Issue #23: Bringing Style and Color Into Your Home with Rachelle Padgett of The Green Materialist
My Q&A with interior designer and color consultant Rachelle Padgett and newly listed homes with pizazz.
The Silvert Lining is a place where I talk about real estate, cool homes for sale, things I’m looking forward to, and how I’ve been spending my time. In addition to this newsletter, I also post regularly on Instagram. You can follow me at Dan Silvert Homes. If you would like to meet with me to discuss your home search, you can schedule time here.
When touring homes with clients, it's common to find properties that meet all the practical requirements but fall short on aesthetic appeal. This disconnect can be challenging because while logical criteria like location, square footage, and price are easily quantifiable, the emotional connection to a home's look and feel is equally important for long-term satisfaction. This is where Rachelle Padgett comes in!
Rachelle is an experienced interior designer and color consultant who received her formal design education from the Interior Design and Interior Architecture Department at UC Berkeley Extension, following her undergraduate work at the University of Virginia. In 2007, she founded Synthesis Interiors & Color. A decade later, The Green Materialist was born to extend the reach of her career-long focus on healthy and eco-friendly materials. From 2018-2020, Rachelle developed and taught a sustainability-based curriculum for the Interior Finishes and Materials course at her design alma mater. She is regularly tapped as a consultant, educator, and connector on sustainability topics in the built environment and beyond. She also serves on the board of the West Berkeley Design Loop and loves cultivating community, both professionally and personally.
Welcome to the Silvert Lining, Rachelle. I’m thrilled to be interviewing you. Please tell our readers about your work with The Green Materialist.
The Green Materialist is a Berkeley-based interior design and color consulting firm, with a long-standing commitment to sustainable principles, practices, and materials. We see our role as changemakers and community leaders, supporting choices made in light of their social, health and environmental impacts. We favor projects that honor history, heritage, and place. We love getting back to the basics of vernacular architecture and regenerative materials. In other words, design that is rooted in local tradition and uses earth-based resources.
From flooring to furniture, we develop specifications that tread lightly on the earth and are kind to their makers and users. We ask tough questions of manufacturers and deeply assess the components that make up your home. Our approach is holistic. We engage clients in a collaborative weaving of form, function, and fun, bringing to life spaces that are creative and highly personalized.
Whether you need full design and project management, or simply a one-time consultation, our process is customized to fit your goals, timeline, and budget. We will guide your vision from dream to reality!
What is the first thing you do when working with a new client?
I like to start with a 20 minute intro call with potential clients to learn their scope of work, share my approach, answer questions, and determine if we are a good mutual fit. I find it critical to spend time getting to know my clients; their lifestyle really determines the recommendations I make. I also engage each project from the perspective of looking first to what we might reimagine, repurpose, refinish, reupholster, etc., as opposed to assuming we are going to start completely from scratch. While it’s not possible on every project, I’ve won many clients by orienting toward working with existing elements.
You have a reputation for bold uses of color. What are your current favorite colors?
For years, I’ve been dreaming of painting my bedroom Mexican Pink (Rosa Mexicano) - the bold pink saturating Mexican architecture and woven into traditional textiles.
During early COVID-19 boredom, I refinished a few pieces of furniture I found on the street in Wizard by Benjamin Moore. It’s a deep, blue violet that manages to be grounded and playful at the same time. Plus, how can you not love it simply for the name?! I’m also excited about the comeback of Kelly Green. Pair it with Mexican Pink, and you get a retro combo, but on its own, it can go classic or modern!
How do you strike a balance between classic and “of the moment” colors?
I encourage clients to keep trend colors to elements that can be easily changed. Walls can be repainted, backsplashes replaced, or rugs, bedding and art swapped in and out.
I cringe when I see people choosing kitchen cabinets or flooring in the color of the moment, because with trend cycles moving as fast as they do (thanks, social media), they can be outdated before construction is even complete. I design for longevity, and keeping your foundational finishes and pieces in an enduring palette is the most sustainable thing you can do.
What are your favorite materials to introduce to a client’s space?
I’m really excited about the emergence of more DIY friendly earth- and mineral-based paints. Latex paint particles account for more than 50% of the microplastics in our oceans. My jaw literally dropped when I learned this, but of course! We don’t generally conceive of paint as plastic, but that’s exactly what it is. Cultures around the world use bio-based materials to coat the surfaces of their homes. I would love to see a broad movement in this direction in the US.
I take a three part approach in evaluating materials, by viewing them through the interconnected lenses of sustainability, health, and justice. To unpack that a bit, I think of sustainability in terms of the environmental impacts that begin with raw materials extraction. This includes the clear cutting of trees, mining of minerals, water, soil and air contamination, and much more. In the design community, material health dialogues are often focused on the end user, such as how a family’s indoor air quality is impacted by chemicals like Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and formaldehyde. That’s incredibly important, and I prefer to take a more expansive approach, considering the health impacts along the lifecycle: on the people exposed throughout the extraction, manufacturing, and installation processes, as well. This leads us into the conversation about environmental justice, which in the context of the built environment, looks at production that disproportionately impacts marginalized communities.
It’s complex, and few materials don’t have trade-offs. For example, you could make a table with reclaimed wood from an old barn (plus points for sustainability!), but then finish it with a toxic polyurethane that’s harmful to the brain and lungs of the person applying it, as well as the people living with it (minus points for material health and environmental justice!). I’ve been doing this work for so long, I have done the research for my clients of analyzing this matrix, and can help them make decisions that align with their particular concerns and values, as well as their budget.
Speaking of budget, what are some impactful things people can do in their homes if they have a limited budget?
Updating light fixtures, as well as replacing doorknobs for consistency goes a long way in giving a home a cohesive feel. Changing out cabinet knobs and pulls is a fun and inexpensive way to personalize your cabinets and furnishings.
Hang art! Go to a craft fair or home decor shop where you can find prints from local artists for less than $30, and pair them with simple frames, which can often be sourced secondhand.
If someone is thinking about selling their home in the next few years, what would you recommend they focus on from a design perspective right now?
Flooring! We are fortunate that so many homes in the East Bay have their original, 2-¼” oak flooring. Most of it has a refinish left in its life, and new wood can be woven into spots that are too damaged to refinish. I’m still amazed at the transformations I see from a great flooring contractor.
In areas where floors must be fully replaced, absolutely avoid LVT/LVP. It has swept the real estate market because of its durability and relative affordability, but vinyl has one of the most egregious lifecycles of any building material. Most domestic vinyl flooring is produced in an industrial stretch of Louisiana from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, containing over 200 petrochemical plants. Here, cancer rates are 95% higher than the national average, earning it the tragic nickname of Cancer Alley.
For floors that need to be replaced, I recommend solid strip wood floors, which can be refinished up to five times, and specify a no or low zero VOC finish. If wood is truly out of budget, opt for laminate over vinyl. It has the same look, but is composed primarily of a wood fiber core, which has a much lower eco and justice footprint.
I know you love custom tile design. Where can tile make the biggest impact in a home?
As open floor plans have become the norm, the kitchen backsplash is an excellent place to create a totally custom piece of art that unifies colors and patterns from throughout the rest of the home. Tile design is one of my specialties, and I’m highly versed in the incredible makers on the market, some of whom are even local, like Fireclay Tile and Heath Ceramics. I love a great fireplace facelift, too, since that’s often the first thing you see when you enter a home. Another place to have fun with pattern or color is a powder room floor. Because powder rooms are small, you get a lot of value for your investment and can go bolder than you may want to elsewhere.
If people want to work with you, what are their next steps?
Please visit my website at www.greenmaterialistinteriors.com and send me a text at 415.606.1909 to set up an introductory call!
Rachelle has incredible taste and her designs have lots of pizazz! I thought it would be fun to feature homes that are currently for sale that have pizazz in spades.
Let me know if you are looking for a new home and I can create a customized search based on your wants and needs that will email you homes that meet your search criteria. You can schedule time with me to discuss your search for a new home or selling your current home by emailing me at DanSilvertHomes@gmail.com. DRE #01963734