The kitchen and the living room are two of the most used rooms in the house. To incorporate a more inviting feeling into these rooms, select your paint color carefully. Color affects mood, and you can go far to create just the mood you want in these popular rooms by choosing the right colors.
Asian
The colors of Asia are both rich and simple. Think Chinese reds or jade green. The key to using these colors in your living room is to use them only a wall or two. If you plan to do an Asian arrangement, select one wall in the room to be your focal wall. Often this wall is the one in which your fireplace is built. However, you can also select one that you'd like to make into the room's focal point. Paint the wall a rich Chinese red or jade green. Hang Chinese scroll prints on the wall featuring these colors, but use them sparingly. Position a large, low lying coffee table in front of a futon couch. Set up a tea display by placing a bamboo table runner on the table and a Chinese tea set in your room's main color. Place colored throw pillows on the couch.
The '70s
If you gravitate toward the colors that were popular in the '70s, your kitchen might be a perfect place to try out some of these colors. Paint your cupboard doors a bold orange or avocado green. Instead of going with this color on the walls, opt instead for either a complementary, contrasting or analogous color such as bright yellow or green. Hang prints on the walls that feature all the colors in your kitchen to help tie the different colors together. Finally, choose some interesting accessories such as salt and pepper shakers, flour and sugar containers, and the frames on your pictures, in black or in your kitchen's colors. The goal is not so much to recreate the vintage look as it is to give it a modern twist.
Bluer Than the Indigo Plant
Cottage style is popular among people who like to mix and match patterns. This decorative motif works in large part due to having a common color in which many, if not all, the pieces in your kitchen or living room share. Blue is one of the most popular cottage colors, perhaps because of the preponderance of blue dishes made popular in earlier eras. To bring this cottage color into your kitchen or living room, look for furniture and accessories featuring an array of blues. In the kitchen, you can decorate with blue granite or fine blue china in your cupboards. Paint the cupboards themselves a cool shade of blue and consider adding a chicken wire front to them. In the living room, add blue table runners to your tables and look for prints taken from illustrated magazines that feature this cottage color.
