Garden Greens

Evoke the serenity of a garden with cream-and-green-toile fabrics and soft green walls. Soft greens are calming and easy to live with. A painted yellow table adds a warm accent.

Cream with Mulberry and Sage

Walls, floor, and upholstery share a similar creamy hue in this living room. Color accents come from the green leaves on the upholstery and the sage green draperies, whose floppy header sports a mulberry pink lining. A pink lampshade picks up the color of the header lining.

Take the hue of furnishings into account when planning your color schemes. Use high contrast to call attention to important furnishings. Here the settee’s dark wood and the antique screen’s leather contrast sharply with the fabrics and wall color, ensuring that you notice the pieces.

Blue and Tan, Plus White

Soft robin’s-egg blue, sea-grass tan, and white produce a relaxed, I’m-on-vacation feeling in this living room. Blue walls and a white vaulted ceiling provide the cool, restful backdrop for light tan furnishings. Woven grass chairs, the upholstered sofa, and the window blinds share the same hue.

Layering a blue accent rug over the sisal carpet brings the wall color to the floor. White draperies, accessories, and table breathe freshness into the setting.

Maize, Gray, and Avocado

After a 40-year absence, avocado green is respectable again, but for a modern look, it’s paired with maize yellow and lavender gray instead of harvest gold and brown.

Pairing the muted yellow with this shade of lavender gray smartly combines complementary colors–yellow and purple lie opposite each other on the color wheel, which means they intensify each other when used together in a color scheme. The mix-and-match patterns in the pillows add accents with retro-inspired yellow, rust, brown, and shades of green.

Yellow, White, and Blue

Yellow and white with touches of soft blue make a no-fail combination for living rooms. In this hall and living room, a saturated yellow on the glazed walls repeats in the draperies, while white trimwork repeats in the sofa upholstery. The armchair brings the three colors together, and blue and white china provide cool accents.

A sea-grass rug provides a neutral ground for the scheme, pulling together the seating pieces without calling attention to itself.

Chocolate and Lime

Brown is back but it’s not the earth brown of the 1970s. The dusty chocolate of this faux-suede sectional communicates a sophisticated attitude. The ottomans wear soft yellow green linen velvet that brings the color of the pear painting into the room. A canvas color rug and chaise and oatmeal-hued walls create a light neutral backdrop.

Cocoa Brown and White

To give your living room quiet elegance, consider neutral colors, which include brown, white, gray, and black. Cocoa and white bring sophisticated warmth to this light-filled living room. Color cues come from the woven rug, with its rococo scrolls, and play out in stripes on the chairs and a solid on the ottoman.

Choosing white upholstery rather than striped for the largest seating piece ensures that the scheme doesn’t overwhelm. Ivory draperies soften the architecture but don’t distract from the view.

Butter Yellow and White

Pale butter yellow on the walls gives this French-inspired living room gentle warmth–not the hot sun of Provence, but the aged pastels of a Paris apartment. White upholstery, painted furniture, and trimwork enhance the atmosphere.

The pale blues and greens in the antique rug repeat in the draperies, antique Italian buffet and trumeau mirror, and vintage fabrics on accent pillows. The rug’s touches of red repeat as accents on book covers and pillow trims.

Shades of White and Gray

Shades of white, cream, and pale gray create an airy feeling in this living room.

To keep the color temperature fresh rather than chilly, warm and cool colors balance each other. Creamy walls and bright white shutters play off of cool blue-white and silvery gray upholstery and table. Warm gold tones in the rug and stone balance deep blue accents in the antique trumeau mirror and decorative pillow.

The Sunny Colors of Provence

Sunny yellow and warm red team up to evoke the countryside in Southern France. The proportions in this room are nearly equal: Glazed walls, draperies, and upholstery fabrics splash the yellow of mustard pots and sunflowers around the room, and the carpet and upholstery supply a balancing amount of red.

In this setting, the moss green sofa and ottoman work as a cooling neutral. Bright green pottery on the mantel is a lively accent.