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color!!! DH strongly prefers neutrals.
Our entire house was "Swiss Coffee" when we moved in. This is basically an off-white that looks white (cool ...as opposed to warm... tone of "off-white"). DH was fine with it. I was NOT!
Eventually (SEVEN YEARS), I was able to get DH to agree to some color. Our compromise has turned out FABULOUS!!!!
The main areas of the house (all areas without a door...foyer, stairway, living room, hallways, kitchen) are a color called "Innocence" with "Ultra Pure White" trim. DH loves the neutral, warm color and I like that it is a good resting place for the eyes and enough "off" white that white works well for the trim.
Then, behind every door is a world of color waiting to be explored. I worked from a palette of "clear" colors (a.k.a. "true" colors) and narrowed it down to all my favorite colors, which happen to also be colors found in my wardrobe. Our downstairs powder room is a berry color (cranberry splash) and our project room is a sapphire blue color. The entire downstairs has shades of berry (pinks to reds) and blue (cobalt, sapphire, and others, mostly blues found in the ocean and sky) and green (little touches here and there). I started with my "inspiration" pieces, which are a series of paintings of the Italian Almafi Coast, and matched colors from those pieces to the color palette from the paint store. I wanted to keep a unified look throughout the downstairs.
Once you come upstairs, each room is a different color. The guest bathroom, which you see as you walk up the second section of stairs (L-shaped staircase), is a turquoise color (water dance). I chose it precisely because it blends the blues and greens from downstairs together and is the first burst of color you see coming upstairs, so it isn't all that jarring in the flow of the house. Our family office is purple (red-violet); our master bedroom (opposite end of hallway) is also purple (blue-violet); our master bathroom is two shades lighter than the master bedroom, but the same color; and DD's bedroom is grass green (barnyard grass) on the bottom and sky blue on the top, so she sleeps in the sky and plays in the grass.
We love our house with all its happy colors!
My point in sharing all the detail above is to illustrate how personal color choices are. It took DH & I seven years to agree to colors we could both live with. Other couples can chose in a few minutes. Look in your closet!
What colors do you wear most often? Have you lived in houses with lots of color before? How did you feel? Have you lived in houses all one color? How did you feel? One more tip: I attended a color therapy workshop and learned that "cool" colors are best for sleeping areas and "warm" colors are best for waking areas. I practiced this and our home lives have been more harmonious since. I do add touches of the opposite "warm" or "cool" tone to the room in accents for energy flow, etc.
Have fun with paint!!!
