How To Decorate With Yellow And….Pale Shades

Article written on 13th April, 2017

If your aesthetic veers towards the more minimalist, the pared-down, and the thought of ‘decorating with yellow’ makes you shudder and look away, then read on. The stereotype probably springs to mind: traditional English drawing rooms whose rich and wonderful layering of texture and pattern sends you running for the hills. Fair enough.

But in the words of a (really) badly-scripted cheesy film, “it doesn’t have to be like that”.

For the second post in the series of Decorating With Yellow, my direction has switched to the other extreme from my previous post, where strong mustards and golds prevail. Here is a very muted palette. So muted in fact, that it only features one yellow. Well, why clutter up a scheme and add more just for the sake of it? This particular yellow speaks volumes in calm, gentle order. Combined with that grey-patterned wallpaper….yum!

In my humble opinion, the scheme is a good example of how a room can be kept simple and muted but still with “a bit of something” going on. The ‘something’ in this case is the movement from the wallpaper, contrasting very gently with the soft, textured yellow. And what is that colour by the way? Banana yellow? Custard yellow? Not great names really but what’s in a name, and all that?

Oh and another reason to keep a scheme relatively simple…it acts as a great backdrop for the “stuff” and I don’t know about you, but I have a lot of it so I am ever on the lookout for ‘neutral’ schemes that aren’t boring.

Please excuse wonky images.