I'm toying with the idea of using this Annie Selke fabric as the spring board for designing our new house. I got a swatch from Calico Corners over the weekend and I really like the large-scale of the pattern and the variety of colors: celadon and kelly green mix with navy blue, periwinkle and a soft blue-gray on a background of mahogany (which would play well with our dark wood furniture). In person it's really quite lovely.
Since each room on the first floor opens onto one another, the idea would be to use these basic colors throughout the downstairs, but in varying quantities and degrees so that, while each room would tie in with the next, they would not all be identical (I'm going for something more subtle than that). For example, in the dining room, I think this fabric would translate to navy blue walls with a soft white trim. In the large two-story family room, I would keep the gray paint I selected through the builder (which is a great cost-saving measure giving the cost to repaint that amount of square footage), and bring color in with furnishings (like the navy Crate&Barrel couch I've been eyeing) and accessories (like this green throw). In the bedroom, we could go lighter with a soft blue-gray on the walls, incorporate some purples for interest and depth, and reuse much of the existing accessories in our current master bedroom.
Of course, while I would probably incorporate the 100% cotton fabric in the family room as pillows or even an accent chair, I would not be using it in other rooms downstairs. I also think that I'd temper the feminine, and slightly exotic, floral print with more geometric and clean-lined fabrics like a stripe or even a subtle zig zag, like the Indra Citrus print, also from Annie Selke for Calico Corners:
[Editor's Note: This fabric is a bit greener, and a lot less brown, in person.] As for the upstairs, I plan on reusing our existing living room furniture and accessories. I think the apple green touches that are in my rug and pillows would help relate the largely cream, brown and gold palette to the downstairs' color scheme.
Altogether, the color combination (pulled from various Behr paint colors) for the house would look something like this:
So what do you think of this palette? Also, what colors define your house/apartment? Any colors you're particularly drawn to recently?
