Colour blocking 101: Six stylish ways to decorate your home
Designers Guild
Colour blocking home
Start with white
This sixties-inspired look will make your room shine with colour. Paint your walls white, and then decorate the room with furniture and objets from the same colour family—all blues and sea-greens, for instance, or all orange and hot pink.
Get the look: Gran Paridiso fabrics, Designersguild.com.
Give an item personality
Not sure if you want to colour block a whole room? You can try the trend on a smaller scale by incorporating it into any number of décor pieces. Wallpaper the interiors of your cabinets or shelves in alternating hues, or try painting your kitchen chairs one statement-making shade, and your table another.
Image source: Wohnidee.wunderweib.de.
Don't forget to look up (and down)
People often get so caught up in the paint and objets part of colour blocking a room that they forget the “vertical” aspect of the space: add your shade to the top of your room, via light fixtures, and at the bottom, with area rugs.
Get the look: Eberson cobalt rug, Designersguild.com.
Make an accent wall
Give your colour blocking scheme a dramatic entrance by painting an accent wall in your chosen bold shade. You can then scatter items in your shade throughout the room to tie it together.
Image source: Wohnidee.wunderweib.de.
Do it with accessories
Use pillows to help bring everything together. Buy a bunch of budget-friendly, single-shade shams that match your scheme. A lot of stores now carry pillows that are colour-blocked themselves with bold stripes, too.
Get the look: Yves Delorme pillow, Abchome.com.
For a more subtle look
Colour blocking can turn intense if there are too many clashing shades competing for real estate, or an overload of furniture and accessories all in the same wild color. You can achieve a more subtle effect simply by keeping everything within the same colour family -- instead of sticking to a single shade, or choosing contrasting colours.
Get the look: Bedding, West Elm.
GET CHATELAINE IN YOUR INBOX!
Subscribe to our newsletters for our very best stories, recipes, style and shopping tips, horoscopes and special offers.