Don't have a bunch of boys but I went with warm colors throughout my house. The neutral palettes are great for cooler climates or for more restful rooms like bedrooms, but in the rooms where you live, some color and pattern can be most welcoming. If it's a print I love, I will never tire of it. I was going through a fabric stash from the old house that I hadn't been through in years...found a fabric that I bought 30 years ago and never did anything with...I still loved it and it became the valances in my craft room. I picked out the fabric for the drapes in my library about 10 years before we completed our new house and those drapes are now hanging in there. Still not tired of it.

I'm struggling with this in my family room. It has turned out to be a very neutral room, but hopefully with a lot of interesting textures and materials. That is the key with neutral - you have to layer varying shade and textures. Also, a lot of the neutral rooms will have interesting architectural details that add a lot to the space.

If you like neutral, then I say go for it. Our sofa is gray and wears very well. Add color with inexpensive items- throws, pillows, maybe an inexpensive ottoman or stool? A chair is a good place to add color and pattern.

I know exactly what you mean. I'm drawn to, and admire the elegance of neutral colors . . . but colorful interiors make me happy!

And -- happier is better.

So, my take is this: Foundational, hard to change stuff, like major pieces of furniture, tile, etc. should be neutral. Add color with paint and accessories that are easy to change out if you get tired of them.

I am just the opposite. I love a soothing neutral palette as bold bright colors make me feel edgy. I am worried that I will tire of the neutrals so I went today to look at even more fabric and I still keep coming back to neutrals.

I do have a lovely colorful pair of Bradington Young chairs in my library that are a beautiful vining print. They are probably 15 years old and I still love them!

I am not sure that I can do this without a decorator because the more I look the more confused I become!

You can always keep the main living areas neutral with touches of color in accessories easily changed out when you tire of them or want to change up the color scheme as Violet mentioned, and then go bold and wild in the boys' rooms. This will satisfy your desire for both.

I have always had a preference for the calming impact of neutrals and texture, well before RH greyed over the free world. At first I had a few interior designers try to get my to zing things up.

I no longer use interior designers and I am totally zingless, and I really like it. I think I used 8 or 9 shades of Farrow and Ball paint in my house. All from the first flap of their brochure, which is whites! To me "frisky" is the olive grey I used on our front door.

You need to look at your closet, look at any decorative items you love, any friend or relative's house or hotel you love, and figure out what makes you happy (just assuming here the DH is less involved, but he could be). Then decorate with those images in mind.

As for kids, if you are in the process of building, just make sure you allow them their own space some where (basement, sun room off the kitchen) and that you have LOTs and lots of attractive easy storage. All of that will minimize the impact of their toys and keep your style from looking like Primary Color Fisher Price. In a good 7-8 years most of it will be gone anyway.

Good luck!

I have always had alot of color in our homes. In the last couple of years we have slowly been changing to neutrals and lighter colors. In our great room the larger pieces of furniture are just slightly darker than creme. There is also a dark leather chair in the room, several pieces of medium to dark wood, and wood floors. I kept the drapes neutral also. My color comes in the accessories a two other chairs in the room. I have two painted side tables in the room. One is a color, the other is an off-white. I have colors in throws, pillows, art, etc. Dont' forget texture. The ;lighter color fabrics are textured.

Our sunroom - which is much like a den for us has furniture with cushions slipped in a creme color. Again, accessories bring in color.

I've gone lighter in the bedrooms also. The master has deep aqua accents along with a duvet (at end of bed over creme coverlet), pillows, etc.

Just some examples. We love it. I think you can get the best of both. A neutral room does not have to be cool. You can still make it warm and cozy. I go for somewhere in the middle I guess. I like bright and open with lots of natural light, but love a cozy feel also.

As far as neutrals and small children - have you thought about slip covers?

tina

I agree with joaniepoanie: neutral in your living areas/hallways/foyer/stairwells accented with contrasting colors for accessories - and more colorful in the bedrooms. If your kitchen is separate from your living areas, you could go with a different shade than neutral (sage or olive green, e.g.).

Let the 7 year old pick his own colors (narrow down his choices ahead of time to a few you can live with). For the baby, a nice sky blue (with some depth, not pastel-SW Vast Sky, e.g.) is a color he could live with for many years. For the yet to be born baby, maybe a sunshine yellow, aqua, or lime green would be neat and also colors he could stay with for a while.

Also, you could have fun with the boys' bathroom. Pick a fun theme, like tropical fish or sports and decorate around the theme.

I've read it recommended that you can go dramatic in a powder room with a deep shade of a color you like (cranberry red, russet, chocolate, navy-whatever).

If your house will have an open floor plan, you will probably find it hard to find a place to stop one color and start another.

I'm not familiar with BM paints, but I'll list some popular SW neutrals below:

Believable Buff
Whole Wheat
Ivoire
Blonde
Macadamia
Relaxed Khaki
Grassland/Svelte Sage (neutral gray/greens)

For your own bedroom, find some bedding or a rug that you really love and choose a color in those that you like. Or you could use white/cream bedding and paint the room any color you like. Look online for some inspiration photos or try the SW Color Visualizer.

Good luck. You're going to have an exciting year.

As a mother of three very active kids I can only say don't go white. Washable slipcovers aren't much better. Chose furniture that is durable, either with pattern or some brown and brighten things up with paint, pillows, I recently bought a very expensive (for me) couch that is a greyish brown with little flecks of blue in it. I don't really like brown, but it is just the background for things around it and on it. I don't cringe when people put their feet on the couch or when my grandson is eating goldfish. Peace of mind is worth a lot and you don't want to be the house where kids can't play. I have always wanted a lot of white too, but now I am happy to have light colored tile, curtains and wood. Gardenweb can really make you obsessive. Start small and do one room at a time, and just go with what you love. My husband loves the wood paneling in our house, (pretty, but soooo dark) so I have for me: a yellow kitchen and a robins egg blue dining room. The blue room especially makes me very happy. I even go in there to fold laundry.

Based on the way I dress, I prefer to look like a walking rainbow. I trend towards sort of hippie/funky and tend to pull off some wild color combos.

I want my house to look more grown up and I worry that adding lots of color won't look so grown up. Here are some colorful living rooms that I find myself attracted to:

http://www.vintagerevivals.com/2013/02/living-room-makeover-reveal.html

http://www.housebeautiful.com/cm/housebeautiful/images/8W/hbx-ikat-pillows-purple-sofa-modern-living-room-0411redd04-mdn.jpg

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2370/2383540309_13f6aa675f.jpg

And I have found an orange, blue, and purple couch all within our price range.

My collection of things coming with us to the house I collected from living around the world. I guess it's pretty eclectic since I have lived everywhere from the equator to the arctic circle. I have no idea how to bring those things into a nice neutral color palate.

This is the direction I plan to take our master bedroom. LOL I do try to get my hubby involved and he does have veto power, but he has never used it. He is a manly man so his eyes kind of gloss over and he tells me I can do whatever I want.

The sofa options I have are:

neutral option (probably gray--the stuff in the house was chosen to complement cool/gray colors): http://www.homedecorators.com/P/Emma_Tufted_Sofa/950/

orange sofa: http://www.phillipsfurniture.com/pro-1245-1-angeloHOMEEnnisCaliforniaVintageOrangeSofa

purple sofa: http://www.phillipsfurniture.com/pro-1244-1-angeloHOMEHarlowPurpleGrapeTwillSofa

blue sofa: http://www.phillipsfurniture.com/pro-1216-1-angeloHOMESuttonSmokyBlueVelvetSofa

And yes, the kitchen is separate from the living room. I am not a fan of the open floor plan. Call me a weirdo! I've spend the past 7 years living in 1920s homes and I prefer all those rooms!

There are "childish" and "grown up" versions of every color.

IMO, childish colors are pastels or saturated primary colors.

The furniture in the links you provided are "grown up" versions of the colors - but still vibrant and interesting.

I could see any of those sofas against a neutral background. In addition to your furniture, artwork and accessories will add all the color you would want in your main living area/hallways, stairwells.

In the kitchen, baths, and BR's, you could do the opposite - paint your walls a vibrant color and keep your furniture and accessories more neutral.

In the kitchen and dining room, you could also go colorful.

Take a look at some of the SW color palettes. You might find three or four colors in a palette that you could use as starting points.

SW Color Palettes

I started out decorating in beige, but for this house I have used a lot more color. Red sofa in one room, orange chairs in another, ordering a blue sofa for the guest house. Most of my art has red in it and other bright colors. I have also collected lots of art and other pieces from traveling and living overseas. Nearly all visitors have loved the house and I think some are surprised that you can use colors and still have a very adult and tasteful look.

It can be a bit scary to order that first large piece of furniture in a color other than beige/brown!

Oh gosh, more paint colors to obsess over. So once we move and I have my keeper pieces in the room I can post pics and get more advice, right? I know I can go "slow" but I do want to have a living room and maybe a kitchen put together by the time the baby is born. Of course I'm also hoping for a late baby! lol

Oh, and I guess the nursery has to be put together. All I have for that room is curtains and a crib mattress. I am picking up some furniture from my family but it will all have to be painted since it was my Mom's when she was a kid and is too girly right now. I plan to try some milk paint and I'm not afraid to go wild colors on the furniture!

Here is a link that might be useful: Nursery Curtains :)

My house is full of boys,2 of my own and my house is "that house"- where everybody goes like the entire team after practice. Other mothers drop groceries off hear because they feel guilty, but I work at home so it is good the kids come here where there is a grown up(when they stop coming here we will all worry).
I do decorate with neutrals. The boys bring so much energy, vibrancy and life that I like to let the background to keep chill.
Most of my rooms are painted SW Alabaster, I have lots of sunlight and lots of natural wood; hardwood floors, post and beam structure. Couches and chairs tend to be in the butterscotch, gold, range with green undertones. I am fortunate to have hand me down turkish wool rugs, that I have never worried about.
The boys rooms are another story. They are very deep saturated colors one is a super deep marine blue, the other is the color of a pine forest at dusk.

This is an interesting question because colorful doesn't necessarily mean childish or energetic. My library is adult, restful and yet colorful with its gold walls and sofa, olive chairs, eggplant accent wall.

See now, Annie, I would not describe that as colorful per se, though of course it has color. I would describe it as traditional --- very Ritz Carlton. Lovely, but not colorful in the way I think the OP means it.

Back to the OP --- you know what you love, you are a step ahead of the game. Using bold color can be very very sophisticated, but it's tricky too. If you are artistic, you probably can do it yourself. If not you may want to get some paint consultation ---- with someone like-minded!

I do not think neutral means beige... For exampIe, I think navy blue and reds can be used as neutrals. I think it is easier to use colors well than to do beige neutrals well. I have seen many beautiful "neutral" white and beige rooms in shelter mags but IRL I often feel neutral can easily become generic at best and very disconcerted at worst. Not all beiges match and I think we are lead to believe that a "neutral" will work with anything and this is just not true.

As usual great sound advice from GW members! My home used to look like a Crayola box threw up in it. But not in a bad way - our home is borderline Victorian w/ lots of stained glass so it could handle it.

I could not.

I still craved color somehow, someway and over the yrs. found my groove. Along w/ some other GW'ers here I too had gone neutral/ greige before RH went gang busters on it. I always had a pop of robins egg blue like on my entry hall ceiling like here (although that has all changed too):

I'm also torn between the 2 décor styles in Somethings Gotta Give and It's Complicated but I think I've finally nailed it. My house looks like the two movies got married, had kids and then divorced. All of my walls are painted SW High Reflective White and all of my ceilings are either grey or black (crazy I know) except in my LR which is just super duper tiny. That room is SW Dovetail Gray (or will be once I buy the final gallon). It's the perfect foil to adding the pops of blue and green that I love so much. I have a white slipcovered sofa w/ lots of pillow on it that I swap out seasonally. The base is always robins egg blues to turquoise in varied patterns like trellis patterns and damask patterns along w/ some solids. When I want it 'calmer' I take the green away and add linen and cream pillows, some w/ ikat pattern and some w/ stripes.

When I want 'warmer' I add a pillow w/ a smoke blue base that has touches of a wonderful terracotta and mustard and add a pillow or two in those shades for Fall. No, I do not have a elves whipping up pillows in the closet - but I do regularly buy washable pillow covers.

Since this is the only LR/Family Room in the house and I want our kids to feel like a part of it, I am adding additional color to one wall w/ our kids artwork and soft colored mats in white frames (the other wall has 3 black and white tree pics in wood frames).

Recently I noticed that I am gravitating to adding a more colorful bohemian vibe to this one room as I've lost weight. Like you mentioned you dress in lots of color. I'm down 45 pounds and w/in the past month I've added so much blue and bright green to my once dull black, grey wardrobe and I've honestly found the color creeping into my LR more and more. Especially the play of pattern. I think that this one gray room is perfect for us because while at once calm and sedate it handles a lot of color w/ no sweat. I often refer to BHG magazine for a fair amount of the neutral/ color palette mixes.

Here was my jumping off point for satisfying my neutral & color needs in my LR:

And then our office across the hall has white walls, a black and white photo gallery and a painting in the blues and greens. It has colorful accents here and there. It's a lt 'crisper' feeling. Sort of kind of like this minus the blue chairs:

Oh, and the white hallway (w/ black ceiling) between the two rooms has a single row of colorful scenic antique lithographs in various rooms that sort of draws the 2 rooms together.

Oh yeah, and we have 2 boys 9 & 6 and a 4yr. old DD. They were another reason I wanted some color. They're vibrant and I wanted them to feel vibrant.

When someone says neutrals, this is what I think of:

[

[Traditional Living Room[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/traditional-living-room-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_718~s_2107) by New York Photographers Vanni Archive/Architectural Photography

which is lovely but IMO not the same as the color injected into my rooms.

Of course, that's also very different from what I think of as colorful...even with its beige walls and neutral sofa.

[

[Contemporary Living Room[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/contemporary-living-room-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_718~s_2103) by Huntington Interior Designers & Decorators Eileen Kathryn Boyd

So I guess the point is, there is a range from neutral to colorful and the choice is not either/or.

Sorry I missed your links when I posted a few minutes ago. I think the purple or blue sofa would be lovely in a gray room. I think they would actually play like a neutral matched with the right color walls. I will preface this with I have a purple hallway abutting a living room with an aqua blue sofa with charcoal grey walls and I think, probably mistakenly, of the area as a neutral and calm space.

This post was edited by roarah on Fri, Jun 21, 13 at 9:46

Roarah, I think your room is lovely and calm, but I wouldn't call it neutral due to the color of the drapes and seating.

My three children grew up with color---I love color--- any and all of them. We have a blue bedroom that is monochromatc and the blue is loud--- and yet somehow it seems restful to me:

Living room

I guess it is how you define neutral. I do not think my room is colorful either tho. I define a neutral room as calm, subdued, works well with many other colors, but not always white or beige. I can easily change my walls to many other colors other than grey, I can change accent colors too and the sofa and drapes will still work. So to me they are as "neutral" as white.

Red plays as well with as many other colors as beige does so to me neutral is more like Switzerland, It is not locked into one side and it is any color that offers alot of possibilities for change and it is softly used rather than in your face. I do think you can be colorfully neutral infact.

What gorgeous uses of colors. Um!

Regarding color as used in Annie's library, she feels it's colorful, someone else would not describe it that way, which made me look at it more closely.

In the picture, on my screen anyway, it does have lots of color in it, but the various colors seem to be drawn from the middle color range, specifically including the brown paneling, so are similar in value. They are also similar in saturation, so that even as they contrast in hue, the overall effect is a harmonious blend.

As opposed to the far more vibrant, but not more color-ful living room she posted just above. There, the green, purple and orange used are all middle range colors too, but saturated in hue, thus play off against each other more strongly. Then the whole is given a whopping shot of energy contrast by white walls, to which some gray is mixed in to calm it down just enough. (I'm imagining the designer adding gray like I might add a little sugar to an acidic dish, tasting, adding a bit more until just right.)

Both rooms use middle-range colors, though, which, incidentally, are good at hiding dirt.

Though I think this thread was originally about using neutrals. :)

Interesting thread. I think the neutral pic that AnnieD posted is much too neutral for me. There's no pattern or color anywhere. The colorful one is too much though. I would feel tense.

I think I prefer a happy medium- very close to what roarah has going on in her living room. Some color, but still calm.
With the open floor plan, I've kept it pretty neutral.

There are smaller spaces where I will use more vibrant color. The laundry room is a bright green. I just painted my library persimmon, but there is actually very little wall so I thought I could get away with it.

My bedroom is brown, linen and gold with hints of silver sage. It's pretty neutral, but doesn't feel dull or boring.

You guys have given me so much to ponder! I loved seeing all the photos posted. I really need to. admit to myself that white walls are NOT a bad thing. I especially love some of the photos with the dark gray walls bringing in color elsewhere in the room. I wish I could change the look of my house every year! There are so many looks I want to try.

I'm going to get hubby to sit down and rank the couch options with me over the weekend. I think I can love them all equally but I know choosing the couch is going to set the tone of the room and that needs to be done first. Maybe I'll just pick one out of a hat! haha

PS...you guys give such thoughtful and insightful answers! I feel like I have so much to learn!

Since you can mix and match colorful wardrobe pieces and pull off a sensational look, you will be very successful at applying the same creative eye to decorating your home.

Some people have the knack. Just trust your instincts.