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August Postcards: Beautiful Rooms in Chocolate and Cream

I was drawn to these warm colours of vintage wood, rich cream and shades of chocolate this week. It all feels very cocooning and comforting but, at the same time, is essentially taking a classic black and white base and turning the dial round to the warm end. So it’s just as easy to add colours to this combination as it would be to black and white should you wish. This can be anything from ochre yellows to emerald green (always doable with plants) all the pinks and even cobalt blues. So while this might look like a safe scheme it’s actually just a great base from which to start. Or, in my case, stay. Read on…

chocolate brown walls in the hallway via half a hall
chocolate brown walls in the hallway via half a hall 

 

Kate Watson-Smyth

The author Kate Watson-Smyth

I’m a journalist who writes about interiors mainly for The Financial Times but I have also written regularly for The Independent and The Daily Mail. My house has been in Living Etc, HeartHome and featured in The Wall Street Journal & Corriere della Sera. I also run an interior styling consultancy Mad About Your House. Welcome to my Mad House.

3 Comments

  1. I love these postcards and getting me to read some older posts. I really do like the look of the chocolate and cream. I’m surprised at how modern and clean it looks. I’m absolutely terrible at style and decorating which is why I love this site and getting to see how things are put together.

  2. You have provided a striking element in every room in this series of photos. It is the Farrow & Ball Bone via half and half which makes the best impression for me. On balance, I think the combination of chocolate and cream in this room is more cream and less chocolate. The dark stained parquet flooring grounds the cream of the very high walls and ceiling. I would not have a leather chair in this room, if it were mine, but a dark chocolate velvet chair would purr nicely in the same spot.

  3. Kate

    I recently re-read your post about turning your junk room into your office, with the beautiful Mylands metallic gold paint on the ceilings and down the walls to the picture rail (is it still like that??). Your comments in this post about metallic kick boards for kitchens reminded me of the Mylands metallic paints. I have to add kickboards to a floating kitchen because the floor is horrid and the kitchen legs are horrid too. I’m going to use the paint and see if it takes to having decorator’s varnish put on top to make it more “kick-resistant “.

    Thought that it might help people who don’t have the budget to get things covered in metals for real, at least as a stop-gap. They do silver, copper, gold and pale gold.

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