Color explorations: natural/white rooms

Beginning today I want to explore rooms with different color schemes. I have always been drawn to colorful rooms, but lately began to think of white, light filled rooms. Since my childhood in East Germany, where the fashion had been white walls, part necessity, part reaction to 70's style wallpapers, which I found horrid at the time, I felt a rather dislike to white walled rooms. They gave me no comfort and somehow left me cold. Ever since I've had the urge to bring colors to the last corners of my universe.
Now after years of living in color drenched rooms, I am finally ready to embrace the lighter side....
Today I am starting to show you rooms which I have collected in my files from all sorts of sources, rooms with a white or natural color scheme, where texture plays a major role, different accent colors change moods and different hues of white determine the feeling of the rooms. Existing light is so important and as Maria Killam from Color me Happy points out: darker rooms will not bring white to life.
I so agree with it and the old notion of small and dark rooms needing white or light colors to make them feel larger is simply wrong. They will feel cool and gray and loosing character. This is where jewel toned colors are come into play.
Let's explore!

via Color me Happy

By now Liz Lange's 'county' house done by Jonathan Adler has for sure made it's honor rounds in the design blog world. And for a valid reason: it is simply the peak of chic and I can only imagine the impact from now on forward. Black/white with a different strong accent. Here turquoise, in other parts of the house yellow, green or blue. I am in such awe! Go check out Color me Happy, Maria has written beautifully about the house.



Many all white rooms come to life through different geometric forms which create visual interest. Here you see how walls, table and chairs with their angular shapes stay in contrast to the globe lamp, the artwork with circular forms and objects like the vase and flowers which show height and dimensions. Simple but effective.



This room glows with the stark contrast between the floor, bay window and floating side board on one hand and the white walls on the other. Observe how all together the room lives through the geometric forms, they take center stage and ground the room. The hight is wonderful and the chandelier a nice contrast to all the modern forms!


This small part of a living room shows all the essentials to create visual excitement: round shapes against the square forms of the background, pattern and texture against the bland walls, all together a feeling of lace and lightness.



This room is lovely, I like how the historic ceiling and grand proportion of the room stand out against the modern chairs and the rather simple treatment of all furniture. Can you see how the ceiling medallion is reflected in the shape of the mirror?



This incredible room needs no extras: the windows build the back bone and create all the interest, the dining place is like the front row seat in the theater...




A sweet vignette of playfulness and contrasts.


via desiretoinspire

This monochromatic, natural earth toned room is wonderfully calming, all the different textures make it sing, the lamp with its shells, the wall texture, the shiny surface of the mirror and all the ethnic artifacts give the room character.






All these pictures show how different white appears. What all have in common is the use of texture: raw woods and mixed chairs, sheep skin versus metal bench legs, pattern in windows and the traditional feel of an iron bed and wall of pictures. De-light-ful to live in these rooms!


via Urban Grace Interiors

Apart from choosing open shelves for display and practicality, this kitchen is my dream kitchen as I told you in one of my previous posts, the different textures, the shiny surface of tiles and countertops, wooden floor and the raffia seats for example make it such a fabulous place to be in.


Stripes are fun!



The next pictures show so impressivly how different hues of white and soft naturals change the feeling of each room, the one above a cozy country room whith added warmth through soft earth tones and gentle lines of furniture.


That one quirky and bohemian with a potpourri of frames, chairs and funky light fixtures...



This one sophisticated and elegant, a grand dame - living room style...


And here simply happy colors...


versus the most ethereal white floating space, heavenly!


There are uncounted possibilities for working with white and I can only begin to dream of my white house in the near future...I always will have colors around me, but white has made it into my orbit!


Most pictures via flickr, housetohome, Elle decor and House Beautiful.