Hot Hotel Color

Today's guest post is by Mary-Frances Cimo, a color designer serving fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. In her own words, "I’ve been fascinated with interior color since I was a little girl. In college, I was famous for splatter-painting dorm rooms to match roommate bedspreads. The rest is history."
www.mycolordesigner.com

Hot Hotel Color
What’s it like being a Color Designer in the most colorful city in the America? Absolutely fascinating. Every imploded hotel is briefly mourned in anticipation of the next architectural marvel.

This past week, I had the chance to visit two iconic but vastly different hotels—the Hard Rock Hotel and Wynn Las Vegas.
Website screen shots from both hotels- can you guess which is which?
The Hard Rock caters to a younger, hip crowd seeking the rockstar lifestyle for a weekend.
image source

From a color perspective, I was mildly disappointed.
The walls are a sickly yellowish-green, complemented by purple curtains (the hotel’s signature color). The carpeting is pale green, while the accent chair is reminiscent of worn miniature golf turf. I’m not sure if they converted these rooms from another color scheme, but the greens did not work together at all. The colors did not make me feel like spending a lot of time in this room.
Now to the bathroom:
image source
The sickly yellowish-green did not work in the bedroom, let alone in the bathroom. With the fluorescent lighting, the color felt muddied and dirty—not words I’d want to be associated with a bathroom. In addition, greens are not flattering to the skin in a place where women are applying makeup. Did you catch the airplane lavatory theme with the tiny stainless steel sink, and yes, that’s a push-button toilet in the background.

Wynn Las Vegas caters to an entirely different clientele. It seeks to attract worldly travelers who want to be pampered in an opulent atmosphere.
Wynn image removed by request
While I didn’t stay at Wynn this time, I had a chance to capture their wonderfully colorful décor.
The designers of Wynn chose this warm chocolate brown hue offset by elaborate creamy white trim. There is color everywhere. Notice the contemporary flowers around the archway. You can also see the cool mint green column on the right.
Newer casinos like Wynn are incorporating windows as a design element to bring nature and natural light into the space.
The deep red rug incorporates the same flowers as the archway above. The warm and cool mix of colors creates a lively, yet welcoming space. Extravagant, yes, but it’s not intimidating or stuffy at all. Imagine the difference if the marble floors weren’t broken up by this splash of color.

Your home may not look like the hottest new resorts, but you can take cues from these color hits and misses to create the space you love.

interior images by Mary-Frances