Monday, April 23, 2012

Decorating with Green

I always think green is such an interesting colour.  It seems to evoke different moods and feelings depending on the shade and tone used.  I don't get that reaction from other colours.  I love how fresh a spring green looks, and how calm a soft pastel green looks, and how racy an acid green looks.  Some shades I love, and some shades I find repulsive.  Am I the only one that reacts that way to green?


Greens can range from light pastel shades,


Phoebe Howard via decor*pad


to dark intense forest greens,


Martha Stewart

House to Home

to muted gray-brown greens.


My Endless Inspiration


Since green is between blue and yellow on the colour spectrum, you can find greens that range from blue-green to mid-tone green to yellow-green depending on the amount of yellow or blue present. Let's have a look at some examples of the range of greens.


You can find very pale blue-greens like sea glass green,


House Beautiful
to mid-range blue-greens like teal,


Design Crisis


Annsley Interiors via decor*pad
Drew Barrymore's office kitchen via Kitchenisms
and darker greens with hints of blue like emerald green,


Houzz via Design Chat with Kim Lemmon
to intense yellow-greens like kelly green,





and lighter greens with even more yellow like chartreuse,



Domino via Apartment Therapy
House and Home via Color Sizzle
Material Girls
Color Sizzle
and very pale yellow-greens like celadon green.


decor8
I think most people have strong opinions about whether they are blue-green lovers or yellow-green lovers.  Personally I adore blue-greens and am very picky about which yellow-greens I like.  What about you?

Have you ever noticed how many greens are named after foods.  For your viewing pleasure - and to make you hungry - I pulled together inspiration pictures for different food-based greens.


There is apple green,


House Beautiful via George Interior Design
and celery green, 


DIY Chatroom
and pear green,


decor*pad
and sage green,


Martha Stewart
and mint green,



House Beautiful

and lime green,


Home Design at Martha Stewart
and olive green,


the Lennoxx
and pea green,


House Beautiful
and yes even avocado green.


The Kitchen Vote
The flip-side of all these lovely shades of green are the repulsive and downright disgusting green associations, like hospital green and snot green and puke green.  It is interesting that there are such negative greens.  I don't think the same applies to most other colours.  Can you think of a disgusting blue?

Did you know that many early languages did not have a word that distinguished green from blue.  We seem to have made up for it with about a zillion names for the different shades of green.  

Is green a colour you like?  Do you have green in your home?  We have a very pale green on the walls in our dining room and family room (BM Tea Light mixed half strength).  It is a very easy-to-live with shade.




And if you want to see some inspiration photos for other colours, check these posts out.  You can see what colours go with red in this post here.
And check here for aqua/seafoam room inspiration photos.
And here for sunny yellow rooms.
And here for orange rooms.


12 comments:

  1. I love green and have a lot in my home. Great images.

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  2. Hi Grace - I totally agree with you - I love blue-greens and but a lot of yellow-greens are iffy. One of my favourites is Farrow and Ball's blue-green.

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  3. Green has always been problematic for me as an artist. I do not now why because theoretically all greens are supposed to match everything and never clash, like in nature (green is nature's neutral). I must not like it because I have fewer greens than any other color in my paint box. BUT I do love the more edgy, yellow greens, like cadmium greens.

    I love the apple green kitchen...it is sooooo pretty!!!

    Neat post!
    xo,
    RJ

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    1. An artist friend of mine says that green is the most difficult because it is near impossible to match the perfection of the multitude of greens in nature.
      Because there are so many shades of green coexisting in natural settings, green shades can be mixed in decor, unlike other colors which should stay all 'clean' or all 'dirty.'

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  4. I always seem to come back to green no matter what. In my clothing and in my home. It's definitely a neutral for me.

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  5. I am very particular about green and am slowly painting over all the green that I inherited when I bought our current house. My husband described it as living in pea soup! There's a food connotation that's not so great in our books. haha... But then what did we do? We turned around and painted our son's nursery green. Go figure. And plans for our family room accent colour... you guessed it. Green.

    Great post. I agree I think green is very polarizing.

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  6. Thank you for moseying over to my blog today -- what fun that you have memories of Bilthoven and of Utrecht! It really is a marvelous glut of eccentricity, art, and beauty. I'm not sure I'll ever get over the novelty of the cobblestones.

    And OH those luscious greens above...My uniform these days is a kelly-green knit cardigan that makes whatever else I'm wearing look suddenly indie and retro at once.

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  7. Hi Grace,
    I enjoyed seeing all the photos in this post. Green is my favorite color, and I use a lot of it in our home. I've only disliked one shade of green, and it was a bright green that I used in a guest bedroom. Needless to say, it didn't stay green for very long!

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  8. I am not fond of green but still seem to have a lot of it in blue-y shades in my home.

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  9. Green is my favourite, has always been. Some of the English green shades - Victorian or perhaps William Morris -greens are fabulous!

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  10. Green is my favorite color! I adore virtually every shade and tone. I love that bit about some ancient languages not distinguishing between blue and green, because that line is very blurry for me as well!

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  11. I love green and the decorations was simple amazing. I am imagining my self lying in that beautiful bed. Big thanks and keep posting.

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