Beautiful Rooms: A Dash of Mustard

Well now are you sitting comfortably with washed hands and ready to take our weekly stroll through some beautiful rooms. If we’re all going to be quarantined soon then we’re going to need all the inspiration we can get and I’m starting this week with a look at how a dash of mustard can just liven up a space. For me it’s too much for a wall but it works perfectly as a disrupter colour as we shall see below.

Firstly this is a very calm pink and blue room but turned the radiator into a feature really finishes the scheme off. It shows that the creator thought about what they were doing and rather than just playing it safe with the two colours deliberately threw in another to disrupt it all.

I know I always say you should match your radiators to your walls and if you have typical modern white ones then you should for sure. This is a little bit more designer and while it would have worked well to match it to the wall, it would never have completely disappeared as it’s so large so better to “own it” as they say and pick a strong colour that makes it part of the decor.

Loosely using the mustard reference here although there’s no doubt they make the pink work harder and stand out well against the blue. This is more about the pendant lights although I’m going to make the same point about owning it. Regular readers will be familiar with my complaint that many pendant lights in bedrooms useless because while they are in the middle of the ceiling that tends to mean they hang pointlessly over the end of the bed lighting a patch of carpet that has no need of being promoted.

Now I appreciate that this is a product shot but three lights is so much better than one. They may be in the wrong place (it’s hard to tell although it looks like they are shining on the middle of the bed rather than the end) but as there are three – hung at varying heights – suddenly it’s a lighting feature – and given that most of us will have bedside lights then the central overhead one in the bedroom is often more a decorative feature (except perhaps on dark winter mornings) so might as well make it count. Three lights in different sizes hung at different heights will do this perfectly and they don’t have to be expensive. Paper lanterns will work perfectly.

From cushions to chairs and this velvet desk chair just highlights the brass handles on the table and brings a happy aspect to the space. I’m not wild about the brass feet but this is about the mustard chair contrasting with the dark blue walls. Always a happy combination blue and yellow but if this doesn’t appeal to you try varying the shades of each until you find the two that work for you.

As many of you know I have never really been a fan of yellow, although I quite like this mustardy version, but these tiles in the Scottish home of journalist and designer Jilll MacNair have made me start pondering if I would like some like this in the boys’ shower room which needs redoing at some point this year (you can see more of Jill’s house in the current issue of Elle Decoration). While my house has a lot of pinks and burgundies, some chocolates and an increasing amount of green it suddenly feels like a bit of muddy yellow might be just the thing.

Or maybe I should just paint a door as Liz Kamarul has done here to great effect below. All the colours in the room have been pulled out of the wallpaper so it’s a palette that works even though there are quite a lot of different shades.

What do you think? What would your disrupter colour be?