Hue Consulting

I’m so glad we found Rachel Perls! We’d lived in our house with the paint that was on the walls when we bought it for 3 years. Drab, boring, and downright ugly in the case of our bedroom walls. I knew I hated it, but every time we’d start to try to do something about it, I’d end up confused about what I liked, wandering around with a bunch of paint chips. Worse still, my husband and I were not really on the same page in terms of what we THOUGHT we liked. After painting two different horrendous gold swatches on our bedroom walls, we threw in the towel and started googling for color consultants. That’s when we found Rachel. She was easy to contact via email, easy to schedule with, and very efficient. She came armed with huge decks of color cards, figured us out very quickly, and made suggestions that we NEVER would have come up with on our own. She has an amazing eye and is not afraid to make bold suggestions, which I love. She also doesn’t quit until you’ve found the perfect color. Now our house is so much warmer and more interesting. We’ve only had it painted a few days and we’ve already gotten numerous complements from neighbors and friends. Given the investment involved in painting every room in our house, Rachel’s fee was beyond reasonable. Someone else said «worth every penny» and I’d have to agree. When we decide to paint the exterior, I’m sure we’ll be calling her again!

So glad I found Rachel to pick out the paint/​color scheme for our dining area. The paint I picked out on my own looked so terrible after it was put on the walls that I decided we needed professional help. After contacting several color consultants on Unilocal,I decided to go with Rachel as she radiated knowledge, passion, and professionalism during our relatively brief phone chat. She was super easy to work with and helped pick out a fantastic color scheme within my narrow time constraint. During the consultation, Rachel efficiently worked through lots of options so that I could locate general color schemes I was looking for. When we reached a more narrow color palette, she was reassuringly assertive about what paints and colors would work well together. She followed up after the consultation to ensure that the project was completed smoothly. The paint she picked was amazing and we have gotten many many compliments. Would highly recommend!

My wife and I recently bought a home in Walnut Creek where everything was painted an off white. Even prominent wood beam railings and their hardware was painted white. We knew we wanted to have the place re-​painted before moving in (along with some other remodeling) and planned to add a lot of color to the spaces. We were looking for warmth and coziness, not hospital white coolness.
As we began to examine the space, we pretty quickly realized that we needed some help. At first not so much in picking colors, but in deciding where one color would start and another would begin. Our home has a split level layout and from many of the rooms, you can see the walls of 3 other rooms. The openness of the home was one of the features that attracted us, but this seemed to present a minefield of choices of how to paint. It was also clear that all of the chosen colors would need to harmonize with one another. I decided to get some help and called Rachel.
Rachel was excellent. She is a ball of energy, super friendly, easy to work with, and all about helping you find what works for you. While the process starts with you picking some colors you like, Rachel ensures that you end up with a palette that works well together. Our completed project does a great job of highlighting the architecture and flows seamlessly. Even the owner of our painting company commented that he felt the openness of our home would have made color choices difficult, and that our use of colors was done fabulously. He was impressed and said he could see that a real pro had been involved.
I would not hesitate to recommend Rachel to any of my friends!

Like others here, I found Rachel through Berkeley Parents Network. What people wrote about her there made me think she was the color consultant for me, and I was right! I had great fun working with Rachel and am totally over the moon happy with the result. I’ve been in my home for over 20 years and never once painted the dining room, living room, and entryway. Their time had finally come, and Rachel knew how important the process and ultimate outcome were to me. After her initial consultation, when we picked some really beautiful and lush colors, with a dose of color education thrown in, she came back several times to help me tweak or refine the colors and work out all the details for the different spaces that needed painting. She worked so hard to help me find the perfect shade for my dining room, mining a range of manufacturers. I ended up with a beautiful color palette, and when no one is around I do a happy dance in these rooms. She also quickly answered e-​mails, provided advice and references for other resources, and sends pictures that pertain to some of my design issues. She became my color therapist! And she gives great design advice as well! I cannot wait until she comes back to help me with the exterior colors for my home and a few more interior rooms. She is a delight to work with, is incredibly knowledgeable, and is very responsive. I give Rachel my heartiest and strongest recommendation possible.

We initially found Rachel Perl through Berkeley Parent’s Network. She had received great reviews there. We have an old house that we had just removed nasty wall paper throughout the whole house and were at odds as to how to paint all of the rooms. We met Rachel and our wishes for her were to select colors that would create a happy environment for our children to grow up surrounded by in their home. I love color on walls and my husband is a «white walls only» type of guy. Rachel spent 3 hours with me during the consultation selecting colors. When we were done there were a total of 23 colors we were going to be using. I began to get scared and even more scared when the painters that came to give us estimates made comments. Fast forward to present — WE ARE IN LOVE with the colors. The house is beautiful and exactly what we wanted without really knowing it. People who have seen the paint job all love it. If Rachel had not gently guided us through this process we never would have gone forward with it. She is FANTASTIC!!!

Rachel came to my house initially to help me pick out paint for my kitchen. We were so pleased with the color and how well it coordinated with the granite and tile, we had her help us pick the exterior colors as well. She has a great eye for color and passion for what she does. She is fast, efficient and wonderful to work with!

SOOO WORTH IT!
Rachel is great to work with and the whole experience was wonderful. She was not overly pushy with her own ideas but at the same time, really listened to us. This made the experience of selecting our colors really exciting since she sort of guided our own determinations. Of course, the most exciting part was seeing the final result on our new house. It is incredible and we are delighted. THANK YOU THANK YOU RACHEL!
–Rob & Tanja

I had some vague ideas of what colors I wanted my house painted (dark gray siding and a bright colored front door), but wanted to make sure I selected the right shades of color that did not clash with each other. In addition, it was not at all clear to me what to do with the window trim, door trim, fascia, eaves, and exposed beams. I e-​mailed Rachel, and she was able to come out within a couple of days to help me out. Within an hour of talking to me about my preferences, looking at color chips, and walking around the house, she was able to suggest some color schemes that sounded good. There were some details, however, that I was having a hard time visualizing, so she took several photos of the house, and then emailed me photoshopped images of my house with all of the various color schemes that we talked about. This made it much easier to narrow down our final choices, and was also helpful in bringing in my husband in the decision making as he was not able to make it to the meeting. Now that our house has been painted, I love looking at the outside of our house.
What we now particularly love about the house color is the bright color of the trim around our large glass windows in our courtyard. It had never occurred to me to highlight these windows in anyway, but now we just love to peek into the courtyard to get a glimpse of the cheerful windows. Thank you, Rachel!

Rachel is simply worth every cent! My partner and I just bought a home in Lafayette and we had no idea what colors we wanted to paint it, but we knew we wanted it to look good and feel like us… whatever that means! Rachel came over for a 2.5 hour meeting and she helped us pick out colors for every room in the house! She asked all the right questions, had a briefcase with eery colors imaginable in it and knew all about lights, etc… and how it affects color. It does not hurt that she is so sweet, so non-​judgemental, and so darn easy to talk to. I have already recommended her to 3 of my friends and I would not hesitate to personally recommend her to anyone.

Rachel Perls is worth every penny!
We recently purchased a house whose interior had been painted entirely in yellow (my least favorite color) for the sale. After the close, I had two days before the painters arrived to choose colors for 7 different rooms. Since I have very strong color preferences, I thought it would be a piece of cake. I spent day one at the paint store; I looked at chips, selected a handful of colors, had samples made, then brought them to the house and painted them on the walls. (FYI, I’m not sure where I got this idea from, but this is the absolute wrong way to go about it.) $ 65, several hours, and one fume fueled headache later, I had nothing usable and realized how daunting (and potentially expensive) my task actually was. I found Rachel’s information in a web search and called her in a panic.
Luckily, she was able to meet me the next day. After asking a few questions about color and style preferences, etc., she showed up with an arsenal of color swatches in various sizes and spent several hours with me methodically going from room to room, asking the right questions, keeping me focused, and displaying a deep knowledge of color, lighting, paint types and various tips & tricks of the trade. I never felt like she was pushing her preconceived ideas & preferences on me, but that she was instead helping me to arrive at the colors that I would be happiest with.
And I am thrilled with the result. We have a very open floor plan so you can usually see into several rooms from any spot in the house. I am still impressed on a daily basis with the way all the colors work so well together when viewed in layers against each other — one of the many things I never would have taken into consideration on my own.
Before this experience, I probably would have scoffed at the idea of a color consultant, or at least considered it a frivolous expense. Now, when I consider the cost and number (and waste) of unnecessary paint samples, the actual cost of paint and painting, and potentially having to RE-​paint a house, and most importantly, the fact of living with the result every single day, I say, again — Rachel Perls is WORTH EVERY PENNY!

My crappy old room now looks amazing! It is incredible how beautiful colors can completely change the energy of a room. Thank you, Rachel, for taking a neglected guest room and turning it into the most comfortable room in the house!

Rachel helped us with choosing colors for a huge space — our home is a converted loft and was all bright white. We needed guidance for our bedroom area. I had an idea of ochre, or some sort of orange-​y yellow but by simply using her paint swatches we decided to go in another direction. She is truly gifted with seeing nuance in color. We ended up choosing a wonderful forest green which made the bedroom so warm and cozy. I would recommend Rachel’s talents to anyone needing color consulting. What’s magical about Rachel is how she picks up on what WE wanted and not on what she thought would look good to her.

My painter and a friend both recommended Rachel, and I couldn’t have been happier. I was having my exterior painted, and almost knew the colors I wanted; Rachel came and very quickly helped me pick the exact tones. So much easier to do while standing in front of the house with her good advice and large swatches, as opposed to standing confused in the paint store! She also then created a guide for the painters so that they knew where to put all the trim and get the details just right!

i found rachel on Unilocal and i am totally happy with her services. Rachel is friendly, down to earth and professional. Her fees are reasonable as well. in just 2 hrs we came up with a color scheme for my 2100 sq ft home. she picked up on my tastes and needs right away. without rachel, i was at a total loss about colors and probably would have made some ghastly mistakes. i highly recommend hue consulting and rachel!

Hiring Rachel to help us figure out what colors to paint our house was PRICELESS! After stucco issues on our house, we were going to paint outside of house same color before Rachel entered the scene. OMG, you gotta see our house now. It looks amazing (if I may say so myself).
Rachel got a sense of the space inside, listened to what we were looking for (we didn’t actually really know), and then she did some research on the style of our house and colors that were used at time when our house was built (1920s) and then did some computer mockups on her iPad which was SUPER helpful in selecting the colors. I need to put up picture of my house so you can see her work…
For the amount of $ we spent on painting outside of house ($ 8k), Rachel’s fee was nominal and instrumental. Totally will get that $ back in resale value. So many people have asked who was our painter that did our house and I have to credit both our great painters (JB Painter – woo!) and Rachel. It was beautiful team effort.
One more thing – we have hired another color consultant in past and while we like our inside colors, the process was one I would not want to repeat. I felt judged and that the OTHER consultant was rolling her eyes that my husband and I didn’t know what colors went together and wasn’t really customer-focused…we didn’t like that process. So I wasn’t really psyched about doing that process again, but Rachel is SO DIFFERENT! She listens, she smiles, she has research and education backing up her recommendations, she was responsive during the process and worked hard to meet our tight deadline! Whereas before we felt ignorant and judged for our lack of color knowledge by other person, Rachel made it fun and helped us understand what we wanted/​liked.

Rachel really saved the day for me! I shudder to think what would have ended up on my walls (or how much more money I would have spent on samples) without her input. Read on…
When my painting contractor first arrived, I thought I wanted to paint my main room (combo living/​dining/​kitchen) yellow. Not super yellow-​yellow, but kind of a tan-​ish, mellow, light yellow. The painting contractor handed me a huge fan deck containing thousands of colors, and I picked out 4 yellows, went to the paint store and got some samples, and none of them looked even close to what I wanted. Everything looked very different on my walls!
I went through the same process trying to choose paint for my bathrooms, only there I had no idea which color I wanted (just not yellow). Seven sample jars of paint later (and 7 splotches of different colors on my bathroom wall later), I was more confused than ever.
My painting contractor needed a decision from me, and I was nowhere near ready to make that decision. So I got on Unilocal,found Rachel, and sent her an email. She emailed me back right away and I immediately felt better. That was a Friday night, and she was here that Sunday (yes, Sunday!) to help me.
She brought a portfolio of large color sample cards that we could put up on the walls to see how each color would look in that light, and we were able to put them side by side with one another to see how they would look together. What a huge timesaver! She definitely gave me ideas that I would not have come up with on my own, and I love the result.
And best yet, when I had questions after she left, she emailed me answers. She even sent me a picture of an idea she had for one of my surfaces that she ran across a week later. Now THAT is great customer service! She also sent me a picture of an idea for a window valence for a window with which I was having trouble. I highly recommend her. A++++

We did a second floor addition which needed painting and ended up painting our entire house. It was very overwhelming just to think about it but thankfully we had Rachel’s advise and it made the process so much smoother and easier. We had a general idea of the colors we wanted but with her expertise we were able to make fast and accurate decisions. Adding the right color to your house can make a huge difference and I never thought that choosing the right color had so many elements involved, the lighting, your style, personality, your furniture, décor, etc. She first wanted to understand what we like, our style and what we were looking for, she was not pushy at all and let us make the decisions but always with her great guidance and expertise. I would highly recommend her for any painting color decision job you might need, small or big. It is totally worth it!

Rachel, at Hue Consulting, has been a terrific resource. Before we called her in, we had had a lot of trouble picking paint for the interior of our home. Everything looked different on the wall than it did on a paint chip. Frustrated by previous efforts to pick paint, we decided to call in a pro. Rachel listened to what we wanted and helped us achieve that vision. She helped us to understand how the light in our home can dramatically alter the appearance of a color. When a color was too bright or too murky or too fleshy, she knew how to tweak it to our liking. We ended up loving the colors that she helped us pick. She is quite knowledgeable about color and the various products that are available. She is passionate about what she does and a great resource for design ideas. We are so grateful for her help!

Rachel Perls helped us design and create a stunning mural for our 1 year old daughter’s room. It is so gorgeous, I sometimes just sit in there to look at it! She was super fun to work with and I adore the results. The mural adds a very special touch to our daughter’s room. The design she helped us create will also be perfect as our daughter ages because it’s just a lovely piece of artwork. Rachel is a trained color consultant and artist, and she is very talented. I’m so pleased with her work. You can check it out in the gallery on Rachel’s site… our mural is the tree silhouette:
Update: Rachel helped us pick paint colors for our entry and dining room. Wow! I never thought I would use a color consultant since I quite like DIY, but her input made the process so much better and more efficient. I was overwhelmed with all the color choices in my head, and was unsure how to coordinate with adjoining rooms and pull in colors from the art and furniture without being too matchy-​match. From her giant binders of samples she narrowed her suggestions and explained her thinking. With a light-​hearted and knowledgeable approach, she expertly helped focus my thinking. She has great training and knows her stuff, but she wasn’t rigid about how things ought to work. A perfect balance. She also proposed a creative idea for a nook in our entryway — and now I’m so excited about it! I love the colors we came up with. The process was brief, collaborative, and really, really fun. Couln’t be more pleased.