Dollhouse Decorating – The Many Shades Of Pink

What does the word pink conjure for you? When you think decorating a dollhouse with pink, does a soft pastel room with girly cream-colored ruffles come to mind? Or maybe a shocking, vibrant, knock-your-socks pink on your room box accent wall, strewn with fuchsia flowers? Do get a subtle image of a modern dollhouse with pillows and art work providing discrete pops of orchid and royal blue. No matter. Pink offers a vast variety of choices in creating a beautiful miniature décor. 

It may sound surprising, but pink works with almost every color. There are no best shades; it's a matter of personal preference. However, most oft-used combinations, with pink as the primary color, include gray, white, cream, gold, silver, black, brown, green, soft blue, burgundy, cranberry and raspberry.

The thing to remember when using pink is to break it up with different colors to achieve balance. Start with the look you want to achieve. which will dictate the intensity of the pink. Fear not! Pink is a great color to play with, so have fun.

Soft Pink

Soft pinks are light and feminine and work beautifully with whites and creams. The picture of the bedroom with pink and white striped fabric on the stuffed chair, bedding covers and throw pillows, combined with the muted wall covering, provides a sense of peace and quiet. The tiny strong points of orchid an fuchsia above the center of the headboard are in perfect balance with the light blue background, which  provides depth to the scene. This would also be a good color scheme for a nursery  or bathroom. 

You can also create a warm, glowing palate with pale pink on the walls and ivory trim. Use yards and yards of tiny patterned fabric to cover a bed or sofa or other large pieces of furniture. For a grand finish, embellish the room with soft roses and patterned accessories. Use fabrics in several shades of pink and different textures: velvet, satin, shag, linen and cotton. Work into the scene big shinny ribbons. 

Hot Pink

This in-your-face-shade of pink doesn't have to make your eyes hurt. Tori Spelling designed the wallpaper in the nursery picture. It's strong, but the white ceiling and furniture, and uses of peach and a little fuchsia soften it. 

A More Modern Use Of Pink

Mark Cutler and Carl Berg designed the Italianate dollhouse (at te top) for a charity auction. Notice how they used various shades of pink against neutral wall colors in different rooms to give this traditional dollhouse an updated look.

There are so many shades of pink, and any of them can work for you if you keep your color pallet coordinated. And of course, if you are a “pink person” at heart. 

Dollhouse Decorating – Those Elusive Undertones

I absolutely love the color gray right ... currently. If you think it's cold and dull and dreary, think again. A warm gray can look inviting and soothing in your room. Just be sure to use shades with warm undertones.

Not sure how to spot that elusive undertone? In intense shades, it's easier to detect than when the colors are light. So look at the very bottom color on the paint strip. This darker color displays more of the undertone.

In this pictures, I've got 2 pieces of fabric that are in the “pink” family. One has a brown undertone, sort of a desert pink, and the other a bluish pink undertone. If you don’t check out the swatches, you could miss the fact that these two pieces of fabric have almost nothing in common because of the completely different undertone.

The next step in finding a basic color scheme is to match your sample sample -- fabric, magazine photo, piece of chalk – to a paint strip. Then take several of it's 

neighbors from the rack, lay them out on a flat surface and voila! You're looking at a possible color palette.

Now choose the primary color from the strips. This will be 50% of the color in the room, the walls probably. The secondary color should be used in about 35 % of the objects – large pieces of furniture, drapes and curtains. Use the third color, the remaining 15%, for all accent pieces and small sections of trim.

This is a simple way to have a coordinated color scheme, but you can take liberties. Just be sure the undertones stay in the same family.

Note:

While Patrick and I were taking these pictures at a Home Depot, this charming Mennonite lady asked me a question about a color sample she brought to the store. I love it! Talking about color anywhere is one of my favorite things! Of course, Patrick kept right on taking pictures … with her permission.

Dollhouse Decorating – An Exercise To Hone Your Color Palette

As an interior designer and color consultant, I've learned that it doesn't matter if you're painting your dollhouse or redecorating a living room, three things are paramount in choosing a color scheme: the temperature of the colors; sources of inspiration; balance – the 60-30-10 rule, which states that the primary color, usually the walls, is first. Second place goes to large pieces of furniture and/or the rugs. The last 10% is saved for trim and accents.

Temperature
Colors are either warm or cool, depending on their undertones. So the first step, is to take your color temperature. Do you want your room warm and cozy, or cool and modern?

Inspiration

Here is a way to make picking colors easy. Look at nature, where the most perfect color combinations can usually be found. Think about the places that make you feel good. Is your paradise the desert Southwest? Then it's earth tones for you: umber, ochre and sienna, and a little green if there is any water in your desert.

Maybe it's the time of day that mellows you out. Are you a morning person that likes to watch dawns early light spread across the dark sky? In museums, do you linger in front of a Jean Batiste Corot pink and silver sunrise? Your palette is bright pastels.

Balance
The palette for any room usually consists of 3 colors, 4 at the most. The wall color should be approximately half of the color you see in the room; the furniture one quarter; the accessories one eighth for each of two colors. These accessories can be accent pieces, such as a throw at the bottom of the bed, a lamp base, or a touch of color in a print.

These are not arbitrary numbers. You might call 60-30-10 an “ish” rule.

Here's a nice exercise for you. Look at these pictures. What would your color palette be for each? 

Dollhouse Decorating - “Help Stamp Out Beige”

“Help Stamp Out Beige” was the tag line in a paint manufacture's advertisement in the '70s, touting a new line of vibrant colors. I guess that's what's put me on this Be Bold with color binge. 

Victorian dollhouse and miniatures are one of the most popular styles. So when it comes to color, be like the Atlanta residents in the 1870s. For those that could afford it, spectacular Victorian homes rose from the ashes of the Civil War.

By the 1880s, when the Queen Anne style became popular, synthetic pigments allowed for vivid blues, greens, purples, and yellows. Also common were multi-hue schemes that accentuated the style's diverse architectural details, such as turned porch spindles and fish-scale shingles under the eaves.

Victorian homes also have a long and illustrious tradition of whacky color. Different colors helped to highlight the incredible details on these homes. Multicolored palettes can still be found on beautifully detailed homes today.

You really can't go too far out with your next dollhouse, or one that needs a remodel. The Victorians believed that if one detail would do, two was better. Better yet was to paint them a different color, not necessarily compatible. They loved repetition, like putting enlarged porch spindles on the front gables.

Paint schemes with several colors and sharp contrasts play up these architectural features. The more detail, the bolder you can be. Extremely ornate corbels can have sharp contrast between light and dark colors, while the less detailed panels can be painted in two dark colors. 

Why not a red dollhouse, or one patterned after the wondrous orange Victorian decorated by Sue Pekaric. Click on the image for a link to Houseaboodle and check out some her wonderful color combinations to brighten-up an aging dollhouse. And don't forget about all the gorgeous “Painted Lady” around the country.

So fear not! Be as lavash as you want with color. Some might question your taste, but no one can accuse you of not being authentic.

What do you think? Can a Victorian dollhouse be too garish? 

Dollhouse Decorating – Patterns in Dollhouse Decorating

When you are painting, wallpapering and making tiny things for your dollhouse, be aware of what patterns you are using ... do they do justice to the room. Here are a few guidelines for combining patterns in a small space.

Think about using a large, medium, and small pattern in the room. You could start with a tiny print in the wallpaper or sofa or bed or some other large area. A medium print with coordinating colors in the curtains, or chair or smaller area. Finish with a big bold print on some throw pillows or a small accent wall or other small area.

Coordinating the colors in these prints is critical. The main color should be repeated in each fabric, but not necessarily in the quantity. The minor colors can be different, but having the same undertones. Autumn colors together, cool colors together, is the way to go.

Think about the type of print as well. Small print could be tiny flowers; medium a plaid; large a circle or square pattern. All of the disparate sizes need not be and probably shouldn’t be the same type of print. Don’t use all flowers or all plaids.



A “theme” room would be the exception. Let’s say you grow flowers and you want a garden room that has flowers everywhere. Then all flower prints would be appropriate. But that would be exception. Too much of a good thing, etc.


And don’t forget solid colors. With all those prints going on, solids make a good background and show off the pattern even more gloriously.

Susan Downing Plays With Color

Thank you editors of American Miniature magazine for the very nice article. 

Dollhouse Decorating - Choose Color Wisely

Your dollhouse or room box needs to follow the same decorating rules as a real house. Light colors tend to open up a room, making it seem lighter and more spacious.

Dark hues can add depth and warmth. Using a dark color on a single accent wall creates visual interest, without making the room feel smaller.

A warning about white walls and ceilings: pay special attention to how surrounding elements will reflect light and alter the color. For example, red furniture or carpeting might make white walls look pink. This is especially true in a room box, as there is mostly reflected light present.

Blue can give the room a cool feeling; it can also make it look cold. A blue wall will give a cool bluish-white cast to the whole room, as in the picture below. The reflected light gives everything in the bathroom, especially the ceiling, a bluish cast, destroying the desired contrasts.

So remember: choose color wisely.

#dollhousedecoratinglight