You've got two categories: the stuff being brought home for keeps, and the stuff that is homework, that has to circulate back. For the first, you have to consider whether to keep. The teacher gets through the day, and the kids often (not always) learn by doing things with paper, and once the projects have served both those functions, those papers will have served the purpose they are in the world for and can go. There are precious little artworks or journal pages in there that really express your children and that you may want to keep, but most can go. Problem is, I could never really distinguish when I was in the thick of it coming home - I had to wait a few years, or at least to year end. Your best friend, in my opinion: plastic boxes. Just pry open the lid, slip in this week's batch, close and forget for now. The boxes don't have to live in the hallway - the kids could put their stack of paper in their cubbies, or in those wall files, and it could be transferred once a week to their box - in the basement or something. The inevitable homework that accidentally gets mixed in with the keeping stuff can be easily retrieved. The wrought iron wall files will look like he(( stuffed, but maybe if you empty them once a week you'll enjoy them nonetheless. Jannie: gotta love it - mine's 19, and I am sure I have stuff of similar vintage. KarinL

This will not disappoint you…Pratt and Lambert Shadow Beige…it will work with your natural wood work, as well.

Absolutely - go ask the neighbors to please bulldoze their homes and bulldoze the addition on your home so that the natural daylight streams through the widows. While you are at it replace all the bulbs in your home with 4000k bulbs even though industry standards are 2700k (soft white), 3000k (bright white) and 5000k (daylight). The other alternative is to find a color that is appropriate for your less than ideally lit rooms. You will want to pick your lighting first. I use Cree brand 5000k lights in my home, but I also decorate with taupe, purples, teals and reds. Taupe is that color that lies between pink beige and violet gray. Purples and taupe turn muddy when you use yellow lighting. In a cottage or cabin you may prefer the softer feeling that 2700k or 3000k provides. Both work beautifully with a fall color palette and can work well with any palette that is warmer vs cool. A bright white can go gray, flat, dingy in a room without good lighting - white needs light to look white. Many of the rooms depicted on the internet are photographed with studio lighting Wow they look stunning, but is this the aesthetic you are trying to achieve? So now - how to find the right white for your home. I am going to ask you to not think about wall colors yet. I want you to think about the colors that make your heart sing. The colors that make you feel like a 10 when you are wearing them. I would encourage you to use these colors in your home. Maybe not as wall color - (especially if you look fabulous in fire engine red), but you will want to bring these colors into your palette as accents and in your art and fabrics. Don't forget that you will often be wearing these colors while lounging on the sofa. Do you really want to completely clash with your surroundings? You may also have to adjust your choice based on the other colors in your home that you can't afford to change or don't want to change. Cabinet colors, flooring colors, countertops have to be considered when you are selecting your colors. We can usually find ways to work with these colors and the colors you love, but you can't ignore them. You have to work with them. Now pick your lighting - what color lighting will complement your colors and your skin tone and hair color. Once lighting is selected you are ready to pick your neutral. Whites are really just lighter forms of neutral colors. The neutral tones are pink beige, orange beige, yellow / gold beige (darker shades of yellow beige are gold beige), green beige, greige (between green beige and green gray), green gray, blue gray, violet gray and taupe (color between violet gray and pink beige). Which one of these works best with the colors you love and the colors that love you? To combat the gray shadows in poorly lit rooms you may need to add a bit more color so it doesn't look flat or get grayed out by the shadows. This doesn't mean you have to go really dark or really bright unless your rooms are as gray as the windowless garage pictured above, but you may have to go to an LRV closer to 80 than 90 and increase the chroma. (Chroma is the level of color vs gray). We can get you to the right whites and colors, but you will need to test them in your space. Always test your colors with large painted samples. Look at one sample at a time. Don't sample directly on your walls - I like using 140 lb water color paper to create my samples. leave a white edge on your sample or use additional sheets of water color paper around the sample. Look at samples at different times of the day and on every wall in your home. Look at one sample at a time - as soon as you bring in a second sample you will be comparing the two. You need to compare them with the other elements in your space - the other white will never be there so you don't want to test it next to something that will not be in your home. Hope this helped

Hi - do yourself a huge favour. Forget ‘undertones’. Forget ‘only certain colours work for specific points of the compass.’ You can have colours from *EVERY* Hue Family for every point of the compass. The secret? Finding the best partnership of Value (lightness) + Chroma (degree of colour) to fit with the quality of light you have available. More colourful colours do better in lower light settings, than more neutral colours. Their extra kick of Chroma is what helps bust through any tendency to gloom. So more colourful greens are what you are after. Also more dimly lit spaces do well with light + colourful, dark + colourful or just dark colours. Leave the mid Value near neutrals for more moderately lit spaces. You can compare the Value + Chroma of greens for free, via The Land of Color, Color DNA Table. Some examples for you to consider? F&B Bancha. BM Mountain Lane PPG Mountain Forest But they still need viewing in situ. Paint chips or painted samples. Your northern light quality is specific and likely different to someone elses. So it’s always worth testing/viewing your shortlist. You can find greens from different Hue Families too. (again see the Color DNA Table) Yellow Green-Yellow Green Blue-Green Which Family of greens are you most drawn to? Which work better with your fixed finishes? Colours from this zone have the capacity to shift and appear more blueish in certain imbalanced lighting. They aren’t blue & don’t have blue ‘undertones.’ If they shift in your room and appear that way, try greens from a different Hue Family. This colour shift occurs more in muted greens and you after something more colourful. But at least you know what to look out for when testing. #shifthappens #green #north #south #east #west