May 11, 2025 • 28 mins
Dean breaks down why color is one of the trickiest design elements in your home. From the science of light and perception, to cultural meanings and psychological effects, Dean reveals how color shifts with light, mood, and mindset—and why that perfect paint swatch can look totally wrong on your wall. Plus, why blue is everywhere… and nowhere.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp The
House Whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio app. I
Am Dean Sharp the House Whisper. I design Custom Homes
and every weekend I'm your guide to better understanding that
place where you live. We want to take your ordinary
(00:21):
house and do our best to help you make it
an extraordinary home. Today on the show, we're going to
tackle one of the most difficult things ever ever in
the world of design, in the world of remodeling, construction.
Updating your home is it is critically important and yet
(00:44):
so difficult, and that is the concept and the use
of color. Color. Color. You would think, all right, Dean,
all right, color fine, Yeah, they're all around us. But
if you've ever tried to do some thing very very
special with your home, if you've ever tried to you know,
like you're at the paint store or at the paint
(01:04):
department at the big box store and you're thinking, all right,
I'm standing in front of this huge board, and these
colors look really good. You get them home, you put
them up on your wall. The samples don't look the
same as they did in the store. Maybe you bought
the sample pint of paint and you roll it around
a little bit and you're like, WHOA, where did all
(01:26):
that green come from? Why is it so pink? Yeah? Color,
Color is a tricky thing, and I'm going to give
you I'm going to lead you along this morning and
give you some tips, some critical tips on how to
get control of the world of color in your life.
What are complementary colors? What's a color wheel. I'm going
to introduce you to a tool that we used about
(01:48):
a ninety nine dollars tool that could literally save your
life and your project when it comes to color. And
I'm going to show you some things about color from
the science things. Now we're not going to nerd out
on science, but from the science side of things that
really you should know so that you can better determine
how color fits into your world and to your home,
(02:11):
into every single wall of every single room, because it
keeps changing. But I'm not going to get ahead of
myself right now. I'm also going to let you know,
of course, we're going to take your calls and our
number to reach us eight three three two. Ask Dean
eight three three the numeral two ask Dean eight three
(02:31):
three to ask Dean. It's just that easy. The phone
lines are open now and there is room for you
on this warm, sunny Mother's Day Sunday morning here in
southern California. Let me introduce our awesome team. Elmer is
on the board. Good morning, Elmer.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Good morning Dean, Good morning listener, Dean.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Yeah, yeah, all right, we got a special treat to
right here in the studio. Matt and Nicky producers Matt
and Nicky, who are going to be taking your calls,
are here. Grab a mic, guys and say hello, a.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Good ah.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Oh there they are there. They are Wait what what
what did you say, Gina? He is giving me hand signals. Oh,
I see, okay, all right, so Matt and Nicky. Uh,
these are the lovely voices. Let me hear your voices
once again, because these are the lovely voices you're gonna
(03:32):
hear when you call in this morning. Adian. Hey, there
you go. Matt and Nicky in studio with us. They
are They've already opened up the board and uh they
are ready to screen your call. They'll tell you everything
you need to know. Yes, that's Lucky the rooster in
the background. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
I wasn't sure if I was hearing him on the mic,
or I.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Think he's in the mic. I think you guys hear
Can you guys hear the rooster in the background?
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Yeah, we can hear him?
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Can you How can you hear that rooster?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Happy Mother's Day?
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Get the hatchet?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
No, I know what you're having for dinner.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
It's Mother's Day chicken. Uh. And of course, my friend
Eileen Gonzalez at the news desk, Good morning, Eileen.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Good morning Dean. How are y'all doing?
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Oh? Good? All right, So it's kind of a warm morning, right,
So what's fueling you today?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
That considered, it's actually water.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
I did have green tea, but oh it was warm
yesterday and I feel like I need extra water.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
See, I had a feeling. I had a feeling. It
just it was just a hunch that it wasn't going
to be tea, at least not yet. But because of
the temperature.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Have you made Good Earth tea? What tea? Good Earth? Good? Oh?
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (04:47):
I love Good Earth tea. I like their sweet and spicy.
That's my favorite.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
That's the one. I just had that last night.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
So you don't even need to put sugar in it's
so good exactly it's delicious and it's good cold too,
as a nice team.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Good stuff. I guess if I do the show now,
it's a show about tea.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Right sitting across the table from me. You just heard
her talking tea with Eileen, my better half, my design partner,
the co owner, co founder of House Whisper, and my
best friend in all the world, by the way, and
a wonderful mother. Tina is here. Oh, excuse you, pardon you.
(05:28):
It's all right, y'all. We have got a great show
set out for you, a very important show. You wouldn't
think that color is as tricky as it is until
you actually need to get something exactly right in your home,
and then you realize, holy cow, what is going on
with color? And why does it behave the way that
(05:50):
it behaves? Am I insane? Did we just? Was there
something wrong with me when I was at the paint
store and I picked out these things? Because when we
got them home and they're just it's just wrong and
it's chained. I'm gonna explain to you exactly why that
happens and how you can avoid it. We're talking color
this morning, and we will do it right after.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
We only do the good kind of stuff on social media, uplifting, informative,
inspiring stuff. Not a lot of it, just enough. We're
on all the usual suspects Instagram, TikTok, Facebook x Home
with Dean, same handle for them all. And if your
home is in need of some personal house whisper attention personal.
(06:36):
What do you mean by personal? I mean me and
t standing in your home, staring at the problem, helping
you figure out how to change the game for your house.
Then you can book an in home design consult with us.
Just go to house Whisperer dot Design, house Whisperer dot Design.
I'm going to give the number out one more time.
(06:56):
We're taking calls in a bit as we do. Eight
three to three two. Ask Dean eight three three the
numeral two. Ask Dean eight three three two Ask Dean.
It's just that easy, all right, Let us dive in.
It's all around us at all times. Yet it remains
one of the least understood and single most difficult design
(07:20):
challenges for most people. That is getting the color right now.
I know, I know, I know your nightmares. I've stood
in your shoes. All you wanted to do was freshen
up the living room, so you innocently hopped into the
car head down to the paint store. Next thing you know,
you're standing paralyzed in front of a twenty foot long
(07:41):
wall of color samples. Behind you, the kid who pushes
the buttons to mix your paint last week she was
working at Forever twenty one. Although she knows how to
operate that paint machine, she has received received exactly zero
hours of color theory training, and therefore all tomate is
of no real help to you except when you're ready
(08:03):
to buy and you're completely overwhelmed. Even if you have
a decorator who suggested a triad of colors for you,
how do you know they're right? Do you even know
what a colored triad is? Do you have one? Do
you want one? Is there a way to check? You're
beginning to feel just a little nauseous now you're seriously
tempted to bolt out of there and give up on
(08:24):
the update, but you press on. You grab a few
samples which seem, you know, eh, kind of good, and
then you head home, only to discover when you walk
them into the room itself yeah, yeah, they don't look
good at all. And that was a long process to
get to something that you don't like. Now Here is
(08:44):
the good news. Human beings can discern over ten million
colors and almost three million distinct hues of color ten
million that you know what, we've We've got pretty decent
eyes when it comes to colors. The bad news none
(09:05):
of those capabilities stopped you from using too much green
in the family room and picking the wrong white for
the kitchen. Right, So it's time for a crash course
in color and more important, color theory. And you know
it's not going to get all sticky and academic. I
promise you we never do that. Right. Here's my promise
to you. Color is power, And if you heed the
(09:28):
simple advice which will roll off my lips to you,
you will not only master the art of color design
for your home, but you'll literally alter the moods and
the emotions. Dare I say the happiness quotion of all
those who dwell therein your home? Okay? Does that sound good?
Speaker 4 (09:48):
All right?
Speaker 1 (09:49):
So we got to do it. How do we start?
What is color? What the heck is it? The single
most important thing that I want you to understand about color.
And this is a hard thing for people to wrap
their head around. For some people to wrap their head
about color is all in your head. It's all in
your head. What I mean by that is the color
(10:09):
doesn't really exist in the physical universe. And you're like,
all right, is this how we're starting? Really? No, I
just don't. I want you to understand this. The colors
which we perceive as human beings, are our brains way
of interpreting different wavelengths of light. Okay, what exists are
(10:34):
wavelengths of light. That's what exists in the physical universe.
We can read them, we can track them, we can
monitor them, we can measure them. Okay, how those wavelengths
of light enter our eyeballs and the way that our
brain has evolved to distinguish between certain ways wavelengths of light.
(11:01):
I guess in one sense, since we can do math, right,
we human beings are capable of doing math. Otherwise, you know,
we wouldn't be able to balance our checking accounts. It's
in theoretical that those wavelengths of light, like the way
they hit a computer sensor, just result in different numbers
(11:22):
in our head, different digits of numbers, and that you
wouldn't actually be seeing color. You'd be seeing like instead
of green, you'd be seeing like nine point two seven zero,
you know something like that. Right, So that's what I
mean by color is something that's actually in our head.
It's our brain's way of interpreting a wavelength of light. Okay.
(11:44):
And the phrase as humans here very important because other
animals' brains can interpret the exact same light wavelength differently
for their own evolutionary purposes. Right. We know this to
be true. So the lesson here being this color is
a perception. It's not an absolute, which explains why it's
(12:06):
so fickle and it's so changeable because not only is
color about your brain's way of trying to interpret different
wavelengths of light, but also there are a lot of
wavelengths of light out there. Okay. One wavelength of light
coming off of something that we perceive to be orange, okay,
(12:27):
registers in our brain. When if it's a pure wavelength,
meaning that there aren't any other wavelengths around it, twisting
into it, mixing with it, then we get to perceive
pure orange. But but but we put that wavelength and
we put it into kind of a wavelength soup in
(12:49):
which there are other colors next to it, next to
that orange, near that orange, that are entering your eye
at the same time as the orange wavelength. And guess
what happens. The orange wavelength changes. It's not that the
light wavelength has changed, it's that the way you perceive
(13:09):
that orange changes, because now it's a mixed bag. And
so the orange starts turning maybe a little bit more red,
or maybe it starts turning a bit more yellow, or
maybe it starts turning more gray. It's a bizarre thing.
But if we start mixing wavelengths of light in our
eye at the same time, which is almost always the case.
(13:32):
In fact, it's hardly ever the case when you're just
staring at one color and no other color wavelengths are
entering your eyes. Therefore, colors change. They change. They change
as the wavelength patterns of light change. Inside a room,
they change as you look from one wall to the
(13:55):
next wall. They change as the sun comes up in
the morning and is low in the sky and then
is overhead in the sky and nice and bright, and
then starts to set in a soft golden hue. It
changes the colors on the walls in your room. It
changes again, when you turn on artificial lights which throw
(14:17):
out their own wavelengths, are you getting my vibe here?
Your brain interprets wavelengths of light as color, and when
there are multiple wavelengths hitting at different angles, at different frequencies,
at different measurements and intensities, colors change. They change. And
(14:37):
this is why you wrestle with color so much. Now,
the big question is can we overcome it and how
do we get around it? Well, the answer is yes,
but there are some specific things that we have to
do in order to make sure that the color we
pick is the color we want. And we'll start talking
about that right after.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Dean Sharp the house whisper here with you. Always a
privilege and a pleasure to spend a Sunday morning with you.
Hope you have some cool Mother's Day plans ahead of
you today. It's not going to be a cool mother's
day in that sense, in the weather sense in southern California.
Here it's a warm one. We're moving through a little
heat spike, but looks like it's going to be trailing
(15:27):
off starting tomorrow. We're going to be back into springtime
ish temperatures for this week ahead, I believe. But today,
you know, stay in the shade, enjoy the outdoors, Enjoy mom,
Celebrate mom. Hope you've got good plans today for that.
Right now here on the program, we're talking about color
and all the hassles that color brings to us and
(15:50):
how to overcome them. In just a bit, by the way,
just a bit, we're going to be going to the phones.
There's room on the board for you, so you get
to whenever I go to calls, regardless of what the
show is about, you get to pick the agenda for
the call. Anything at all you want to talk about
today about your home, whether it is outside, inside, construction,
diy design, architecture, you name it. Let's put our heads together.
(16:15):
We'll figure it out together. The number to reach me
eight three three two. Ask Dean eight three three the
numeral two ask Dean. Matt and Nikki are standing by.
They are ready to take your call. They'll tell you
everything you need to know. Popy into and listen to
the show while you wait, and then hopefully you and
I will put our heads together and we'll figure it
(16:36):
out all right. Back to color. We've talked about what
color is. It's a it's a weird it's a weird thing.
Color is the way that our brains interpret frequencies different
wavelengths of light, right, And there are a lot of
(16:56):
frequencies and wavelengths built into certain color patterns that we see. Now.
Most of you remember from what was it science in
school that you know, you take a prism, and you
can take white light, pure white light, and refract it
(17:16):
through a prism, and you get the entire rainbow. Right.
It's a beautiful thing. That's what's known as the color spectrum.
That's an important thing because what that prism is doing
is it's breaking apart those wavelengths into separate wavelengths of
different lengths, and as a result, our brain perceives that
rainbow of fruit flavors that comes through a prism from
(17:40):
white light, because white light, pure white light, contains all
of those wavelengths and as a result, if you break
them apart, you get the rainbow. Black. On the other hand,
pure black or darkness is the absence of any wavelength
of light approaching our eyes, and so our brain simply
in turn puts it as a void, as a non thing. Okay,
(18:04):
is black a color? Well, in practical terms, if we're
talking about you know, adding things. In fact, Elmer and
I were talking before the show. You know that he's
painted part of his apartment black. So yeah, it's a color.
You go and you request it, and there are all
sorts of shades I'm using air quotes here, shades of
black out there. What that is is pure black, a
(18:26):
non color mixed with all sorts of other faint colors
that get that nuance it in one direction or another.
But ultimately, the idea of like the void, the blackness
of space is simply the absence of light altogether, the
absence of light, no wavelengths of light approaching your eyes,
(18:48):
total darkness, and your brain simply has no information that
it's processing, and so the screen is black. That's the
way it works. When wavelengths of light start being introduced,
then the brain starts interpreting color. Okay, I don't want
to throw too much science stuff on you too fast,
but I just want you to understand some stuff. Here's
(19:10):
a let me just I'll throw out a fun fact here.
What is the most common color on planet Earth? It
also happens to be the most rare color in a
separate kind of category. So what do you think that is?
What do you think that is? Well? Here, it is
the most common color on planet Earth. Shouldn't surprise you. Blue, right,
(19:32):
The ocean is blue, the sky is blue. Our planet
is often described as a as a blue planet. Okay,
blue is the most common color on Earth, kinda kind
of what do I mean? Well, the ocean in the
sky only actually appear blue. They're not blue. And you're like, wait,
(19:57):
what Remember what I said? Color is something that is
interpreted in your head. Obviously. You know, when you pour
a glass of water and you look at it, it's
not blue. It's clear. It's clear water. Right. If you
grab a little chunk of air, put some air inside
and you look at it, it's colorless, or at least
it appears that way on a small scale. Okay. And no,
(20:20):
the sky is not blue because the ocean is blue,
and the ocean is not blue because the sky is blue.
It just so happens that they're both blue for their
own reasons. The particular chemical composition of our nitrogen oxygen
atmosphere and the hydrogen oxygen liquid that we call water,
they both tend to absorb the red side of the
(20:43):
light spectrum. They absorb it. They don't reflect it back
to you, Okay, they absorb it, and so it doesn't
come back at our eyes. They absorb the red side
of the spectrum, they reflect and distribute the blue side.
And so that's why when we look at the sky
it has tinted blue, and when we look at the
(21:05):
ocean it is blue. Okay. Both can change, by the way,
given certain conditions, like how the sky becomes golden and
crimson and orange at sunrise or sunset. And so that's
what I mean when I say blue is the most
common color. Kind of Also, did you know that blue
is everywhere on Earth except in most plants and animals.
(21:29):
Blue is actually the rarest biologically produced color. It is
the rarest biologically produced pigment, chemically blue pigment. Okay, some,
but not many plants and even fewer animals. Bluebirds, for instance,
(21:50):
and blue jays, they're not blue. They get their color
not from any real There is no blue pigment in
a blue jay, but the surface of their feathers there's
scatter light, Okay, there are microscopic beads on their feathers
that scatter light in a way that every other wavelength
of light is canceled out except blue. And therefore we
(22:12):
see a bluebird or a blue jay as blue. And
if you've ever seen a blue jay or a bluebird
on a cloudy day, you'll notice, Yeah, they look actually
kind of gray. Ah ah ah you see. Okay, So
think of it as like what bluebirds and blue jays
are any animal that has blue in them, It's kind
of like they're wearing noise canceling headphones. Right. The structure
(22:37):
of whatever's on their body is literally canceling out everything
else except that blue wavelength that's coming at us. Okay, Now,
why am I giving you this trivia? I'm just trying
to drive home the point that color is a tricky thing.
It truly, truly is a tricky thing, but there are
ways around it. Color is psychological, it's also cultural. We
(22:59):
need to talk about that little bit, and then we'll
start mastering color as we go. All right, you hang tight.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
We're having fun here. We are talking color, and yes,
I have yet to get to the place where I'm
telling you exactly how you're going to wrestle color to
the floor and defeat it, because there are still a
few things you need to understand about color before you
take on this opponent. And I say opponent because so
many people struggle with getting color right in their home.
(23:37):
So we're doing a little bit of color theory first.
And so I've been telling you colors in your head.
Technically speaking, it's the way that your brain interprets wavelengths
of light. Color is not exactly what we think it is.
We you know, the most common color on this planet
is is actually the least common color on this planet.
(23:58):
The most common color on this planet that we perceive
is blue, blue, ocean, blue sky, so on. That's not
really blue. It's just the way that those chemical environments
scatter the rest of the wavelengths of light and only
send blue our way. And that's why it changes so radically.
And I told you that blue is the least common
(24:20):
biological color, meaning any living thing that produces a pigment
of blue extremely rare. In fact, the only exception in
nature that we're aware of is the Obrina olive wing
butterfly that has two stripes on its wings which are
what most people would call cyan, which, by the way,
(24:41):
is the primary blue color. The primary color is cyan,
and that's what that butterfly has on it. Bluebirds not blue.
And you're like, hey, what about me, I have blue eyes.
No you don't. Sorry, people, you should already know this
about yourself. That's one of the things people with blue
eyes should be able to tell other people. You have
blue eyes because you have actually zero pigment in your eyes,
(25:05):
none whatsoever. And because of that, the structure of your
eyes again like the ocean, like the sky, and it's true,
your eyes are like the sky, like pools of water.
It's scientifically true. They are scattering the other spectrums of
light and only reflecting black back the blue. And that's
(25:29):
why your eyes appear so blue. And you like the
blue jay. Yeah, it isn't news anout you like the
blue jay. On cloudy days, on overcast days, your eyes
are not as blue as they are on sunny, bright days.
And that's because they're not actually blue at all. They're
(25:51):
just reflecting back what's out there. So that's a problem
with color. Another problem with color is that color is
also psychological. There are things built into us as human beings.
We react to certain colors psychologically, okay, Like you know,
(26:11):
things about red are kind of grounded in human emotions.
Red is the color of blood, and so it's difficult
for us to see red and not related to excitement, alertness, arousal,
but also danger in stress. So not a lot of
stop signs out there in soothing ocean blue, right, stop
(26:34):
signs are red, like hello, that's because of our own
human psychology, okay, And that's true in a lot of
other areas as well. Color is also cultural, and that's
an issue. For instance, the Chinese are taught to see
red as good luck, taught culturally to see red as
(26:55):
good luck. Chinese brides wear red, not white because in China,
white is the color of death or mourning for them,
and it is inappropriate for a wedding, Okay, because that
is the connotation. If you're like, well, that's weird, Well
not if you consider that living things are flushed with color,
(27:17):
like what we would say a blushing bride, that's red.
Dead things tend to lose their color as in like
going white as a ghost. Right, So yeah, it makes
sense from a cultural context, it makes perfect sense. So
the point is this are we hopelessly lost in this
confusing maze of color. There's psychology, there's culture, there's the
(27:40):
physicality of color. There is the physiology of color, there's
the chemistry of color.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
What do you do?
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Is there no science of color that we can just
grab our hands around, Well, there is there is a
science of color, that science which we will appeal to
new and know you're not going to have to remember
tomes of stuff. There are just a few steps to
take in order for you to start breaking apart the
(28:09):
world of color and understanding what works and what doesn't work.
But we are at the top of the hour, which
means when we return, we are going to press pause
on our colored discussion, and we are going to go
to the phones. The number to reach me eight three
three two. Ask Dean eight three three, the numeral two.
Ask Dean your home with Dean Sharp the house Whisper
(28:31):
on KFI. This has been Home with Dean Sharp, the
House Whisper. Tune into the live broadcast on KFI AM
six forty every Saturday morning from six to eight Pacific time,
and every Sunday morning from nine to noon Pacific time,
or anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app,
KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp The
House Whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio app. I
Am Dean Sharp the House Whisper. I design Custom Homes
and every weekend I'm your guide to better understanding that
place where you live. We want to take your ordinary
(00:21):
house and do our best to help you make it
an extraordinary home. Today on the show, we're going to
tackle one of the most difficult things ever ever in
the world of design, in the world of remodeling, construction.
Updating your home is it is critically important and yet
(00:44):
so difficult, and that is the concept and the use
of color. Color. Color. You would think, all right, Dean,
all right, color fine, Yeah, they're all around us. But
if you've ever tried to do some thing very very
special with your home, if you've ever tried to you know,
like you're at the paint store or at the paint
(01:04):
department at the big box store and you're thinking, all right,
I'm standing in front of this huge board, and these
colors look really good. You get them home, you put
them up on your wall. The samples don't look the
same as they did in the store. Maybe you bought
the sample pint of paint and you roll it around
a little bit and you're like, WHOA, where did all
(01:26):
that green come from? Why is it so pink? Yeah? Color,
Color is a tricky thing, and I'm going to give
you I'm going to lead you along this morning and
give you some tips, some critical tips on how to
get control of the world of color in your life.
What are complementary colors? What's a color wheel. I'm going
to introduce you to a tool that we used about
(01:48):
a ninety nine dollars tool that could literally save your
life and your project when it comes to color. And
I'm going to show you some things about color from
the science things. Now we're not going to nerd out
on science, but from the science side of things that
really you should know so that you can better determine
how color fits into your world and to your home,
(02:11):
into every single wall of every single room, because it
keeps changing. But I'm not going to get ahead of
myself right now. I'm also going to let you know,
of course, we're going to take your calls and our
number to reach us eight three three two. Ask Dean
eight three three the numeral two ask Dean eight three
(02:31):
three to ask Dean. It's just that easy. The phone
lines are open now and there is room for you
on this warm, sunny Mother's Day Sunday morning here in
southern California. Let me introduce our awesome team. Elmer is
on the board. Good morning, Elmer.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Good morning Dean, Good morning listener, Dean.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Yeah, yeah, all right, we got a special treat to
right here in the studio. Matt and Nicky producers Matt
and Nicky, who are going to be taking your calls,
are here. Grab a mic, guys and say hello, a.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Good ah.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Oh there they are there. They are Wait what what
what did you say, Gina? He is giving me hand signals. Oh,
I see, okay, all right, so Matt and Nicky. Uh,
these are the lovely voices. Let me hear your voices
once again, because these are the lovely voices you're gonna
(03:32):
hear when you call in this morning. Adian. Hey, there
you go. Matt and Nicky in studio with us. They
are They've already opened up the board and uh they
are ready to screen your call. They'll tell you everything
you need to know. Yes, that's Lucky the rooster in
the background. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
I wasn't sure if I was hearing him on the mic,
or I.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Think he's in the mic. I think you guys hear
Can you guys hear the rooster in the background?
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Yeah, we can hear him?
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Can you How can you hear that rooster?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Happy Mother's Day?
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Get the hatchet?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
No, I know what you're having for dinner.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
It's Mother's Day chicken. Uh. And of course, my friend
Eileen Gonzalez at the news desk, Good morning, Eileen.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Good morning Dean. How are y'all doing?
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Oh? Good? All right, So it's kind of a warm morning, right,
So what's fueling you today?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
That considered, it's actually water.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
I did have green tea, but oh it was warm
yesterday and I feel like I need extra water.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
See, I had a feeling. I had a feeling. It
just it was just a hunch that it wasn't going
to be tea, at least not yet. But because of
the temperature.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Have you made Good Earth tea? What tea? Good Earth? Good? Oh?
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (04:47):
I love Good Earth tea. I like their sweet and spicy.
That's my favorite.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
That's the one. I just had that last night.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
So you don't even need to put sugar in it's
so good exactly it's delicious and it's good cold too,
as a nice team.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Good stuff. I guess if I do the show now,
it's a show about tea.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Right sitting across the table from me. You just heard
her talking tea with Eileen, my better half, my design partner,
the co owner, co founder of House Whisper, and my
best friend in all the world, by the way, and
a wonderful mother. Tina is here. Oh, excuse you, pardon you.
(05:28):
It's all right, y'all. We have got a great show
set out for you, a very important show. You wouldn't
think that color is as tricky as it is until
you actually need to get something exactly right in your home,
and then you realize, holy cow, what is going on
with color? And why does it behave the way that
(05:50):
it behaves? Am I insane? Did we just? Was there
something wrong with me when I was at the paint
store and I picked out these things? Because when we
got them home and they're just it's just wrong and
it's chained. I'm gonna explain to you exactly why that
happens and how you can avoid it. We're talking color
this morning, and we will do it right after.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
We only do the good kind of stuff on social media, uplifting, informative,
inspiring stuff. Not a lot of it, just enough. We're
on all the usual suspects Instagram, TikTok, Facebook x Home
with Dean, same handle for them all. And if your
home is in need of some personal house whisper attention personal.
(06:36):
What do you mean by personal? I mean me and
t standing in your home, staring at the problem, helping
you figure out how to change the game for your house.
Then you can book an in home design consult with us.
Just go to house Whisperer dot Design, house Whisperer dot Design.
I'm going to give the number out one more time.
(06:56):
We're taking calls in a bit as we do. Eight
three to three two. Ask Dean eight three three the
numeral two. Ask Dean eight three three two Ask Dean.
It's just that easy, all right, Let us dive in.
It's all around us at all times. Yet it remains
one of the least understood and single most difficult design
(07:20):
challenges for most people. That is getting the color right now.
I know, I know, I know your nightmares. I've stood
in your shoes. All you wanted to do was freshen
up the living room, so you innocently hopped into the
car head down to the paint store. Next thing you know,
you're standing paralyzed in front of a twenty foot long
(07:41):
wall of color samples. Behind you, the kid who pushes
the buttons to mix your paint last week she was
working at Forever twenty one. Although she knows how to
operate that paint machine, she has received received exactly zero
hours of color theory training, and therefore all tomate is
of no real help to you except when you're ready
(08:03):
to buy and you're completely overwhelmed. Even if you have
a decorator who suggested a triad of colors for you,
how do you know they're right? Do you even know
what a colored triad is? Do you have one? Do
you want one? Is there a way to check? You're
beginning to feel just a little nauseous now you're seriously
tempted to bolt out of there and give up on
(08:24):
the update, but you press on. You grab a few
samples which seem, you know, eh, kind of good, and
then you head home, only to discover when you walk
them into the room itself yeah, yeah, they don't look
good at all. And that was a long process to
get to something that you don't like. Now Here is
(08:44):
the good news. Human beings can discern over ten million
colors and almost three million distinct hues of color ten
million that you know what, we've We've got pretty decent
eyes when it comes to colors. The bad news none
(09:05):
of those capabilities stopped you from using too much green
in the family room and picking the wrong white for
the kitchen. Right, So it's time for a crash course
in color and more important, color theory. And you know
it's not going to get all sticky and academic. I
promise you we never do that. Right. Here's my promise
to you. Color is power, And if you heed the
(09:28):
simple advice which will roll off my lips to you,
you will not only master the art of color design
for your home, but you'll literally alter the moods and
the emotions. Dare I say the happiness quotion of all
those who dwell therein your home? Okay? Does that sound good?
Speaker 4 (09:48):
All right?
Speaker 1 (09:49):
So we got to do it. How do we start?
What is color? What the heck is it? The single
most important thing that I want you to understand about color.
And this is a hard thing for people to wrap
their head around. For some people to wrap their head
about color is all in your head. It's all in
your head. What I mean by that is the color
(10:09):
doesn't really exist in the physical universe. And you're like,
all right, is this how we're starting? Really? No, I
just don't. I want you to understand this. The colors
which we perceive as human beings, are our brains way
of interpreting different wavelengths of light. Okay, what exists are
(10:34):
wavelengths of light. That's what exists in the physical universe.
We can read them, we can track them, we can
monitor them, we can measure them. Okay, how those wavelengths
of light enter our eyeballs and the way that our
brain has evolved to distinguish between certain ways wavelengths of light.
(11:01):
I guess in one sense, since we can do math, right,
we human beings are capable of doing math. Otherwise, you know,
we wouldn't be able to balance our checking accounts. It's
in theoretical that those wavelengths of light, like the way
they hit a computer sensor, just result in different numbers
(11:22):
in our head, different digits of numbers, and that you
wouldn't actually be seeing color. You'd be seeing like instead
of green, you'd be seeing like nine point two seven zero,
you know something like that. Right, So that's what I
mean by color is something that's actually in our head.
It's our brain's way of interpreting a wavelength of light. Okay.
(11:44):
And the phrase as humans here very important because other
animals' brains can interpret the exact same light wavelength differently
for their own evolutionary purposes. Right. We know this to
be true. So the lesson here being this color is
a perception. It's not an absolute, which explains why it's
(12:06):
so fickle and it's so changeable because not only is
color about your brain's way of trying to interpret different
wavelengths of light, but also there are a lot of
wavelengths of light out there. Okay. One wavelength of light
coming off of something that we perceive to be orange, okay,
(12:27):
registers in our brain. When if it's a pure wavelength,
meaning that there aren't any other wavelengths around it, twisting
into it, mixing with it, then we get to perceive
pure orange. But but but we put that wavelength and
we put it into kind of a wavelength soup in
(12:49):
which there are other colors next to it, next to
that orange, near that orange, that are entering your eye
at the same time as the orange wavelength. And guess
what happens. The orange wavelength changes. It's not that the
light wavelength has changed, it's that the way you perceive
(13:09):
that orange changes, because now it's a mixed bag. And
so the orange starts turning maybe a little bit more red,
or maybe it starts turning a bit more yellow, or
maybe it starts turning more gray. It's a bizarre thing.
But if we start mixing wavelengths of light in our
eye at the same time, which is almost always the case.
(13:32):
In fact, it's hardly ever the case when you're just
staring at one color and no other color wavelengths are
entering your eyes. Therefore, colors change. They change. They change
as the wavelength patterns of light change. Inside a room,
they change as you look from one wall to the
(13:55):
next wall. They change as the sun comes up in
the morning and is low in the sky and then
is overhead in the sky and nice and bright, and
then starts to set in a soft golden hue. It
changes the colors on the walls in your room. It
changes again, when you turn on artificial lights which throw
(14:17):
out their own wavelengths, are you getting my vibe here?
Your brain interprets wavelengths of light as color, and when
there are multiple wavelengths hitting at different angles, at different frequencies,
at different measurements and intensities, colors change. They change. And
(14:37):
this is why you wrestle with color so much. Now,
the big question is can we overcome it and how
do we get around it? Well, the answer is yes,
but there are some specific things that we have to
do in order to make sure that the color we
pick is the color we want. And we'll start talking
about that right after.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Dean Sharp the house whisper here with you. Always a
privilege and a pleasure to spend a Sunday morning with you.
Hope you have some cool Mother's Day plans ahead of
you today. It's not going to be a cool mother's
day in that sense, in the weather sense in southern California.
Here it's a warm one. We're moving through a little
heat spike, but looks like it's going to be trailing
(15:27):
off starting tomorrow. We're going to be back into springtime
ish temperatures for this week ahead, I believe. But today,
you know, stay in the shade, enjoy the outdoors, Enjoy mom,
Celebrate mom. Hope you've got good plans today for that.
Right now here on the program, we're talking about color
and all the hassles that color brings to us and
(15:50):
how to overcome them. In just a bit, by the way,
just a bit, we're going to be going to the phones.
There's room on the board for you, so you get
to whenever I go to calls, regardless of what the
show is about, you get to pick the agenda for
the call. Anything at all you want to talk about
today about your home, whether it is outside, inside, construction,
diy design, architecture, you name it. Let's put our heads together.
(16:15):
We'll figure it out together. The number to reach me
eight three three two. Ask Dean eight three three the
numeral two ask Dean. Matt and Nikki are standing by.
They are ready to take your call. They'll tell you
everything you need to know. Popy into and listen to
the show while you wait, and then hopefully you and
I will put our heads together and we'll figure it
(16:36):
out all right. Back to color. We've talked about what
color is. It's a it's a weird it's a weird thing.
Color is the way that our brains interpret frequencies different
wavelengths of light, right, And there are a lot of
(16:56):
frequencies and wavelengths built into certain color patterns that we see. Now.
Most of you remember from what was it science in
school that you know, you take a prism, and you
can take white light, pure white light, and refract it
(17:16):
through a prism, and you get the entire rainbow. Right.
It's a beautiful thing. That's what's known as the color spectrum.
That's an important thing because what that prism is doing
is it's breaking apart those wavelengths into separate wavelengths of
different lengths, and as a result, our brain perceives that
rainbow of fruit flavors that comes through a prism from
(17:40):
white light, because white light, pure white light, contains all
of those wavelengths and as a result, if you break
them apart, you get the rainbow. Black. On the other hand,
pure black or darkness is the absence of any wavelength
of light approaching our eyes, and so our brain simply
in turn puts it as a void, as a non thing. Okay,
(18:04):
is black a color? Well, in practical terms, if we're
talking about you know, adding things. In fact, Elmer and
I were talking before the show. You know that he's
painted part of his apartment black. So yeah, it's a color.
You go and you request it, and there are all
sorts of shades I'm using air quotes here, shades of
black out there. What that is is pure black, a
(18:26):
non color mixed with all sorts of other faint colors
that get that nuance it in one direction or another.
But ultimately, the idea of like the void, the blackness
of space is simply the absence of light altogether, the
absence of light, no wavelengths of light approaching your eyes,
(18:48):
total darkness, and your brain simply has no information that
it's processing, and so the screen is black. That's the
way it works. When wavelengths of light start being introduced,
then the brain starts interpreting color. Okay, I don't want
to throw too much science stuff on you too fast,
but I just want you to understand some stuff. Here's
(19:10):
a let me just I'll throw out a fun fact here.
What is the most common color on planet Earth? It
also happens to be the most rare color in a
separate kind of category. So what do you think that is?
What do you think that is? Well? Here, it is
the most common color on planet Earth. Shouldn't surprise you. Blue, right,
(19:32):
The ocean is blue, the sky is blue. Our planet
is often described as a as a blue planet. Okay,
blue is the most common color on Earth, kinda kind
of what do I mean? Well, the ocean in the
sky only actually appear blue. They're not blue. And you're like, wait,
(19:57):
what Remember what I said? Color is something that is
interpreted in your head. Obviously. You know, when you pour
a glass of water and you look at it, it's
not blue. It's clear. It's clear water. Right. If you
grab a little chunk of air, put some air inside
and you look at it, it's colorless, or at least
it appears that way on a small scale. Okay. And no,
(20:20):
the sky is not blue because the ocean is blue,
and the ocean is not blue because the sky is blue.
It just so happens that they're both blue for their
own reasons. The particular chemical composition of our nitrogen oxygen
atmosphere and the hydrogen oxygen liquid that we call water,
they both tend to absorb the red side of the
(20:43):
light spectrum. They absorb it. They don't reflect it back
to you, Okay, they absorb it, and so it doesn't
come back at our eyes. They absorb the red side
of the spectrum, they reflect and distribute the blue side.
And so that's why when we look at the sky
it has tinted blue, and when we look at the
(21:05):
ocean it is blue. Okay. Both can change, by the way,
given certain conditions, like how the sky becomes golden and
crimson and orange at sunrise or sunset. And so that's
what I mean when I say blue is the most
common color. Kind of Also, did you know that blue
is everywhere on Earth except in most plants and animals.
(21:29):
Blue is actually the rarest biologically produced color. It is
the rarest biologically produced pigment, chemically blue pigment. Okay, some,
but not many plants and even fewer animals. Bluebirds, for instance,
(21:50):
and blue jays, they're not blue. They get their color
not from any real There is no blue pigment in
a blue jay, but the surface of their feathers there's
scatter light, Okay, there are microscopic beads on their feathers
that scatter light in a way that every other wavelength
of light is canceled out except blue. And therefore we
(22:12):
see a bluebird or a blue jay as blue. And
if you've ever seen a blue jay or a bluebird
on a cloudy day, you'll notice, Yeah, they look actually
kind of gray. Ah ah ah you see. Okay, So
think of it as like what bluebirds and blue jays
are any animal that has blue in them, It's kind
of like they're wearing noise canceling headphones. Right. The structure
(22:37):
of whatever's on their body is literally canceling out everything
else except that blue wavelength that's coming at us. Okay, Now,
why am I giving you this trivia? I'm just trying
to drive home the point that color is a tricky thing.
It truly, truly is a tricky thing, but there are
ways around it. Color is psychological, it's also cultural. We
(22:59):
need to talk about that little bit, and then we'll
start mastering color as we go. All right, you hang tight.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
We're having fun here. We are talking color, and yes,
I have yet to get to the place where I'm
telling you exactly how you're going to wrestle color to
the floor and defeat it, because there are still a
few things you need to understand about color before you
take on this opponent. And I say opponent because so
many people struggle with getting color right in their home.
(23:37):
So we're doing a little bit of color theory first.
And so I've been telling you colors in your head.
Technically speaking, it's the way that your brain interprets wavelengths
of light. Color is not exactly what we think it is.
We you know, the most common color on this planet
is is actually the least common color on this planet.
(23:58):
The most common color on this planet that we perceive
is blue, blue, ocean, blue sky, so on. That's not
really blue. It's just the way that those chemical environments
scatter the rest of the wavelengths of light and only
send blue our way. And that's why it changes so radically.
And I told you that blue is the least common
(24:20):
biological color, meaning any living thing that produces a pigment
of blue extremely rare. In fact, the only exception in
nature that we're aware of is the Obrina olive wing
butterfly that has two stripes on its wings which are
what most people would call cyan, which, by the way,
(24:41):
is the primary blue color. The primary color is cyan,
and that's what that butterfly has on it. Bluebirds not blue.
And you're like, hey, what about me, I have blue eyes.
No you don't. Sorry, people, you should already know this
about yourself. That's one of the things people with blue
eyes should be able to tell other people. You have
blue eyes because you have actually zero pigment in your eyes,
(25:05):
none whatsoever. And because of that, the structure of your
eyes again like the ocean, like the sky, and it's true,
your eyes are like the sky, like pools of water.
It's scientifically true. They are scattering the other spectrums of
light and only reflecting black back the blue. And that's
(25:29):
why your eyes appear so blue. And you like the
blue jay. Yeah, it isn't news anout you like the
blue jay. On cloudy days, on overcast days, your eyes
are not as blue as they are on sunny, bright days.
And that's because they're not actually blue at all. They're
(25:51):
just reflecting back what's out there. So that's a problem
with color. Another problem with color is that color is
also psychological. There are things built into us as human beings.
We react to certain colors psychologically, okay, Like you know,
(26:11):
things about red are kind of grounded in human emotions.
Red is the color of blood, and so it's difficult
for us to see red and not related to excitement, alertness, arousal,
but also danger in stress. So not a lot of
stop signs out there in soothing ocean blue, right, stop
(26:34):
signs are red, like hello, that's because of our own
human psychology, okay, And that's true in a lot of
other areas as well. Color is also cultural, and that's
an issue. For instance, the Chinese are taught to see
red as good luck, taught culturally to see red as
(26:55):
good luck. Chinese brides wear red, not white because in China,
white is the color of death or mourning for them,
and it is inappropriate for a wedding, Okay, because that
is the connotation. If you're like, well, that's weird, Well
not if you consider that living things are flushed with color,
(27:17):
like what we would say a blushing bride, that's red.
Dead things tend to lose their color as in like
going white as a ghost. Right, So yeah, it makes
sense from a cultural context, it makes perfect sense. So
the point is this are we hopelessly lost in this
confusing maze of color. There's psychology, there's culture, there's the
(27:40):
physicality of color. There is the physiology of color, there's
the chemistry of color.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
What do you do?
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Is there no science of color that we can just
grab our hands around, Well, there is there is a
science of color, that science which we will appeal to
new and know you're not going to have to remember
tomes of stuff. There are just a few steps to
take in order for you to start breaking apart the
(28:09):
world of color and understanding what works and what doesn't work.
But we are at the top of the hour, which
means when we return, we are going to press pause
on our colored discussion, and we are going to go
to the phones. The number to reach me eight three
three two. Ask Dean eight three three, the numeral two.
Ask Dean your home with Dean Sharp the house Whisper
(28:31):
on KFI. This has been Home with Dean Sharp, the
House Whisper. Tune into the live broadcast on KFI AM
six forty every Saturday morning from six to eight Pacific time,
and every Sunday morning from nine to noon Pacific time,
or anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app,
Home with Dean Sharp News
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.