026. The Joys of Yellow in Your Home
Life-giving yellow brings energy to interiors
Yellow was my favourite colour for the first two decades of my life, and I still love it. I’m drawn to its bouncy joyousness, filled with sunshine and laughter. Yellow does happy very well, and this I very much appreciate.
In its more mustardy versions, yellow can be used to create more somber atmospheres, but I would say that it’s difficult to make yellow look morose or disinterested. It has an energy that is hard to tame, presumably because our DNA recognises the yellow sun as the genesis of life on our planet.
Below are some spaces where yellow shines. I created the images using Midjourney AI, Pantone’s Studio app, and in some cases Canva for editing.
GROUNDED EARTHY: There has been a lot of discussion recently about chocolate brown walls on my favourite interior design podcast, The Great Indoors. It would take a lot to convince me to paint my wall brown, chocolate or otherwise. BUT, in the room below it works so well as a warm backdrop for the Gold Coast yellow sofa, which is the star of the room.
This look could be a good option for a couple in the common scenario where one person wants bright colours while the other prefers neutrals. I found it surprising that such an energetic shade of yellow could look so grounded and earthy. The Andorra brown wall and the thick rough-cut wood furniture really tame the colour right down!
SPECIAL NOTE: I had the absolute pleasure and honor of being interviewed by Sophie Robinson and Kate Watson-Smyth for an episode on AI and design for their The Great Indoors Podcast. That was exciting! My interview is for their paid Insiders group, and they also mention my work in the free podcast episode.Â
CHEERY RETRO: Pantone’s Sulphur yellow wall brings together a mishmash of retro patterns, and the result is a cheery, cheeky celebration of pattern and colour. I love this bedroom. It feeds my growing patterned-floor obsession as well as my forever love of plaid. In real life though, sadly, this would not be my personal first choice for a bedroom because I sleep best in inky dark rooms, and I suspect that Sulphur yellow is too energetic a colour for many people’s ideal bedroom - lovely though it may be.
ENERGETIC HOME OFFICE: Staying with the gingham floor theme (just keep looking at it and give it a chance;-)), here’s a room that would motivate me to get some work done! I know, I know, some of you are thinking that you would also get work done quickly in this room but only so you could get out of it as soon as possible! To each their own, but for me, this high contrast, high pattern environment is invigorating and motivating!
URBAN SHOCKER: Amping up the energy another few notches, Pantone’s Solar Flare and Flasher are QUITE the powerful combo! This yellow is moving towards mustard, and could actually be paired with a brown for a MUCH calmer result. But with this Flasher orange it goes for full-on eye-shocking impact. The purple-brown of the walls, Maroon Banner, I find absolutely beautiful and its subdued tone gives the eyes some rest. Normally I’m not a fan of large graphic face art, but here I like the black/white togetherness vibe.
CHEERY SIMPLICITY: This staircase area has lots of hard right angles, but there are so many of them in so many playful pastels, that the whole effect is whimsical and joyful… which can be hard to achieve in a space as mundane as a staircase and its storage. Colour is so powerful! Yellow makes this staircase look exciting and purposeful (it would help if the staircase connected to the second floor more safely - but this is an image I made with earlier versions of Midjourney, so we just need to excuse the logistical issues ;-)). I love the colour scheme here - pastel fun but without feeling overly feminine or overly soft.
FUN FACTS ABOUT YELLOW:
In France during the 1800s, novels with content considered to be scandalous were bound with yellow covers as a warning to casual book browsers. In the 1890s, a British literary and artistic quarterly periodical began publishing under the name, The Yellow Book, wanting to associate itself with the slightly salacious connotation that yellow books had taken on due to the French publishing practice.
Oscar Wilde references this illicit connotation of yellow books in his own work, The Picture of Dorian Gray. And he was said to have been carrying a yellow-bound book when he was arrested in London in 1895 for gross indecency, i.e. for having sex with men, which tragically remained a criminal offense in the UK until 1967, and of course continues to be so in too many countries.
Thank you for looking and reading!
If you would like to see more rooms, in yellow and other colours, you can have a peek at my Practically Fabulous Instagram account.
-Vanessa :-)
Ahhh, yellow--a color easy to get wrong at home on the walls. I liked your renderings!
My yellow story: dark rooms, heavy shade from giant trees around the property, a perfect yellow should do the trick. Brought home six little paint cans of similar shades and painted large squares in a couple of the rooms. Picked the best one, and had to live with that frosty, lemon-banana shade that screamed out a rockin' Caribbean playlist even when the speakers were off, for about two years. For me, leave the paint colors to the professionals was my lesson learned. ;-)
Oooh the book covers in France! Great fact