Using Art as a Starting Point for Choosing a Color Palette for Your Rooms

I love to use artwork to inform a color scheme in rooms that I am working on. Artists use and combine colors in such unique and beautiful ways...so it's virtually foolproof letting a great piece of art be your guide to a beautiful color plan. 

Artist, Kathe Frage Via

This beautiful piece, available on canvas or paper, is very modestly priced and it can be the inspiration for a sweet room.  You could frame it in a faded gold - or a cream frame. I then might do a wainscoting and trim in Benjamin Moore's White Opulence (Classic Colors, 879) because it's a warm white that has a little touch of pink in it. Then for the wall color above it, I would think about Benjamin Moore's Love and Happiness (1191).  For a little extra texture, I might do a vertical stried finish on the wall with a creamy pink glaze. For the ceiling - I'd mix the two colors together to get a barely there pale pink - just for a blush color overhead.

Benjamin Moore's Love and Happiness (1191)

For a little girl's bedroom, I'd add a colorful floral, like Quadrille's Henriot Floral as an upholstered headboard. I'm partial to the name "Henriot" because it's the name most closely associated with Quimper pottery (which is such a favorite of mine).  

Quadrille's Henriot Floral in Pinks on Ecru

I'd add a cream or ecru duvet cover (that would match the background of the headboard).  I add a red and cream polka dot for the dust ruffle and for a pillow or two. Duralee offers this fabric - but I'm sure that this would be fairly easy to source less expensively.

Red and cream polka dots for the dust ruffle and a pillow or two.

Some extra pillows for the bed could be...

Robert Allen's Flower Prints in Poppy



A pink velevet - Kravet's Versailles



Robert Allen's Zinging Along in Poppy

I might do the Versailles pink velvet, edged with the Quadrille Henriot fabric as a throw at the bottom of the bed.

Window treatments: I could also see the red polka dot fabric as a Roman shade - with the Quadrille Henriot fabric as the draperies.

Carpet:  I would love to see something that's easy care - maybe a slight shag in a pink or slightly darker to help ground it.

Additional art could be something like these decals from Surface Inspired on Etsy. You can order them in just about any color.

Source

Just Another Idea for a Little Girl's Room:  I would do a vertical stripe with the Love and Happiness color and White Opulence by Benjamin Moore.  We did a pink and cream stripe in a little girl's room that came out so beautiful. My client and I (and her mom) went to the Kips Bay Showhouse in New York City several years ago - and my client went nuts over this room designed by Bograd Kids.  She wanted something similar for her little girl in their new home that they were renovating.



Inspiration Room



She so loved the Showhouse space that as soon as the room was ready, we were in there painting...stripes! A lot of them - it was a very big room!

We also revamped all of the furniture in the room (that was in the family for over 60 years) by painting it a soft cream and antiquing it. 

If you would love to have a Showhouse-inspired room in your home, give me a call at 631 793-1315