Sunday Shopping

This morning I attended a design class at my local Pottery Barn store. The topic was on how to add color to your home. One of the best shorthand tips I learned is that when you are designing the color palette for your room you should think in terms of threes: light, medium, dark. 

I interpret this as a kind of ratio. If you have a large dark piece it should be balanced by some medium and light choices for fabric, floor covering, and wall color. 

  

Using the above room as an example of this rule, you have the ottoman, mirror, and end table (dark), the rug (medium), and the sofa, sailboat, and wall color (light). The throw pillows and other accessories are a mix of dark, medium, light, and there is a tiny bit of red for a pop of color.

The image is from Pottery Barn's online design studio, which is chock FULL of articles on design and has tons of pictures of different rooms. I encourage you to check it out.

After the class, we got to shop in the store before it opened! I found some great pillows for our eventual master bedroom re-design. I really love how the ikat design on this pillow forms a heart in the center. I'll have to stalk it. Very likely it will go on sale as the season changes.

And, as a thank-you for attending the class, I received 10% off my in-store purchases today. I found a great coffee table book, Luxury Hotels: Golf Resorts, full of beautiful photos of golf resorts all over the world. I also purchased a sea-themed 20x20 throw pillow cover. It coordinates, but does not match, the pillow sham I bought after the last class. Both were on sale and thus no longer available via the Pottery Barn website.

The image is small but it is a large coffee table book

 The new pillow is on the right in the above photo.

Does the color palette of your rooms fit the rule of three: dark, medium, light?