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.