The Danger of Over-Decorating (Expert Q&A by Susanna Salk)

http://home.ivillage.com/decorating/bedrooms/0,,fn865gww,00.html

Overcluttering, yes. I live in fear that my home will end up looking like all those old ladies houses filled with tiny figurines and tatted doilies! Except in my house, it's DH's airplane models!

But I don't worry about "overmatching"; we have bought things over such a long period of time from so many different locations that nothing in our house "matches". We are truly eclectic.

I do worry about this at times. I have a lot of coordinating elements, especially in my kitchen & dining room. I like mustard-gold and olive green and I'm often tempted to paint the walls in coordinating colors but I just think it would be too much with everything else I already have in there.

The same applies to our bedroom. Everything is very matchy and "perfect" IMO and doing the walls would be overkill. I like the look of painted walls (colors other than whites) but I think for now I'm going to be very conservative with paint! We just bought a house last Spring and have only painted the bathroom (very dark bright teal which is SO cheery). With the oak trim we like whites on our walls. Most of our friends have much older homes with white wood trim and that does look good with colored walls but I feel like for us, it would be ridiculous to replace the hardwood trim or paint over its current stain (which we love).

Good article you posted - I just wish it were longer and had a variety of scenarios!

Teal! You are the first person I've encountered who has used teal! My kitchen is a dark teal. Murder to match, but really looks good with the oak cabinetry and white ceramic tile floor.!

And like you, we have oak molding, doors, etc. and LOTS of white walls. We did inherit some rooms with color (DH's office is dark green and tan and the laundry room is bright sunny yellow) but otherwise, we have gone with either winter white or a pale cream. But we are getting adventurous and have a couple of rooms in colors: a paler shade of teal (our sun room off the kitchen, two shades of forest green in one bedroom, and three shades of a steely blue in another... They do seem to work with the oak... maybe because we use a lot of white accents like curtains and bedding (murder with three black cats so a necessary accessory is that lint roller!)...

Hi Carol!

I actually saw a picture of your kitchen yesterday - I can't remember if it was this board or another! hehe  But the dark teal color is very similar to the one we used, I think ours may be a tiny bit lighter/brighter but almost the same!  I agree it looks amazing with oak trim and white.  Everything in our bathroom is oak and the top of the vanity is white (the floor is neutral).

We lived in a rental house for about 5 years and it started out pretty rough around the edges so the landlords actually encouraged us to paint (rare!) so we went a little wild with an orange-red kitchen and bold black chalkboard cabinet doors.  One bathroom was peach and olive green, another was cream with bright green accents.  Our bedroom was deep periwinkle and the extra room was a golden tan color.  We had a forest green accent wall in the living room and adjoining bar/breakfast nook.  We liked all of those colors but by the time we bought our home we were SICK of them and excited to have white/off-white walls haha. 

I think bathrooms often need that boldness though.  When we first moved in, we decorated the white walled bathroom with black & orange, which was modern and cute but just didn't have that "finished" look.  We both really loved this striped shower curtain in heavy fabric with dark and light teal, rusty orange, brown, cream, eggplant, and maroon.  The teal walls weren't the obvious choice but they really pop.  I forgot to mention the teal is just about 3/5 up the wall - the top 2/5 is off-white, and separating the two is a coordinating border.  I know border's kind of "out" but it really works well in that space.  Luckily the bathroom is large and oddly-shaped so it's able to handle all of those horizontal lines and boldness.  I love the way it worked out.  Sometime I may post photos (which I rarely ever do).