Hiring a color consultant can help you create a cohesive and stylish Color Story for your home by providing advice on which colors and materials best suit your goals and the space. A color consultant can also help you understand how colors interact with each other and how to use them effectively to achieve your desired look. With this guidance, you can confidently make decisions that will create a space that's uniquely yours. Giving my clients confidence is a very rewarding process! Speaking of process, getting the color right the first time is important. The cost of repainting a space, even just one room, is far more than the cost of spending an hour together. This is especially true for exteriors. Meeting with a color consultant can reduce (or eliminate!) color frustration and may even save you the money that you would have have spent on samples that don't come close to the colors you’re envisioning.

Spaces should be both aesthetically pleasing and functional, but how do you get there? Taking into account your style and vision, I will walk you through the design process, which without experience can get quite overwhelming. Where to start? Do these items go together? We will brainstorm and problem solve together and come up with a plan that creates a unique space, bringing you years of joy. Working with a designer means you'll not only save time, but you'll most likely save money. Purchasing and if possible, returning items that didn't meet expectations, can get expensive. Costly mistakes cause unnecessary delays (and headaches!), so let me help you stay on track, on time and on budget. Finally, decision fatigue is real, whether it is one room, multiple rooms or a whole house. As the process lingers on, I can help keep you focused and bring small details to your attention that might otherwise be missed. Getting these design details right, large and small, are the things that help you to enjoy your space(s) for years to come, and love the space in which you live.

Yes, it is possible! By asking the right questions, a skilled and experienced color consultant and designer can guide you and provide you with information on what to expect. When done professionally and with you and your space as the focus, remote consultations are incredibly effective and successful. With over 4,000 consults completed, I can confidently say that I know this to be true!

After you click the contact button on this page and complete the contact form, I will send you a "Questionnaire", which will enable you to provide background information about your project, your style, and your goals for your space. This information allows me to prepare for the consult so we can maximize our time together. Next, you'll be asked to upload pictures to your client portal. Those photos can, and probably should, include pictures of your space from different angles, pictures of existing or new items that will be going in the space, and any inspiration images you have. If your home is new or newly renovated, uploading floor plans and elevations can also be useful in making the most of our time. For our video chat, you can select from Zoom, FaceTime, or Microsoft Teams. Ideally, you'll want to be in the space that you're receiving help for, if possible, but it's not required. During the consult, I'll likely ask a lot questions to get an idea of your goals and the colors you gravitate towards and that suite your personal style. During that initial part of the consult, you may see me scribbling furiously as I take copious notes. From there, together, we will discuss how colors can affect existing finishes, how the light in your space can affect the color, and I'll provide time and field-tested advice on how to best sample colors to get an accurate view of them in your space. When the consult is over, you'll receive by email a typed consultation summary as well as 8"x11" color swatches of the colors we discuss. Those large format color swatches and their shipping are included in the consult at no additional cost to you! After the consult, you may have more questions or need additional help, particularly after you receive your color chips and paint a few sample colors on your substrates. If so, you will have access to me for additional follow-up questions, and we can meet as many times as you may need. This process applies for all remote design services as well.

After you click the contact button on this page and complete the contact form, I will send you a "Questionnaire", which will enable you to provide background information about your project, your style, and your goals for your space. This information allows me to prepare for the consult so we can maximize our time together. Next, you'll be asked to upload pictures to your client portal. Those photos can, and probably should, include pictures of your space from different angles, pictures of existing or new items that will be going in the space, and any inspiration images you have. If your home is new or newly renovated, uploading floor plans and elevations can also be useful in making the most of our time. For our video chat, you can select from Zoom, FaceTime, or Microsoft Teams. Ideally, you'll want to be in the space that you're receiving help for, if possible, but it's not required. During the consult, I'll likely ask a lot questions to get an idea of your goals and the colors, furniture and finishes you gravitate towards and that suite your personal style. During that initial part of the consult, you may see me scribbling furiously as I take copious notes. From there, together, we will discuss how colors can affect existing finishes, how the light in your space can affect color, and we'll discuss options for furniture, fixtures, and other finishes, and I'll provide time and field-tested advice on how to best sample colors and other finishes to get an accurate view of them and how they work together in your space. When the consult is over, you'll receive by email a typed consultation summary as well as any samples that may be available for the finishes, fixtures, and furniture we discuss. In most cases, those samples are included in the consult at no additional cost to you! Please keep in mind, depending on the size and sophistication of your project, we may need multiple meetings to effectively select all of your space's components. For example, it may be necessary to send you options of items from which to select those you prefer from those you do not, after which I would send you samples if available, price and source items, and repeat until your project was complete or you are in a place were you feel comfortable competing your project without my guidance. After the consult, or series of consults, you may have more questions or need additional help, particularly after you receive your finish samples. If so, you will have access to me for additional follow-up questions, and we can meet as many times as you may need. How much or how little I am involved is completely up to you! This process applies for all remote color consultations as well!

A few national paint brands offer free 30-minute consultations. In fact, I worked for Sherwin Williams for 6 years as a color consult program supervisor, color consultant, and assistant manager. For over a 2 ½ year period as a consultant, I completed over 4,000 Virtual/Remote Color Consultations. There was value in those consultations to be sure, but thirty minutes can go very quickly. Choosing colors for your space should never feel like a rushed or stressful process, especially when you are hiring costly professional painters for your home. It's important to get your colors right, and that can take time. An additional drawback of the free 30-minute consultation is that you are unable to ask to work with the same color consultant more than once. Instead, you spend 30 minutes with one consultant, and, if you need additional help or advice, you have to sign up again, getting scheduled with a new, next-available consultant. By contrast, when scheduling a color consultation with me, you'll have an hour, at minimum, during which you can take your time to provide me all of the information necessary to help you with your space. You'll have the time to talk through and fully understand the process and select your colors without watching the clock. The biggest difference is that with Gillie Cavan, you'll receive undivided, unrushed attention from me, with the sole focus of providing you with personal attention and colors to suit your unique style. I can also guarantee that I will answer any follow-up questions you may have, and we can meet as many times as you feel is helpful to you. Finally, during the consult, you'll receive field-tested guidance on how to sample your colors before making final selections. And, I will mail you 8"x"11 large-format color swatches of the colors we discuss, at no additional cost. If you've tried the free consults and still have color questions, try one hour with me. You'll see the difference, and get the help you need to select the colors you're searching for.

The number of rooms we can get through in an hour is dependent on you and your project. If you know the color "family" you like and want one color for your whole first floor, we may be able to select colors for every room in your project. On the other hand, if you are interested in multiple colors for multiple spaces, aren't sure where to start, or want different palettes to choose from for different spaces, we may only be able to get through 1 or 2 rooms during an hour consult. Typically, based on experience, during most 1-hour consults, together we'll be able to select colors for about interior 3 rooms/spaces or one straight-forward exterior. If you have a particularly complicated project, many rooms, or want a lot of options for your space, you're not limited to only hour, however. We can always meet multiple times if necessary to help you select colors you love!

Family ancestry and surnames have always interested me, and my journey toward design and entrepreneurship included a little of both sides of my family tree. So, I wanted to incorporate that into my business name. When I was a child, my mother's interest and talent with interior design definitely influenced and inspired me. The first time she combined patterns above and below chair rail with two different wallpapers, I was amazed at how beautiful the patterns looked adjacent to one another! There are also many fond memories browsing antique stores, fabric stores, and craft fairs as a child, looking in wonder at the beauty in the items and recalling the joy felt when I brought them home. To incorporate that influence, I decided on "Gillie", abbreviation of my mother's maiden name (Gillespie) and "Cavan", which is an abbreviation of my last name. Those names together as Gillie Cavan, a fun and whimsical homage, fully represent my personal journey, starting with an early design influence from my mother, combined with my own later experience and personal style developed over years of academic design study and professional design positions. My name, though, is Erin!

I get this question a lot! First let me say that no matter my personal style, when selecting colors, furniture, fixtures, or finishes for you, I do not simply suggest things I like for your space. Color and design is very subjective and personal. My role in our relationship is to understand your style (and maybe even help you discover it!) in order to select colors you like, that will look great in your space, and from which you can confidently select. This process is based upon my experience, what you prefer and what makes you happy. We will talk through the steps and work together to find the perfect palette, space plan, or furniture for your home! All of that said, if you would like to see examples of my style, you can check out my Instagram (@gilliecavan and @erincavan_) pages for insight! As for colors, I have at least 50 favorite colors ;)

I may be the exception in the design community, but I don't view a single color as necessarily “dated” or “trendy.” It's true that certain combinations of colors and finishes can feel dated or of the moment, but overall, the vast majority of colors are timeless. Even for the currently ever-ubiquitous gray! If you want to ensure that your space feels contemporary, and will avoid being dated in years to come, I can help you select color and finish combinations that will make your space feel refreshed and current, no matter what the current trend may be.