This week we are introducing a two bedroom apartment in W1, Marylebone. A riot of deep saturated colors and a lesson in how to use them. You may not like these particular colors, but keep in mind that the lesson is how they have been used. It’s also a call to action that just because it’s small doesn’t mean you have to fill everything with white. Unless of course you want to!
Two-bedroom (842 square feet) apartment. Inigo £1,400,000 (central London, prime location, etc.) but the good thing about this is the layout. There is a kitchen and living room on the right, a bedroom on the left, and a bathroom in the middle. A common problem with period conversions is having to walk through the bedroom to get to the outdoor space, or having the bathroom beside the kitchen and miles away from the bedroom. This is one of those details he decides he needs to compromise on when he’s desperately looking for it, and he’s going to get really annoyed six months after moving out. So once you find a good layout, you should get your hands on it. expensive.
Well, let’s start with that kitchen. Isn’t that a lot of fun? Kitchens, especially small kitchens, are often kept neutral to give an impression of light and space, where the owner chooses a color scheme they are happy with and matches it. .
A bit of science for those who want it? Red and blue (or orange and blue) are opposites on the color wheel, meaning they work well together. But with strong colors like this, everything can feel a little childish. So there are two things to do. First, instead of choosing a primary color for each shade, find something a little more subtle. Here we take oranges and duck eggs for discussion. You might want to name it something else, but you get the idea.
Then this is important. Adding tonal variations adds layers and sophistication to the scheme rather than just flat blocks of two or three colors. So the walls are orange/coral, but the oven is a deep burgundy and the tiles are a mix of all three. It doesn’t have to be zigzag if it’s too much, but you can have stripes or checks instead. The advantage of tiles is that in rooms with little upholstery (curtains and cushions), mixing tiles like this is a good way to create patterns and break up what could otherwise be clumps of paint. is.
Finally, point to another glass cabinet. This time it’s painted to create a focal point on the crowded tiled wall.
The living room is more complicated for me, but remember all ideas are adaptable. I love how this room is wrapped in deep navy and the art on the walls really shines. As regular readers know, I have a complicated relationship with yellow, so I might not want to build a whole wall, but I’m making a clever use of color here. First, the large blue painting stands out so much against the yellow wall that you might otherwise lose sight of it. Then, the yellow curtains that frame the windows make it seem like the sun is flooding in and filtering into the far wall. It’s a neat trick. Yellow is the only color that works well for letting in the sunshine, but the idea of using the same shade of curtains and picking it up on the opposite side of the room is a good one. It gives more weight to feature walls that are not installed there at the time, but are related to the other side of the room.
Above, even without the yellow walls, the vases and lamp bases capture the color, showing how the curtains are a part of the room. This creates a diorama-like layered effect in the room. All rooms are 3D, of course, but bringing one color to the fore like this emphasizes that color and highlights the object.
Back in my comfort zone of muted colors, but with that being said, all of these colors work well together and I’d make a mood board or at least paint the swatches on a large piece of paper to see how they fit. It shows the advantage of making sure it’s positioned like that. The kitchen and living room are bright jewel tones, while the bedrooms are muted.
Chocolate brown is a gorgeous, warm color that pairs well with patterned sofas and rugs. By the way, the advantage of a patterned sofa may seem intimidating to buy, while a plain sofa may feel lighthearted, but you can use all the different colors and tones within the fabric. , you can redecorate over the years and completely change the look of the room. Varies over time. It’s better than buying a plain one and thinking you’ll run out of colors and can’t redecorate. Paint is cheaper than furniture.
This is also a beautiful and perhaps unexpected color palette. Deep chocolate and blush pinks are intense but lovely, brightened with shots of mint, deepened into emeralds, and a touch of blue as a disruptor. The number of colors used in a room is generally conservative, so you might end up with the first three colors, but blue works well if you want to go further. Also, they all seem to have come out of the painting on the right, which is his one of the first places to look for inspiration.
It’s not about matching the decor to the art, it’s about incorporating colors and tones to get the best of both. The painting stands out on the dark walls, but all the other colors blend in with the room. The point is, it’s not just a girl in a red dress with some red cushions.
And hear the walls and ceiling drenched in the same hue for a truly cozy and welcoming feel. This isn’t a large bedroom, it’s long and narrow, so using a single shade will blur the edges and let you see the objects inside rather than focusing on the corners.
It’s also a nice color palette. Pink and yellow are classic, as are pink and green. Yellows and greens aren’t seen that often, but here the shades are all of the same muted lineage, so they look great as small accents with paler blues (remember the kitchen) and deeper burgundy. function.
Finally, the home’s centrally located bathroom pairs navy in the living room with a richer blue in the kitchen, alluding to flashes of blue in both bedrooms. And this is the red thread. Finish with an all-blue room to a partially blue room (living room), then a contrasting color to blue (kitchen), and a complementary color and a flash of blue in the bedroom. Here it’s blue, but you could use green, pink, yellow, or whatever color you like, but think of this as a template for how to balance your color palette.
who’s moving in? I would definitely get some color inspiration from here
