Here's the colors in my house. I just wanted warm calm, light & bright colors. I'm happy with them. I wanted some different colors, but nothing looks out of place.

I look at the house as a whole, instead of separate rooms and decorate so the colors in the whole house flow not only in the open concept part but even in the private areas. I use the same colors throughout but in different shades, and quantities.

It's not about a color scheme per se- it's about the flow for me. Color scheme is more rigid, one palette only. Flow is more flexible.

I tend to stick with warmer colors- even for blues and greens, which can run cooler.

mark_rachel - I like your colors. Can you share the paint names?

Flow is the way I like to think about it. I want our rooms to flow, one into the other. Furniture, throw pillows, artwork, etc. can be moved from one place to another when the mood strikes me. Other than our daughter's bedroom and our own master bedroom and bath, they do. The floors are all a warm brownish red brick. The walls are all a warm cream. Furniture is basically warm, medium wood, brownish red leather, and dark green leather. So, the more Southwestern colors. Upholstered pieces are either cream (2 living room sofas) or rich dark patterns in my accent colors. Accent colors: green, brownish red, black, and soft yellow. An occasional bit of turquoise, too.

Yes, pretty much so. various tones of gold white and red. Enables me to move things around from this room to the other.

My primary home is all warm earth tones. Dark hardwood floors, white trim, mostly light walls and richly colored furniture and drapery. Our beach house is quite the opposite. Everything is in cool colors, I wanted to make it feel like the colors of the sea. Lots of blues, greys, etc. Love them both!

I once read if you always choose things you really like they will naturally blend..I think my colors did the same. I think we are all attracted to either warm or cool, bright or muted...and we would mostly find we naturally choose out of the same palate time after time unless we make a concerted effort not to. The only rooms that are not of the same palate are those my children decorated for themselves.

I don't have one, and I think I lack the discipline to maintain one. As soon as I started thinking "Oh, no, Maggie, you can't have a red pillow or it'll ruin the color scheme" I will start craving red pillows!

I don't have a scheme in advance..I fall in love with a combination of colors..something I saw and couldn't get out of my head..it can be a page in a design book, a scene from the movie, something outside...then I usually add to it and expand it..until it comes alive

some combos i remember vividly for years, but it'd be hard to go for them, unless i start from the very beginning.. but i don't want to do that, 'cause i love what i have too:)

so i just keep them at the back of my mind..maybe seeing mini versions in art I love, or something small..and then i can try to add it, and see what happens..

Pretty much. Neutral background (ivory/taupes) on sofa, bedcovers, slipcovers, etc. Wood floors, mostly antique wood pieces along with a few painted wood pieces. Neutral drapes other than kitchen. A couple brown leather pieces. Accents colors are in the blue/green family with aqua, turquoise, robins egg blue. Home office is a bit different with black leather loveseat and some red accents (some of the mr's collectibles) but I have slowly added in some light turquoise. Found a great pillow on Etsy to start from. So yes, furniture/items can work in different rooms.

Somewhat. The fixed elements are all in complementary warm creams and browns, but the color of the decorative elements differ a bit from room to room. In general, though, I use muted shades so I don't think anything is too jarring when you move throughout the house.

In the past, I kept most everything in cream, navy and/or dark red, using my Oriental rugs as inspiration, but I got bored with that. I still have elements of those colors in the living room and dining room, but not elsewhere.

I went with basically 2 colors and white for trims.

Sherwin Williams krypton and Sherwin Williams mega greige. The krypton is a blue gray but it changes colors all the time it's a great color but it does freak people out including my general contractor who almost fired one of the workers when he thought he was painting green paint on the wall. It was the krypton.

If I knew how much darker the mega greige would be on the wall I would have gone a few shades lighter but I have been getting so many compliments on it.

Sort of. When we first moved in and renovated, I had an ID provide a base palette of neutrals for use inside and out -- about 7 tones of taupe/griege along with a complementary white (used in baths and exterior trim) and a black. Accents of green and rusty orange get added in varying quantities. Since the original scheme, the kitchens and baths have drifted over time to add in a greyer hue.

There is a flow thru out the house. That's the word I always use when asking myself if something works..."does it flow?" If I pick up one piece and place it in another room, will it work? The answer is yes (90% of the time). The exception is the master suite. Not everyone is ok with this but (obviously) we are. Totally different look.

Yes, though not so intentionally. I started with fabrics and it just so happens that they all had shades of golden beiges in them so that's how it went. I did intentionally carry the colors through to the spaces that are open to each other.

So the DR is BM Pearl Harbor, as is the library ceiling. The library walls are BM Dark Beige as is the foyer ceiling. The foyer walls are Pearl Harbor as are the walls in the study. In the family room, we went deeper with the colors, so the walls are BM wilmington tan, a color that I really love, and the ceiling is Powell Buff.

I added an aubergine accent wall in the library and then used the same color in the coffers in the ceiling enfilade.

But I also intentionally used exaggerated colors in the smaller spaces, so they go but don't match...the powder room is adobe orange with soft fern ceiling. The mud room is tropical dusk with powell buff on the ceiling.

Yes, soft colors of blue, teal, sea foam green and mauve. P.S. Not my walls they are all white, furnishings & décor brings in the colors and wallpaper, on feature walls.

When we moved into our last house, every room needed to be painted and I was intimidated by how many colors I needed to pick. These Sherwin Williams color palettes were a big help.

Color palettes

Lots of colors, with the exception of bright red and bright orange, appeal to me. I use tones in the middle range more by instinct than actual planning, but that makes the color scheme look cohesive. My house has a very good flow but the rooms are separate enough that I can vary the colors and patterns without creating pandemonium, and that makes the house more interesting to me. I'm talking about furniture, rugs, etc. The walls are mostly cream with the exception of one room in a soft green, the dining room in terra cotta and two walls of the living room in a greenish gray. If every room had a different wall color I would probably have a mess on my hands. With nine rooms being the same wall color (that includes the kitchen and three bathrooms), I tell myself that the scheme is calming but hopefully full of interest courtesy of area rugs, furniture and paintings.

Annie, I have always loved purple. In fact, I just pulled out some purple goblets I had selected for my wedding registry. That was 37 years ago! But your library accent colored wall encouraged me seriously consider painting our bedroom walls purple. I remember gasping when I saw that picture a few months ago! :) I hope I commented on it. I don't recall. But I don't recall seeing your Tropical Dusk mud room. Would you mind reposting that please or providing the link to it? I'd also like to see your powder room. I haven't yet been able to get out and buy paint samples but Tropical Dusk is on the top of my list.

Thanks, monicakm. Here's the mud room/laundry room in tropical dusk.

Powder room in "hermes orange" but actually BM adobe orange.

Thanks so much Annie! I HAVE seen that room before. In fact it is currently sitting in the Open Files section of my Photo Shop Elements program as I'm testing purples and painting them on the wall with my chosen carpet sample :) Love your powder room color...happy, happy, happy :)

My house has evolved over the past 32 years but it flows very well and always has, even though most of the rooms have changed in someway over time. I've never decorated an entire house all at the same time - not personally or professionally. I think it is a mistake to do so. It's also VERY costly! Start with one room - for me, it's always the LR, and then do each room over time. If I were buying a house that had a heinous mishmash of colors I could not bear, I'd probably just paint all the walls white and then work on each room one at a time. For me, color always starts with a fabric I adore - usually a print. I go from there.

I've never decorated an entire house all at the same time...I think it is a mistake to do so.

We built new, so had no choice. When the painters were coming, I needed all the colors laid out ahead of time. Heck I was picking fabrics for window treatments before the sheet rock was up or the windows were in.

I deliberately picked my colors, but then they also kind of evolved, meaning that I do have different shades in several of the rooms, but since they are colors that I picked, they ended up coordinating. I use Olioboard to put my room-thoughts together sometimes, and I recently did one for an overall color palette, because I was worried my house had turned into a quilt of too many colors. I also included textures in my plan, because there are architectural features in some of the rooms that are quite dominant and need to be considered. Each color is not in every room, and the colors on the right hand side, on the darker wood flooring, are only upstairs.

All doors, windows & wainscot are BM Lenox tan. We had the plaster slightly stired with the pigment. So our plaster was put on slightly rough with shadows to look old.

I have kept the same color palette for the last few houses because I love the colors! Soft shades of gold with accents of rust have always been soothing to me so I still like them. I am never trendy and only want to live with colors, styles and decor that I like.

I thought about this question while reading an old issues of British Home last night. A designer's home was featured and she said that while as a designer, she usually only gets "one shot" at decorating an entire house and does so, but in her own home, she has the luxury of time to allow the different rooms to evolve. I totally agree with her! While I am a designer, I am usually called in to "pick up the crumbs" of other designers when one room needs freshening. The closeest to doing an entire house was my daughter's new house (new to her) 17 years ago. We re-did nearly every room, but many where done in the same colors as her NYC apt as she was re-using curtains/furniture from it. We really only started from scratch in the entrance hall, LR and DR. It's very hard to give a house a "soul" when one does it all at once, but that is what clients often want...and you won't hear from them again for 15-18 yrs when they want a complete do-over with everything new. I have the luxury of not having to work with such clients. Of course, I've never had to earn a living doing interior design - as I said "the luxury".

I've had ivory in every house i've lived in! Walls, pillows, carpeting, furniture, accessories, etc., but never a completely ivory room like the current popular trend. I've continued to use it in my current home and have it in every room, and have also added black.

In my condo it started with my granite. Because the condo rooms were mostly open to one another, I stuck with similar colors throughout but varied which colors I used in which rooms, and in different quantities. You can see it HERE.

In my new build, again I picked quartzite that will be the basis for my colors. However since rooms are not directly next to one another, I can play a bit more with variations and mixtures. I'll probably use the greens as my primary color but mix what secondary colors I use depending on the room. For example, in my master bath, I'll probably use the golds and whites (think onyx and marble) while in my living room, I'll tend more towards using the reds as an accent. Here's a picture of my quartzite: