“Yellow and black, how hideous! I would never decorate my house in colours that resemble a bumble bee, however sweet they are. Or worse, a wasp”, I hear you cry.
Although I am a fan of black in decorating, yellows with blacks do sound a bit scary. So rather than black, I investigated charcoals. And yes, there is a difference. As I was putting together ideas for my Decorating With Yellow series on this blog, I laid out the wall colours I wanted to work with. Next, I needed to find fabrics for room schemes and as is the norm in such situations, my neatly-categorised cuttings drawers were literally turned upside down. The floor was covered in a weird and wonderful mix of fabrics and textures. But strangely and by chance, an old favourite had landed perfectly next to a rich, creamy yellow paint card. And so the charcoal/yellow scheme was born by total accident. Soft and subtle shades of charcoal sit elegantly alongside a classic easy colour, and like old friends, bring out the best in each other.
I added in a few extra textures to create a bit more movement and I experimented with different scales of the same pattern (a check). I hugely admire those stylists and designers who play around with scale and pattern in the same room. Their rooms are ordered and cohesive despite the great mix of pattern. They don’t look too ‘perfect’ and they never look cluttered. How do they do that?
I considered adding another colour. I thought something interesting could be done with a smokey blue alongside the yellow and charcoal, but decided against it as I wanted to let the strength of textures and the contrast of colours speak out. So here you have it, more of a monochrome scheme to end my series of Decorating With Yellow.
