Help us to spread the joys of Colorful Living! Do you know someone who is experiencing a hardship and needs a boost of Colorful Living to help get them through this difficult time? Nominate one of your peers, co-workers, neighbors, family members or friends. We’ll select a person/family and send them a 6×9 rug of choice to add a …little more color to their lives. Inspire others and share your story today…

You may nominate people through the blog or on our facebook page.

Submissions will be accepted through Sunday, March 21, 2010.

Sara Joncas - Create Your Own Adventure

In January, we announced a Facebook contest asking you, our fans, to post a photo and short description illustrating what Colorful Living means to you. What a refreshing few weeks we’ve had here at Company C! Through reading your posts, we reaffirmed that we all share the same vision–to be inspired by the joys of Colorful Living every chance we can. Thank you for being so bold!

All that said, it was very difficult to choose a winner because there were so many uplifting responses. Not to mention that Colorful Living is meant to be personal; each one of us sees the world through a different lens and has a different outlook on life. Our focus was on the posts that embodied Colorful Living as a lifestyle. So, drum roll please…

Mary Kate Goodwin-Kelly - Go out on a Limb

The winner of the 6′ x 9′ rug of choice is Sara Joncas, who believes “Colorful living is… Creating your own adventure.”

And drum roll again…so many posts were so inspiring that we couldn’t help but choose runners up, who will receive a 2′ x 3′ accent rug of choice:

Mary Kate Goodwin-Kelly “Living colorfully entails going out on a limb every once in a while.”

Brenda - Energy for Creativity

Brenda “Every day, I have authentic color in my life. I am an art teacher of young children. Through their artwork and their energy for creativity, I am happily surrounded by color!”

Make Colorful Living your standard. We dare you.

Have ideas for future Facebook contests? Post your ideas on our wall at www.facebook.com/colorfulliving.

Just before starting Company C, Walter and I listened to a cassette tape —Live Your Dreams by Les Brown. We both love design, love business and love to travel… so how could we live our dreams—and create a business out of them?

I can remember listening to the tape as if it were yesterday. Our son Alex was 6 months old (he’ll be 17 next month!) and we were traveling in our white Isuzu Trooper on our way to our family cottage in western Massachusetts with our golden retriever, Major, happily catching air out the window. We listened intently to the tape and were very inspired…that trip set in motion our dream to create our business—Company C!

Walter and I both love adventure. Traveling. Living in the great outdoors. Skiing in the Rockies. Kayaking on Frenchman’s Bay in Maine. Cooking fabulously colorful meals (Walter). Mixing paints by the ocean (me—and trying to make a painting out of them!). And we share these adventures with our two teenage sons, friends and family. So living colorfully needed to be an important part of our business.

We love color and it’s our signature at Company C. Our design team experiments with many color combinations every day. We add adventure to the combinations, always keeping them fresh.

Colorful Living has a double entendre for us! So…Dream…with your mind soaring to the sky, imagine what you can create.

What’s Colorful Living mean to you?

Chris & Walter Chapin

They’ll start meandering through the store or showroom, taking in the various vignettes, whether a living room for a coastal getaway or a bedroom that would be great for a city loft. Colorful combinations of textures and patterns.

Sometimes, after a customer has walked through the store, they’ll ask, “so much color, how can I get this in my home?” and “Where do I begin, my house is all beige?” and “I have mostly brown, red and gold, how do I incorporate color?” I love hearing this—we’ve ignited a fire in their imaginations.

For the rug—the foundation the room–my recommendation is to start with the colors you love, not with what’s in trend, if you begin with your favorite color(s), they’ll never be out of trend. Then pick out the rugs that fit this palette. Take them home and see how they look on your floor and in your own light—day and night. Pick out the one that you’re ready to build your room around. You cannot go wrong if you love the colors. Freshen up with colorful trend accents such as pillows, throws and decorative accessories that are easier to freshen up after a few seasons.

And then, the icing on the cake…hearing a customer walk out the door saying…“bye, bye beige.”

What is your most daring color story?

Chris Chapin
Design & Creative Director

Our owners wanted to share their New Years Resolutions as well….

Walter Chapin, Co-Owner and President

I will ask more questions and listen, just like I “tell” my kids to do.

Chris Chapin, Co-Owner and Design & Creative Director

I resolve to finally finish decorating our house! You’re thinking “I can’t believe Chris & Walter’s house is not totally finished.” Well …the story goes something like this…we moved to this house four years ago…during this time; we’ve used it for three photo shoots, with another Fall 2010 shoot going on this week! Our house is constantly in motion with rugs and furniture moving frequently in and out. It’s never quite settled because with each new season, I want to live with our newest collections. So in 2010, I resolve to finally finish it—top to bottom. And to make sure I stick to my resolution, I’ll take you on the journey with me—with monthly updates in our blog.

I also want to continue to follow my passion for adventure and developing colorful, new products. My overactive brain wants to explore so many places and is always thinking of new ideas and designs. So for resolution number two—I will travel to an exotic country where I haven’t been yet, to live adventurously, explore and develop a colorful new collection. I’ve been designing it in my head for months now. Stay tuned and I’ll reveal more of the concepts as the year progresses…

Thanks everyone! Hope to hear from you all soon.

We announced a Facebook contest a couple of weeks ago, challenging our customers and fans to share their colorful New Years resolutions with us. We had an outpouring of wonderful responses! It was extremely difficult to select a winner so we decided to have one grand prize winner with three additional runners up. So here goes…

The 4′6 x 6′6 rug of choice goes to Heather Hilton who resolves to… “look around my life and find positive things in everything I do. I will remember to be amazed at the love around me and not dwell on the negative.”

Runners up who will receive a 2′ x 3′ accent rug include these inspiring individuals….

Pamela Talbot Syverson
I resolve not to make any resolutions whatsoever. Because every day is a new beginning – to discover, explore, learn something new, let go of yesterday, rearrange my life. And I won’t be disappointed if I don’t keep a resolution because I just start all over again tomorrow.

Mary Martin Keller
I resolve to not fear color, but to use it with abandon!

Debra Prescott
I resolve to lighten up and have more fun this year.

And we would like to give a honorable mention to Vicki Ginsburg. We all felt her poem needed to be published for all to read because it is amazingly creative! Thank you, Vicki!

I have a “prototype” by Company C,
That truly makes my room,
My wish this year is to be rich enough,
To have my whole house bloom!

I dream and plan that Tuileries
Will grace my parlor floor;
But Maison and Brittany Blue had been on my mind
For a very long time before….

I delight in all the florals…

the petal, the leaf, the plume.

To be surrounded with such beauty

Is more than I can presume.

Rise and Shine each morning
Will greet me by my door;
And the garden of colorful Giverny
always makes my spirits soar~

So now, my Dear Company C,
Please bring me this visual perfume.
And please do not ever tell me
That it will require me having a groom!

My pocketbook is meager
(Oh, I hate to be a bore);
Show kindness to this faithful Fan
And send Love straight from your Store!

Check out our Facebook page for more colorful resolutions! www.facebook.com/colorfulliving

We’re a fan of Facebook contests so any ideas, please throw them our way! We have some ideas for Mother’s Day, Birthdays, etc….but we need more fun contests so let’s hear it.

What I find most satisfying is pulling the look together at the photo shoot. I love how our initial design concepts of the collections come to fruition in our room shots. The process can sometimes feel like giving birth—one forgets about the agonizing pain after we see a beautiful baby! At photo shoot, I forget about some of the frustrations–design prototypes being approved and the photo sample coming in a few shades lighter, prototypes arriving later than promised and furniture made the wrong way. But when it all comes together at the shoot, it’s fabulous and the fun begins—playing with rugs, pillows, throws, colorful chairs and beautiful flowers. What could be more exciting!

I’m so lucky to shoot with a such great team—Joe Lamere our photographer and his assistant Nancy Belluscio, Paul Newman our stylist and Frank Higham, owner of a landscape business in season, but filling in as our trusted prop supervisor and furniture relocation specialist…and all at Company C. We have a lot of fun despite the amount of ironing, dusting, vacuuming and moving, and not to mention the occasional rust blop from the iron on a delicate silk pillow that shows up right in front of the lens!

All in all, we took a lot of great shots of our Fall 2010 collection from the 150 year old Historic Holt-Chase house. We lost daylight early since we’re close to the shortest day of the year, but what we did get was nice perspectives–great built-ins and architectural details as backdrops for our living, dining and bed rooms.

Can’t wait to share these with you soon. In the meantime, Happy Holidays!

Chris Chapin

Design & Creative Director

This perennial favorite is great when entertaining or any time.  And with a little more Chicken stock, the dip can easily be made into a soup.   Share it and enjoy!

Cheers, – Walter

So if you’re designing a room around one of our Dandelion rugs, we’ve come up with some matching Benjamin Moore paint colors to make coordinating a snap.

Dandelion Cornflower: Play up the brighter side with Chesterton Buff or go bold with Audubon Russet. Some other coordinating colors that aren’t shown here are Fernwood Green and Straw.

Dandelion Persimmon: Take a neutral approach with Filtered Sunlight or chill out with Northern Air. Some other coordinating colors that aren’t shown here are Standish White and Castleton Mist.

And don’t forget Dandelion Green, which can be matched with Straw, Copper Mountain and Roasted Sesame Seed.

I pondered my shopping list this year. Mom and my sister are always easy; it’s those “other people” that make shopping no piece of cake. As a rule, I start with things I can find at Company C. I’ve learned from experience that no matter what, the colors make people smile. So, here’s a short list of my best suggestions for those tough gift buys:

Girlfriend: Someone who thrives in a drama-filled world and whose every phone call revolves around some sort of crisis.
Perfect Gift: Cocktail Therapy, a handy-sized hardback that outlines every possible life crisis and the corresponding cocktail remedy, complete with a list of ingredients and how-tos. For the full effect, include the fixings for her favorite cocktail.

Cocktail Therapy by L. Shear & T. Toomey (in stores, $14.95)

A friend of a friend: Every year she hosts a holiday party. She’s super stylish, and her trademark is classic chic with a just a punch of flare. You must make a good impression with your hostess gift.
Perfect Gift: Lotus candle holder. Choose from a variety of colors. Add votive candles and a box of designer matches for a well-rounded gift.

Lotus Flower Candle Holders (in stores, $9 each)

Mother-in-law or Mother-in-law-to-be: She always mentions how much she likes “nice things.” She’s proud of her home and every time you visit, at least one room of the house is redecorated.
Perfect Gift: Ultra-soft Shanghai throw. She’ll know it’s amazing quality, and with six color ways to choose from, you’ll be sure find one that matches her ever-changing décor. Don’t forget to tie with a beautiful bow!

Shanghai throw (online and in stores, $78)

HAPPY SHOPPING!