I love jewel tones

I like earth tones, something that blurs the line between inside and outside and between natural and man made.

Images....I need images!


Wait, when I say jewel tones, I wouldn't decorate a room entirely in them. That would look like a circus. Earth tones with jewel tone accents and points of focus is what I'm about.

I don't know, I must have been Mexican in one of my previous lives, I like vibrant colors just like you see in Mexico and South America.

You have me here



and here




Throw in sharp whites, or blacks for SMALL accent colors and you have my pallet

my bedroom colors


with out the kick ass texture job

you've seen my living room. I'm not afraid of color.

Luvin' would be easy if your colors were like my dreams. Red gold and green, red gold and gree-ee-ee-en. (with a little purple, royal blue thrown in.)

I would describe it as ancient Rome whore house.


jane, couldn't see that image, please post another one as an example.
I love seeing what people find comfortable.

Ahhh...I cut and pasted it and got it to show.


Hell yeah.

That's a little bright for me, but I can so appreciate your feeling good in that.

Is that your house?

No Chai, but they're painting the outside of my house in a toned down yellowish-brown, similar to the picture. My house inside is very colorful though,
yellow, orange, redish themes.

I definitely have different color preferences for house, clothes, graphic design, etc., etc. But one group of colors that make me happy are:

INDIA!











Yellow, pink, red, turquoise and bright, light green in various combinations always perk me up, even though they're a bit much for many uses.

I love wearing jewel tones and have plenty of sapphire, emerald, ruby, etc coloured things. I also like basic black, some tan, and navy - love navy.

For a house, I like rich, saturated colours with some neutrals, or vice versa. I don't have time to find a picture - oh wait, I'll be back with one of our new bathroom.

We are doing our kitchen/living room (feature wall) in something called Caliente from Benjamin Moore, but it's not bright, just deep and saturated - it's a red. The other walls are going to be the same colour throughout - I'll scan the chips in and you guys can help me decide on the baseboard/trim/ceiling colour (third row).

Bathroom: - it's the "public bathroom" on the main floor.





And this is the flooring in the entryway and the bathroom:



Here are the colour chips for the living rooms and kitchen - a blue in one living room (the carpet is grey-brown), the red is for one wall in the kitchen/living room (the flooring is hardwood), and the taupe-y for the other walls. The last three are baseboard/ceiling choices - any advice? I prefer the blue on the left, he prefers the other one.



We are completely gutting the house, floor by floor. There will be a new door with sidelight (with no Pets Are Fed sign!), new trim, baseboards, lighting, all new windows, appliances, the whole nine yards. This is Stage 2.

Here's a picture of the lower living room carpet with the paint chips for the wall (I prefer the Labrador Blue) and the baseboard choices. Advice would be welcome

You can pretty much look at any Mark Rothko painting and find the kind of colors I like:

I'm a mess, I like all colors...or mostly all colors, depending on what's going on, where they are.

I notice the paint chips I'm playing with here in vivid sky New Mexico are different that the colors I was accumulating in northern coastal california, where the sky was routinely a crystalline pale blue or misty grey. By the north coast, with a house with a lot of wood, I was choosing, ah, a greyed blue green (murphy bed room) and a greyed more yellow green for the living room and dining room, a dusty rose (computer room) , a warm tan (bathroom), a not completely clear yellow for the kitchen and back hall, a lavender blue for the breakfast room, which was very windowed and cabineted (white)... a peachy rose for the master bedroom.. I only got two rooms painted before I had to sell, but did do a lot of electrical and plumbing stuff. That was a house with a lot of wainscotting, so the paint went from 4 to 5 feet up and over the ceiling.

The house I left in Venice - also a coastal city with sometimes a misty foggy atmosphere - had been through a few versions of my paint craziness, starting with a strong prussian blue living room, going in the opposite direction to a "sophisticated" quite light taupe (bor--- ing) and ending up in a very pale rose... over 25 years time. One bedroom was a caramel/maple tan sort of color, the other a cool grey blue, with the intermediate hallway, off of the living room, a lime green slightly greyed; bathroom was a purpley greyey rose; kitchen/pantry areas in an apricot color, with repainted old cabinets in... aqua. All woodwork there was a creamy white, and there was lots of it. The rooms were relatively small and the colors pretty much flowed together well, believe it or not. I should post them one of these days.

And now I live with navajo white while staring at more paint chips... in this house which is like a cocoon in a blast of sun and brilliant blue sky. I'm looking at lighter colors, all slightly greyed as opposed to clear but so were the other colors in other cities - various yellows like the ones Boomer is thinking about recently, pale peaches, creams, one or two greens.

Hah, I have an old Rothko calendar in my "master bath".

Yeah, that's really happy soz!

Those are uber jewel tones. I really really like the picture taken above of the crowd of people.


For decor, I could be soooo happy living in these variations....

Notice I just have to go with those reds.

Blues are not for me, or any light pastels.

Chai, you'd be very happy in Old Europe. They have all the architecture, design
and coloring you like there.

Sozobe, Indian colors are very similar to Mexicans, except they use more
intricate designs and more gold.

Mame, I like the whipple blue better, it's more vibrant, and the tan baseboard -
white is too harsh with those soft colors.

By the way sozobe, do you know Safron Marigold, a very nice Indian online store - reasonable too!

Agree with CJ re baseboard.

Thanks, CJ. I don't have any white in that group, they're all shades of beige, tan, brown. Alex likes the Whipple, too, but I think it's a bit too bright for that carpet.

Safron Marigold..
uh oh...