Color Stories: Nice Accent!

Day five of our guest posts (see Anne Harwell of Annechovie HERE, Robin of Around the Island Photography HERE, Megan of BonBon Rose Girls HERE, and Linda of Lime in a Coconut HERE) brings us Anna from An Inch of Gray.

Anyone who reads The Big Piece of Cake or Wishing True (my own blogs) may have seen Anna in comments. She was my first real blog friend and by some stroke of luck we actually live in the same area. Not that we see each other nearly enough...but we're going to be roommates at BlogHer in August - so she may think she's seen quite enough of me for a while after that...

While Anna doesn't write a design blog, she does post a lot about her home decorating, DIY and "dumpster diving." And she she's really funny. Hope you love her as much as I do.

Welcome Anna!

I've been thinking about color. Taking a look around my house you'll see:

Palladian Blue, B. Moore
Summer Shower, B. Moore
Yarmouth Blue, B. Moore

A lot of my walls are painted my favorite color... blue.

It got me thinking about how the use of color in our homes and clothing has changed over the years. In the late '80s and early '90s you would likely see me in my fuchsia "Tab's Got Sass!" sweats or, for work, in a hunter green pantsuit. One color from head to toe. Matching shoes and earrings a plus!

So, looking around at all the blue in my house leaves me wondering, has my decorating style become akin to... a colorful pantsuit?

After all, while there are many troubling aspects of the tracksuits Sue Sylvester sports on Glee, the matchy-matchiness is certainly not the least.


Accent colors are a wonderful way to add life to a room and bring in a new color, without over saturation, Sue Sylvester-style. I have tried accent colors in my home with some degree of success:


The jury is still out on that crazy yellow lamp.

One thing I love about accessorizing with an accent color, is that colorful pillows, lamps and frames are easy to change when a new color strikes my fancy. A 150 lb couch? Not so much. I guess that's why both of my couches are brown.

I recently came upon a fun blog, A Punch of Color, which shows how to inject color into your decor.

These images from a recent post on ORANGE, blew me away.




I wouldn't even consider myself an orange girl, but these rooms are charming, and I can see how a jolt of color (I can't bear to say "pop" because it's so overused) liven up a room.

While the rooms in the photos are professionally decorated and styled, I can see how I could use the same approach in my own home.

And when the mood strikes... bring on a different color. Now that's something even grumpy Sue Sylvester could get behind.

Thanks so much Anna! Come back tomorrow for our last guest post from Lindsey of A GreatFull Day!