A Lesson In (Very) Colorful Home Decor With Kalianna Carpenter

This article explores the recommendations of color expert and designer Maria Killam regarding popular and timeless color choices for living rooms. Killam advocates for incorporating vibrant hues over traditional neutrals, asserting that the latter can quickly become dated. She highlights eight specific shades that offer both aesthetic appeal and design versatility. Yellow, particularly a bright and happy shade, is presented as a surprisingly timeless choice for living room furniture, such as a sofa. Killam notes that her own yellow sofa has remained relevant and beautiful in her living room for over a decade, adapting well to various decorating palettes. This challenges the common perception that bold colors are inherently less enduring than neutrals. Traditional blue is another color recommended for its classic and serene qualities. It is described as a versatile option that pairs easily with white and can be accented with other colors and warm wood tones to create a polished and classic aesthetic. The adaptability of blue makes it a reliable choice for long-term design. Sophisticated pink is identified as a versatile and enduring hue, suitable for a living room sofa. The color's ability to be integrated through paint choices and area rugs allows for a cohesive and tasteful overall design. Deep green, inspired by nature, is highlighted for its versatility and calming effect. It can be introduced through various decor elements, including plants, and complements a wide range of interior styles. Rich ochre, a more muted gold variation of yellow, is gaining popularity for its ability to work well in both modern and traditional decor settings. It can be used for larger elements like sofas or as a bold wall color, providing a cozy ambiance. Warm burnt orange is presented as an antidote to desaturated decor, offering personality and warmth. With variations ranging from spicy red-orange to cleaner coral tones, it allows for customization based on individual preferences and coordinating decor. Cerulean blue-green, reflecting the colors of the sky and sea, is suggested for its calming and joyful qualities. This aqua tone is perennially popular and balances cool and warm elements, making it an excellent choice for rooms drenched in color. Its widespread availability in decor items simplifies integration into a design scheme. Finally, classic cognac is recommended for those who desire to add vibrancy to a neutral space without committing to overly bright colors. As a warm neutral, cognac provides more depth than charcoal and can effectively liven up black-and-white or all-grey rooms. A cognac leather couch is considered timeless, and the color can be echoed through warm wood tones, yellows, and golds, while also harmonizing with a broad spectrum of accent colors, including rich greens, blues, deep plum, and warm pinks. These color recommendations emphasize timelessness, versatility, and the ability to inject personality into living spaces. #ColorExpert #LivingRoomDesign #InteriorDecorating #DesignTrends #HomeDecor #ColorPsychology #MariaKillam #InteriorDesign

Color drenching, a design trend that involves painting every surface in a room the same hue, including walls, ceilings, trim, and doors, and sometimes even furniture, is gaining significant traction in 2025. This immersive approach aims to create a seamless, high-impact aesthetic that can be both dramatic and calming. This trend is not new; interior designers have been utilizing it for decades, with a seasoned designer sharing her insights on its application and effectiveness. This design strategy functions by eliminating visual clutter caused by contrasting elements. When all surfaces are coated in a single color, the eye moves uninterrupted across the space, enhancing cohesion and often making the room feel more expansive. This technique can highlight architectural details such as crown molding, paneling, and archways, allowing them to stand out through shape and shadow rather than color differentiation. It can also serve to minimize the appearance of unusual dimensions or awkward room proportions, effectively acting as a 'blur tool' for less-than-perfect features. Color drenching is particularly well-suited for rooms where a bright and airy feel is not always desired, such as dining rooms, powder rooms, libraries, and bedrooms, where it can foster a sense of atmosphere and coziness. Powder rooms are ideal candidates for bold color choices due to their small size, which creates a 'jewel box' effect and allows for easy repainting if preferences change. Bedrooms benefit from deeper, moodier shades to create a 'cocoon effect,' especially when combined with layered textures and thoughtful lighting. For open-concept spaces or rooms without distinct architectural features, more careful consideration and styling are needed to prevent the effect from becoming overwhelming. The guiding principle is to let the room's architecture inform the decision, enhancing existing features or creating visual interest through styling in more neutral spaces. Implementing color drenching involves several key steps. First, it is advisable to start with smaller, less critical spaces like powder rooms, entryways, or laundry rooms to experiment with the concept without a high level of risk. Second, full commitment to the color by extending it to the ceiling is crucial; a white ceiling can disrupt the continuity and diminish the overall impact of the design. Third, selecting a matte or flat paint finish is recommended, as it absorbs light, conceals surface imperfections, and contributes to a sophisticated, architectural look. Fourth, rather than matching every item to the wall color, layering within the chosen palette using varying shades, textures, and materials (e.g., velvet pillows, subtle rugs, brass accents) helps add depth and prevents the space from appearing cartoonish. Finally, the success of color drenching is maximized when it either highlights the existing architectural character of a room or is complemented by strong styling choices, such as sculptural lighting, textured fabrics, or bold bookshelves, to provide visual depth. #ColorDrenching #InteriorDesign #HomeDecor #PaintTrends #DesignTips #HomeImprovement #ArchitecturalFeatures #SpaceTransformation #MoodLighting

Color capping, a new interior design trend, is poised to become highly popular in 2026, offering an alternative to the currently ubiquitous color drenching technique. This method involves painting walls with graduated tones from the same color family, creating a subtle ombre effect that adds depth and visual interest to a room. Jessie Brooks, an expert in color theory and visual aesthetics from Davincified, explains that color capping can make rooms feel taller and more polished without overwhelming the space. The technique typically involves starting with a darker shade at the bottom of the wall and gradually transitioning to lighter shades towards the ceiling, though the reverse is also possible. Instead of using a single bold color, color capping employs three to five different shades within a unified color story to build dimension, eliminating the need for architectural elements like molding or wainscoting to achieve a similar effect. The visual impact of color capping significantly alters the perception of a space. By drawing the eye upward with lighter tones near the ceiling, the technique creates an illusion of increased vertical space. This makes it particularly effective in areas like entryways and hallways, where it can make narrow spaces feel wider and more welcoming. However, Brooks advises against using color capping in rooms with abundant windows or intricate architectural details, as these features might compete with the horizontal bands and detract from the desired effect. When selecting a color palette, it is recommended to choose a base color that is personally appealing and can be comfortably lived with in various intensities, such as soft blues, warm terracottas, sage greens, or sandy neutrals. To implement color capping, a selection of three to five shades within the chosen color family is necessary. Paint stores often organize colors to show tonal variations, making it easier to select a range of shades. Brooks suggests choosing every other shade from a paint strip or simply picking the lightest, mid-tone, and darkest shades within the same family. For rooms where the goal is to enhance height, the darkest shade should be applied at the bottom, gradually lightening towards the ceiling. In narrow rooms, placing darker tones on the longest walls and lighter shades on shorter walls can help achieve visual balance. For smaller rooms, maintaining an overall lighter palette is advisable. It is also crucial to test chosen colors on the actual walls at different times of the day to observe how natural light affects their appearance. Proper wall preparation is essential for a successful color capping project. Walls must be clean and smooth, with any holes or cracks filled with spackle, sanded, and wiped down. This meticulous preparation is critical because the tonal transitions in color capping tend to highlight imperfections more than single-color walls. Before painting, the wall sections for each color band need to be carefully mapped out. For standard 8-foot ceilings, three to four horizontal bands typically work well. Using painter's tape and a level, each band should be measured precisely to ensure uniform height around the entire room. When applying paint, it is recommended to start with the lightest shade at the top and work downwards. This method simplifies corrections, as any overlap will involve covering a lighter color with a darker one. For sharp lines, painter's tape should be removed while the paint is still slightly wet. For a blended transition, a dry brush or sponge can be used to gently blend the colors while the paint remains workable, painting one full section from light to dark at a time. #InteriorDesign #HomeDecor #ColorCapping #PaintingTechnique #DIYHome #DesignTrends #ColorTheory #GradientWalls

The living room serves as a central hub for relaxation, entertainment, and social gatherings within a home. Therefore, selecting the appropriate paint color is crucial in establishing a comfortable and inviting atmosphere. Interior designers advise against certain hues that can detract from this desired ambiance, either by being too cool, too bland, or too overpowering. The general recommendation is to opt for earth tones and warm shades that promote a sense of relaxation and harmony with adjacent rooms. Gray, despite its past popularity, is now considered an unsuitable choice for living rooms. Designers describe it as boring, lacking character and vibrancy, and making a space feel monotonous, flat, and dated. Instead, warm neutrals like creamy beige, blues, greens, caramel browns, or rich jewel tones are suggested as alternatives. These colors offer energy, vibrancy, and warmth, creating a more appealing base for the room. While white can project a clean and sophisticated image, basic cool whites are to be avoided. Such shades can render a living room cold, sterile, and bare. Interior designers recommend selecting whites with warm undertones, such as those with hints of cream or beige, to ensure the space feels welcoming and inviting. This approach prevents the room from appearing stark or impersonal. Bright, citrus-toned lemon yellow is another color to use with caution. While small accents of this hue can be cheerful, an entire room drenched in lemon can feel outdated and overwhelming. For those who appreciate yellow, more subdued and complex options like ochre, mustard, primrose, honey, or old gold are preferable, as they possess greater depth and richer undertones. Similarly, intense, vibrant oranges are not recommended for living room walls. Colors that evoke pumpkins, traffic cones, or actual orange fruits can be overwhelming and overpowering. If orange is desired, designers suggest shades with brown undertones, such as rust or burnt orange, or those with a hint of pink, like coral, salmon, or apricot, to add depth and elegance. Finally, brights and neon colors, including vibrant pink, aqua, or lime green, are generally considered inappropriate for living room walls. These highly energetic hues can be too intense or harsh for a space meant for relaxation and socializing. While they can work as small decorative elements to add visual interest, using them on entire walls can create a distracting and unsettling environment. Instead, designers advise choosing shades that allow the room to feel natural, contemporary, and restful, such as olive, warm gray, creamy whites, or dusty rose. The overall goal is to select a paint color that complements the room's natural light and layout, effectively setting a peaceful and inviting mood. #InteriorDesign #PaintColors #LivingRoomDecor #HomeDecor #ColorPalette #DesignTips #HomeImprovement