The Old World Palette

Still popular are the deep rich saturated colors of antiquity.  I'm sure most of us are familiar with the rich velvety greens, burnished golds and mahogany reds of this palette.  The colors have gotten lighter and cleaner over the last 3 or 4 years and have expanded to include delicious plum purple and raspberry red.  Blue has become more important, tinting the reds and greens as well as becoming a player on its own.

Don't be afraid of using lots of color everywhere.  The secret of using colors together can be explained by dividing colors into color families:

Warm Colors are red, yellow, and orange.  Warm colors advance, excite and raise blood pressure.  They can be used together.

Cool Colors are blue, green, and violet.  Cool colors recede, are soothing and calming and lower blood pressure.  They can be used together.

Elegance Pinch Pleat Drapery

Neutral Colors are white, black, gray, brown and beige.  Neutral colors are just that, neutral.  They can be used together or with any of the other colors.

Imagine a wheel divided into 6 sections. Three sections are red, yellow and blue. These are called the Primary colors. They are called primary because they occur naturally as themselves and cannot be created by mixing one color with another.  The Secondary colors are orange, green and violet.  Orange is made by mixing equal parts red and yellow; Green is made by mixing equal parts blue and yellow; Violet is made by mixing equal parts blue and red.  On your wheel they would fall between the respective colors that are used to make them.

Another way to use colors together is to use either the 3 Primary colors together - red, yellow and blue; or use the 3 Secondary colors together - orange, green and violet.

Another formula for using color successfully is to use 2 colors together that fall opposite each other on the color wheel -- red and green; blue and orange; yellow and violet. One color is always a Primary color and the other is always a Secondary color.

Yet another safe method is the "two from column A, one from column B" method.  Use 2 of the Primary colors - red and blue, for example - with one of the Secondary colors - say, violet.  Or use 2 Warm colors with 1 Cool color - like red and yellow with green; or 2 Cool colors with 1 Warm color - like blue and green with orange.

The Neutral colors can be defined this way: White is all colors combined - Think white light; Black is the total absence of color - Think Black Hole; Gray, beige and brown are mixtures of varying degrees of all the colors.  As I said before, they can safely be used with all of the above, which is what makes them neutral.

I can go on all day about color but I won't.  If you have serious doubts about your ability to use color successfully, you can find color wheels and color charts at your local crafts shop or paint store.  A couple of excellent books on the subject of color are The Elements of Color and The Art of Color both by Johannes Itten.

Texture is the second most important component in pulling a room together.  Texture can be either tactile or visual and is used lavishly today.  Textures should be juxtaposed against one another for interest and - remember this? - balance, mixing your fabrics with metal, glass, ceramic and wood.  Just as a perfectly balanced Zen garden will contain the five elements of nature - water, earth, fire, wood and metal - a perfectly balanced room will contain some of all of the above elements - natural fibers, metal, glass, ceramic, wood and lighting.

Think about combining the following:
Soft and coarse fabrics such as velvet and raw silk
Smooth and rough fabrics such as moiré and linen
Shiny and dull surfaces such as glass and patina-ed metal
Resilient and non-resilient surfaces such as wood and limestone
Patterns in a variety of scales and shapes from large to medium to small, organic and geometric motifs

One other point I'd like to make about creating balance within a room is attention to Scale: Do combine large-scaled pieces of furniture with other large-scaled pieces of furniture or small-scaled pieces with small-scaled pieces.  The styles don't have to match - in fact, it's better if they don't match but rather complement one another.

For example: