olldroo I love colour, but not quite the eclectic farm house. The living room would definitely be more me without the grey walls. I prefer the colour to be on the walls with complimenting and coordinating furnishings and my neutral colour - white - to keep everything fresh.
Home Services Unlimited, LLC As a professional contractor...I would go with neutral colors. Can't go wrong with them and practically anything goes with it. However, if you own the home and plan on staying in it for a while, I say do what makes you happy.
kellystevens I can't believe I'm a Neutral Nancy these days, but my house works better with crisp white, black, caramel and gray. The furnishings have color but not the walls. I love color in art, pillows and accessories, but not on the walls.
Carolyn Albert-Kincl Design I love color, but not everywhere, so you'll see some bursts of color in our living room against less colorful non-neutrals. Well, heck, I might as well admit that there isn't a neutral in all of our living room except for the white trim!
krancmm Spent some years in countries that appreciate color, and lots of it. So, for me, it's color with "pops" of black, glass and metals as "neutrals".
basiastageright You have to know what you are doing as a designer or artist, and you have to know the house you are dealing with, to do such a sweeping gesture with vibrant color. It's a big, bold design feature that can make a small/old/imperfect/etc space seem perfectly wonderful. In this photo they handled the details of where the color was applied very professionally - an inexperienced designer might ruin this by leaving the shelves white. I think it's very artistic - any kid who grows up in this space will probably enjoy and remember the piano lessons forever. You don't do this everywhere in a house- only in special spaces.
E D COLOR!!! I can appreciate a neutral setting done right, but I always choose to "live in happy" when it gets down to actually decorating my space! (-;
Susan Shaffer depends on your location. I loved the apartment in the movie "Out Of Sight". We are planning a beach house in a tropical location and I plan to do lots of colour.
Design & Decor By Shelley Oh my gosh please don't make me choose..I love colour period..Whether it is calming neutrals or beautiful bold colours working in harmony..
Karen Bell Artist here, who loves color, voting for the neutral walls and large room items. I would add splashes of color with the smaller items and room accessories (small side chair, lamps, pillows, etc.) The color splashes can be easily changed according to mood or season.
gwnorth In general I'm a colour person, but not over the top brights. I can appreciate a neutral palette as long as it's not stark white. Swedish minimalist design is not for me. It also depends on the quality of the light a room has. If you're going to go neutral, it needs to have warm lighting. During the cold winters, rich colours in my rooms makes me feel warm and cozy. Come summer I can appreciate a lighter palette.
kitteh I love that colorful farmhouse, lots of creativity and interesting things (and a kitten). I'd be afraid to even touch anything in that white room. I get the idea neutral is safe and economical though.
lk_designs My answer to this poll would be "it depends !".
People react to colour differently and there are also cultural influences at work too, even if we don't realise it. Australians don't (generally) have black appliances in our kitchens. We either have white or stainless steel appliances and Aussie kitchens tend to have much lighter colours generally.
Colour or neutrals also depends on the amount of light a house/room gets. If it's a small dark space, then I'd opt for cream or white and use mirror/s. If it's big and light then it gets a different treatment. Also the use of the room is important. A cold blue in a bedroom doesn't really work, but warm teal would be better and bright red in a bedroom isn't calming, but the judicious use of red and lighting in a dining room encourages conversation and eating.
I'm decorating my own house with white walls and ceiling throughout because my taste in furniture and accessories is eclectic.
olldroo ik I read an article here that 90% of Aussie kitchens have white cabinetry. That is a huge difference and we also tend to plain doors and drawer fronts with no hardware. So totally different to the US where even hinges are featured.
Toni Sabatino Voted for "both" .........love them all, though.......the pooch and "color" is just great for the kid in me........grown up gravitates towards the neutrals and the "both'" is just the perfect balance of worldly and whimsical......great poll!
lk_designs Olldroo, when I was designing kitchens here in Melbourne, most of the cabinetry was pale in colour, and you're correct, we don't feature the cabinetry hardware. It doesn't mean to say it can't be stylish. I notice that there are a lot of timber kitchens in the USA and that is rare here in Australia. Aussies don't like wooden kitchens, and anyway, wood is scarce here in Australia. I had many clients that if they wanted a darker colour on their cabinetry, it had to be shiny; high gloss in other words. We have a thing about light. Again, our modern kitchens don't have painted cabinetry. I did a lot of business with a company call Polytec (I don't have any current affiliations) and they supply thermolaminted vinyl doors & panels; melamine doors & panels; laminate bench tops, as we call them.
Marble isn't used in Aussie kitchens, granite is used in some. Production stone is popular as is the corian type products but you can get some fabulous laminates now and they are reasonably priced too. It's now rare to find wooden bench (meaning counter) tops.
Aussies tend to take their fridges with them when they move which I believe is uncommon in the USA. Is that true?
I did want to ask about your name - olldroo - are you an expat Aussie?
Anita Roll Murals Although bright color would seem a natural choice for me I find I'm drawn to Camp Neutral for the calm I seem to need at the moment. I'm in sensory overload a lot of the time with my work and here I can walk in and fall on the sofa and just be beige for awhile as I regroup.
olldroo lk - no I am not expat - I'm still here but I love this website and am presently doing a major renovation of my home and have found it invaluable, despite not being able to buy products. Hope to do my kitchen later this year so your comments are of great interest to me. I have a vanity that is Corian and love it - 32 years old and not a mark on it - I'm not keen on Ceasarstone but I am interested in what you say about good old laminate. I'm not into fancy uber modern/trendy, just want basic and practical. I am picking up from here that in the US they do seem to leave their fridges which is rather funny, I have a daughter who lives in Germany and when they move they take their whole kitchen with them.
I think our light is totally different here to, which is why we do tend to different colour schemes in all rooms.
Cozy Casita Both are great, when done well. Poor execution is what can make neutral spaces dreary and colourful ones downright scary. Sorry, can't credit the pic, not sure where I picked it up from .. but everything about this room is so right for me !
karenharis Color, pink, color, pink. Although I've fought tooth & nail against neutrals, they have grown on me. Still, when I have a home I can decorate, it will be a pale stucco pink & pale baby pink, inside & out! I just can't help myself, I've been this way for years. It's me. For me, pink is the new neutral!
littledesigner I like a neutral room with bright pops of an scent color, that way your not locked into one color, you can get new accessories and give the room a totally different feel
The Last Homecoming Queen When we moved to the city center, I kept only black or white clothing but over the years designed our apartment so that color is everywhere I look. I can't imagine living in a neutral space.
And the really nice thing is that I get to choose what I like for my own living space even tho' others find it "stressful" or "high volume" (what I have found is just the opposite and that humans are adaptable).
So, opinions are like noses, everyone has one. And this website is a good place for bringing them all out.
Pamela Nielsen Contemporary Art I love both too! As a contemporary artist--I paint vibrant color--and lots of it! I love my art on vibrant wall colors. But I also love a neutral pallette so that my colors pop. Here are some pics of both.
Barbara Griffith Designs There is no one answer. Each will look good in the right situation...and what the clients life & views reveal. Design is not about me and my taste it is always about the client. My job is to give them ideas for scale, balance, utility..then a color scheme that works for them. Many times you must work with things (colors) they want to keep. I cannot count how many times I have been hired AFTER someone used another designer, spent a lot of money..and hated it. I have noticed even here that most people post very little information to do a good job of that they want, and some designers just start throwing things against the wall without seeing the entire picture and asking questions.
The Last Homecoming Queen Of course! There is professional practice which is everything said above by Barbara. And there is a personal practice where one can design according to one's own preferences. A good designer would never foist personal practice on a client!
lepstein My BM Dance de Soleil bright yellow walls and eclectic mix of colours make me small every time I look at them or even think about them. Love colour!
Design & Decor By Shelley Well said Homecoming Queen..I think this poll is directed to our own personal choice or choices in colour..As designers/decoraters, our jobs are never about what we prefer it's what our clients want and love. The task of picking colour for clients becomes much easier if the pro can look at the above poll choices and say hey they are all beautiful...
lepstein If bright or colourful walls are treated as if they are neutral, things seem to balance out. All neutral can be boring, and colour needs SOME neutral or white to give your eye a place to rest (not a designer...just saying). Also, if possible, living with a piece for awhile helps to assess your comfort level with the colour (or lack thereof).
khbiox2 Color please.I live in the south near the furniture meca. I've been looking for a sofa and so far I am drowning in a sea of brown and beige. So boring. Please designers, color my world, color my sofa!
Chelsea McGraw Storybook Murals For me, full intensity color is like having loud music on all the time with no way to turn the volume down. I love the diversity of a neutral background that lets me shift the color balance by changing some fabrics and accessories and art work. A neutral background can support the artwork in the room and allow you to paint an accent wall for drama, without having to paint the whole house.
Cozy Casita dcer, thanks so much for putting a designer's name to the pic I posted. Have just spent the past hour or so checking out his work, online. Fabulous stuff !
Cozy Casita Also, thanks to divnanata and hollybar ... You both have some great ideabooks on your pages, which gave me lots more lovely, colourful spaces to look at, that I probably wouldn't have come across otherwise. I love the way comments and links from folks on Houzz allow us to cross reference all sorts of great ideas, without having to do all the leg-work (well, maybe finger-work, since it's all online !) ourselves.
karenharis Cozy Casita ... Thank you for sending that link! Absolutely the best place I've ever seen! How could anyone not be totally happy all the time in that apt? Again, thanks for your thoughtfulness.
sandra One thing I hear countless times over is "I love color but I'm afraid to do what you have done." So silly, color is about the most easy and flexible thing to do to change the mood and feel of a home.
olldroo Barbara Griffith I could not agree with you more, you have really nailed it!!!! I get so frustrated at the lack of questions asked, to me vital questions that would make or break the outcome.
Deborah Collier-winchester I use deep cobalt blue and other bright colors in the kitchen where we're "up" more. They feed my soul. In the living room there is lots of window, white white walls, and red persian carpet. Most of the furniture is white wicker with cotton prints. One blue and green tiffany lamp, piano, and tall grandfather clock. At all times draped over everything are 2 dogs and 2 cats.
abbysdoran I'm a teen and I prefer to make things pop, so I normally go with a brightly colored background and neutrally colored decorations.
By the way, what colors would go well with yellow, white, and grey?
Norma Sassone Why does beige beige and more beige make a place more sellable - it is so boring, not tranquilo, to me. But I guess there are a lot of folks who cannot see past the colors when they are buying a house to what they could do with it, if they painted it up. I adore ireland where towns competed to be the most colorful years back - and Mexico and India - yeah!
authorlisaeve Guilty! Beige is such a warm and inviting color! I accentuate with a little apricot as an accent wall in my living room and a jade wall in my bedroom! I loooove cozy! So you will find beige and earth-toned throw pillows, candles, etc...all over the place. Love it!
weiblaboso White, grey and beige! Many people see neutrals as "boring", but they're the only way to go. Bright colors are busy, stressful, and they make a house look like a two-year-old's playroom. And besides, brights are more likely to go out of style more quickly.
Marilyn Wilkie I love color, though I'm not crazy about your example up there with a mix of all high intensity colors. When I see rooms that are just about entirely beiges it just makes me depressed. I get the same feeling when I see all of the subdivision houses around here and all of the silver automobiles. I love nature and nature is color. Life is color. Office buildings are beige and grey and boring. Why live in an office? My kitchen has bright blue, green and white glass tiles on the backsplash. When we sell, someone else can put the neutral tile in. :)
Marilyn Wilkie Boring colors of nature...relegated to dirt, cloudy days, dead leaves, etc. Black should always appear in some form in every room though.
Paige Tomkinson Neutrals, beige, tan, brown, cream, with nothing to enliven them just make me so sad. Colour makes me smile! When I own my own home, the walls will be bright white with tons of brightly coloured art, or vivid colours themselves. Bright colours just make me happy, give me engery, and make life more interesting! But, as so many people stated, you do have to do them "right."
kroze That is a very tough question. I LOVE color, but prefer to express it in furnishings and art. Therefore my walls and floors are somewhat neutral to not distract from the color focal points. To add loud color walls to artistic furnishings is a bit over the top for me.
So, how do I vote? Do I love color or not?
The Last Homecoming Queen Check out this: http://www.bavaria.by/municipal-gallery-in-the-lenbachhaus-and-kunstbau-in-munich-bavaria The art of the Blue Rider school is shown on rooms painted in vibrant, highly saturated colors. It's amazing and changed my view of how art work should be exhibited-- white wall galleries lost their allure after seeing this.
Studio NOO Design Color please ! It doesn't have to be too much or too overwhelming, but beige is sooo boring ! I live in a cold country and color is the only trick to get me through the winter !
Dawn Taillon I deleted my ramble and want to say that both are great options. It depends on your mood but for me even if you opt for a neutral pallet, there is always room for punches of bold color or what ever accent color reflects your mood or season.
Color used to be the only way for me, but as I am older I think it is more fun and affordable to add color as accents that you can easily change often.
Mary Sherwood khbiox2 - Color is very important in all of our designs. Yes, there is a place for beige sofas but there are lots of other choices. Here are just a few examples. Let me know if we can help you find that perfect sofa.
kroze Over the years of entertaining guests in my home, which I have done with great regularity over the years, I have noticed that my first guest almost always goes to a chair in the living room. The second guest tends to follow suit and go for another chair. The point is that the sofa is NOT the most favored place for most people to sit. I tend to do the same thing when visiting in the home of friends.
Therefore, I have decided to opt for an eclectic arrangement of chairs in my sitting rooms. There is no wasted space or undesirable seating. There is no concern for finding a long wall or great open space to place a three seater. It is liberating for the decorator in me. I have much more flexibility in arrangements and can easily rearrange when I want to freshen the look of the room.
I don't believe I will ever purchase another sofa, and some of my friends are beginning to catch the vision for their own homes. I would like to think this may become a growing trend.
I liken this practical morph in decorating to the morph in bedroom furnishings in recent years to built in closet drawers and shelves and eliminating the albatross triple dressers and armoires in the sleeping area. We now have room for writing tables and reading nooks in the boudoir. Much more functional.
hidanicol I like having the neutral base (not just beige..I am currently redecorating my dining room with chocolate brown) to bring out the richness of wood and to give me lots of options. For instance, I can have jewel tones in fall, greens and whites for Christmas to add a woodsy feel, more pastel colors in spring, and citrus colors in summer. I never get bored with my rooms and takes only a few minutes to change it up!
Genevieve Winter is long and cold over here. I love colour white is nice and so is beige but for me they are rather boring and cold if used in a monochromatic way. Colours make people happy :)
Mona Ives I like color with neutral backdrops not all color on color. But I'm really sick of all neutral on neutral. I love texture as much as the next person but I am just sooo bored of grey especially, but even of oatmeal and beige and white and blahhh. These rooms are putting me to sleep. If God didn't create the world devoid of color, why would we try to create rooms that way?
It's a Beautiful World! As an artists, all colors are my friends :) A lot of different color combinations work perfectly if done right while neutrals can provide a background to play around with colors. I find that most people do enjoy colors at home, it is the intensity of color that may present a problem for some or not knowing how to coordinate multiple colors. And this is where you guys come in with your expert design ideas... Raisa
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People react to colour differently and there are also cultural influences at work too, even if we don't realise it. Australians don't (generally) have black appliances in our kitchens. We either have white or stainless steel appliances and Aussie kitchens tend to have much lighter colours generally.
Colour or neutrals also depends on the amount of light a house/room gets. If it's a small dark space, then I'd opt for cream or white and use mirror/s. If it's big and light then it gets a different treatment. Also the use of the room is important. A cold blue in a bedroom doesn't really work, but warm teal would be better and bright red in a bedroom isn't calming, but the judicious use of red and lighting in a dining room encourages conversation and eating.
I'm decorating my own house with white walls and ceiling throughout because my taste in furniture and accessories is eclectic.
Marble isn't used in Aussie kitchens, granite is used in some. Production stone is popular as is the corian type products but you can get some fabulous laminates now and they are reasonably priced too. It's now rare to find wooden bench (meaning counter) tops.
Aussies tend to take their fridges with them when they move which I believe is uncommon in the USA. Is that true?
I did want to ask about your name - olldroo - are you an expat Aussie?
I think our light is totally different here to, which is why we do tend to different colour schemes in all rooms.
And the really nice thing is that I get to choose what I like for my own living space even tho' others find it "stressful" or "high volume" (what I have found is just the opposite and that humans are adaptable).
So, opinions are like noses, everyone has one. And this website is a good place for bringing them all out.
http://www.dreamsthatglitterxoxo.com/2011/03/betsey-johnsons-pink-apartment.html
By the way, what colors would go well with yellow, white, and grey?
http://www.blindsdirectcanada.com/
So, how do I vote? Do I love color or not?
None of the photos express my preferences.
The art of the Blue Rider school is shown on rooms painted in vibrant, highly saturated colors. It's amazing and changed my view of how art work should be exhibited-- white wall galleries lost their allure after seeing this.
https://www.google.com/search?q=Lenbachhaus+und+Kunstbau&hl=en&client=safari&tbo=d&rls=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=FTgHUbaCM47O0QHcpYCAAw&ved=0CAoQ_AUoAA&biw=1059&bih=602#imgrc=hP8G27p044Da0M%3A%3BtfqtYKtN9BFGxM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.museen-in-muenchen.de%252Ffileadmin%252Fuser_upload%252Fmuseumscontent%252Flenbachhaus%252Fbildergalerie%252FLenbachhaus-07.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.museen-in-muenchen.de%252Findex.php%253Fid%253D79%3B312%3B247
Color used to be the only way for me, but as I am older I think it is more fun and affordable to add color as accents that you can easily change often.
Therefore, I have decided to opt for an eclectic arrangement of chairs in my sitting rooms. There is no wasted space or undesirable seating. There is no concern for finding a long wall or great open space to place a three seater. It is liberating for the decorator in me. I have much more flexibility in arrangements and can easily rearrange when I want to freshen the look of the room.
I don't believe I will ever purchase another sofa, and some of my friends are beginning to catch the vision for their own homes. I would like to think this may become a growing trend.
I liken this practical morph in decorating to the morph in bedroom furnishings in recent years to built in closet drawers and shelves and eliminating the albatross triple dressers and armoires in the sleeping area. We now have room for writing tables and reading nooks in the boudoir. Much more functional.