Hardwood Floors June/July 2025

“The color brown is red, yellow, and blue with slightly more red and yellow. If one of these colors dominates, the undertone changes. With brown, either you’re going to see greenish or you’re going to see reddish,” explains Duvenjian. “For this client, I advanced the red and made a warm brown for her. She said she could still see green. I then added just a very small amount of red and she said it was much warmer. Vartan and I really didn’t see the difference, but she saw a huge difference.” That’s when he began to suspect the client had extraordinarily sensitive color vision. It turned out she had no idea she was tetrachromatic. “Usually people are trichromatic, meaning they have three cones next to their retina and they see one million colors. Tetrachromatic is when you have four cones and you are able to see 100 million colors,” he says. “In the brown samples, she was able to see the green separate undertone and the red separate undertone, so unless I was able to make a dramatic difference, she was still going to see that. If we don’t make her a little bit warmer brown, she’s not going to be happy.” After applying the brown to the floor, Duvenjian advised the clients to look at it in the morning, afternoon, and night lighting because it would look different throughout the day. While she liked the color in the morning, she didn’t like it in the afternoon when she said it looked more grey. “I explained to her that half of the room looked grey because the sun was hitting the white wall and the grey was a reflection of that white onto the floor. If we closed the blinds, it’s not going to be grey.” The next day, Duvenjian says the wife was happy with the color, but then the husband said he could not live with the magenta undertone. To accommodate this concern, a

turquoise tint was added over the magenta to create a neutral brown. Duvenjian blacked out the windows so the couple could see the neutral color under the light bulbs that were on the floor. He notes that by layering these coatings strategically, they were able to replicate the depth and warmth that time had created with the wood, ultimately meeting the homeowners’ expectations. “What I learned from this was that small adjustments in the color were big for her. When making neutral colors you have to be very careful in natural lighting because daylight fluctuates different color temperatures from morning to night,” he explains. “If you are making a neutral, that neutral is never neutral. It’s better to set the color a little bit dominant. If I’m going to go warm, I go a little bit warmer so when there is a cloudy day it stays in the middle.” “I made a point to test everything under the same kind of lighting she had in her home – high CRI bulbs set at 2,700 Kelvin. That kind of lighting shows colors more accurately and doesn’t shift much throughout the day. I explained that natural light changes constantly so if we judged the color using sunlight, it would never look the same. But under the right bulbs, the color becomes stable. That’s how we created the exact tone she could live with.” Most importantly, Duvenjian stresses the importance of preparation and listening to the client. Adding that making real time adjustments ensured the final result wasn’t just a technical success, but an artistic one. “In working with this client, who possesses exceptional color perception, I emphasized the significant impact of lighting conditions on color appearance. To achieve the precise color she desired, we agreed to focus on her ambient lighting, which features specialized lighting,” he says. “This consistent lighting allows for a stable reference point, ensuring the colors appear as intended, regardless of the time of day. This approach not only met

her expectations but also provided a reliable solution to accommodate her heightened sensitivity to color variations.”

the magazine of the national wood flooring association

13