he "couldn't possibly eat eight".

Our most difficult-with-colors customers are a couple who collect panda prints. The husband always wants to put bright red, pink, or orange into the design, even if (as usual) it has no relation to anything in the art. He frequently requests the TOP mat to be 1/2 to 3/4 inch wide, over the wider mats. Mouldings are another story too. The wife has pretty good taste, and always takes our side when we try to offer reasonable-looking solutions. The inter-spousal conversation, however, seems to indicate that they have already spent a great deal of time at home discussing these matters, and applying some kind of predetermined "rules" to the design process which only they can understand.
They ARE long-time customers, however, and they DO spend money with us. So we just grin and bear it. Then when they leave, we grin again.
;) Rick

[Janet]

I've always been a person who deals alot with color as in years past, I was a buyer for men's & women's clothing (seems like another lifetime ago). Anyway, at some point in time, I realized that alot (PLEASE NOTE THAT I'M NOT SAYING EVERY) of men appear to misjudge colors when they turn about 35-40 years of age. Unfortunately, I am married to one of those men. I learned years ago, not to ask Charles what he thinks is the best shade of blue to coordinate with another blue or the same thing with red. Sometimes we enjoy riding around on Sunday afternoons and checking out the landscaping of different homes. Charles will always call purple flowers "blue flowers". He even describes fuschia as blue. I always correct him although recently I've wondered why I bother.

With so many other wonderful qualities that Charles has, color blindness is insignificant just as long as every mat has a color name and number. He needs only to concern himself with the numbers. His mat cutting is improving. Pretty soon we may even be able to use one of his mats in a framed piece. LOL

The real reason I have to keep him in the framing room is that Charles will ACTUALLY tell a customer the things most of us WANT to tell a customer when they ask a stupid question. That's another whole thread!

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How cheap do you want it to look??

[Mitch]

I just finished a nightmare

The customer's daughter had glued hundreds of beads, violet and pink onto a 20 by 30 piece of foam board. The design was taken from the stylized flowers on a shower curtain. I was to stretch two layers of a pearlescent netting over the beads before adding glass and framing. This was to make the "art" look like the shower curtain.

What will I do next for a dime.?

[lise]

I can be empathic to the shower curtain dilema. In our first six months of business, a friend of a friend came to me with a project he had worked on for the past few years. He was a spaceship enthusiast and had meticulously drawn out an entire spaceship plan of two levels with multiple control panels with about 100 little circles and squares (1/4" diameter)and joystick crevices. He wanted to create it in 3-d and wanted me to trace and cut out his design on matboard.

Well, this is embarressing, but being so cash poor I would have jumped through hoops to make the rent. Thank God I took a deposit because I got halfway through, and he left town.
I'm sure that meticulously hand-cutting all those little buggers is the cause of an arthritic matcutting finger.
LOL!!

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Lisa Kozokowsky C.G.A.H.
Frameswest Inc.

[framechick]

Another decorating non-verb verb:

A client came in today to price a mirror for her closet that has just been "California Closeted"

[Audrey]

What about those annoying, bossy women who insist on "helping" your current customer? I can't count the times that I've been knee-deep in a great design, and some bored woman wanders over and says, "Oh, I think GOLD would look FABULOUS with that--I wouldn't EVER use a darkwood....and why not a pink mat with it? It would bring out the little lines at the edge of those tiny clouds in the background...."

And then the customer, who was perfectly happy with the design we'd been working on, starts to second and third guess it. Who to believe? The girl behind the design table, or the overdressed woman practically dripping perfume and expensive jewelry? http://www.thegrumble.com/framer/ubbs/wink.gif

And there goes another hour. *sigh*

And don't even MENTION people who help themselves to the corner samples. "Oh, you don't mind if I just wander around back here, drop all your samples on the floor, get in the way, and annoy your customers, do you? I know I don't work here but that shouldn't matter, right?"

http://www.thegrumble.com/framer/ubbs/smile.gif

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I don't care what color your sofa is.

[framechick]

How 'bout when the customer you're helping says "I'm not sure" and turns to another customer and says "What do you think?"

And the second customer never happens to be one of the ones that just drops off work trusting you to pick something stunning.

Grrrrrrrrr