White- From Weak to Wonderful
Wednesday, December 8, 2010 at 9:20PM 
Christine,
Found your website recently and jump up with total giddiness every time you post! Thanks so much for generously sharing your knowledge and mad design skills!
I just bought a house and am ready to start making decision decisions.
All the trim, wood work, and cabinets are a fantastic off white color. I love it. Very subtle and sophisticatedly classic.
Wall color is a warm-brownish taupe. I am considering painting, but am waiting to finalize furniture /accessories/curtain decisions....But I'm being drawn to the idea of a warm but pale shade of gray....
My problem, and what I am so desperately hoping to get your help with, is that I want clean, WHITE slipcovered furniture. I want something that I can wash and bleach when necessary. (I have 2 small kids and 2 small dogs. Enough said.)
I apparently get nervous mixing different shades of white. I see pictures all the time of this done successfully, but am having a hard time putting it into practice.
Are there any rules, suggestions, or resources you could give on mixing whites?
- Penny
Dear Penny- 1. There are warm whites and cool whites. If you have a traditional home- warm is probably the way you should go. Cool whites are perfect for a crisp modern interior.
2. If you try to combine the warm and cool whites- they start to not look good together. The warm white will look dirty. The cool white will look stark.
3. Variety is important. This goes with any monochromatic color pallet. Vary the shades, vary the textures. Don’t just use your two whites- use multiple whites. A room with just two different whites might look like they don’t match- but a room incorporating half a dozen shades of warm whites with or without other colors will look terrific. Variety is important. A variety of finishes; a variety of tones.
4. White walls. I especially like white walls when the walls are interesting from an architectural standpoint. Plain drywall with orange peal texture with ordinary windows is not perhaps the best room to keep white. Beautiful architecture, lovely wood trim- these items look terrific in white.
5. White is the perfect backdrop for contrast. Darker colors will stand out more when paired with white. This is great if you have some terrific artwork to display. You will find a lot of white walls in art museums. This is not so great if you have old dark gross carpet. Beautiful dark hardwood floors- perfect with white. See my point? Look at the photos in this post- the white helps the non-white to pop. Use contrast to your advantage when highlighting favorite items. If you have elements that you do not want to draw attention to- be careful of contrast.