10 Colors to Complement Blue

We love blue interiors. We see dark navy and pale robin’s egg walls a lot in catalogs and magazine photos, but blue is not a color we see all that frequently in real-life homes. It’s not as easy to work with as brown or beige, but blue can be really striking when set off by metallics, crisp whites, or even a deep red…

Blue is a cool color by nature, and it works well with pretty much any other cool tone: gray, purple, even black. Using color combinations like these will give your room a sense of stability and calm. For higher contrast—and a bolder look—use a warm accent color, like red or yellow.

The photos above show a few inspirational ideas. For a more in-depth peek into each color combo, click through the following links.

FIRST ROW
• 1 Jewel-Toned Blues and Naturals
• 2 Blue and Silver
• 3 Blue, Brown, & Greenish Gold
• 4 Blue and White Prints and Patterns
• 5 Blue and Black

SECOND ROW
• 6 Blue and Gold
• 7 Dark Blue and Hot Pink
• 8 Blue and Orange
• 9 Light Blue and Deep Red
• 10 Blue and Yellow

Photos: Heather Ross courtesy of April Tidey, House to Home, FLOR, Marimekko, Dwell Baby, StudioIlse, iittala Taika Dinnerware, The Rug Company, Emery & Cie, David Netto

Comments (7)

Does anyone have any idea of where the side table came from in the first picture?

posted by jayjay5 on October 6th 2009 at 11:23pm
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It's interesting to me that we perceive blue jeans as completely neutral......we will wear absolutely any color with blue jeans........nothing ever clashes.

But blue in decorating is not as easy. I think very pale blues are the easiest to use.

posted by ohjodi on October 7th 2009 at 6:51am
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I just painted our kitchen "Steely Gray" by Sherwin Williams, and painted the cabinets white. It looks so crisp, I love it!

I have these window panels up, and they look great:

http://www.westelm.com/products/r669/?pkey=cwindow-panels-curtains-shades

I'm sticking with white and metallic brownish gold (like the color of wheat) colored accents. So far so good!

posted by Erin Lang Norris/Yellow Canoe on October 7th 2009 at 7:13am
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I'm a white kinda guy, but how can you not LOVE blue!? Those vases, that second picture... NICE!

posted by jeffnyc on October 7th 2009 at 8:45am
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To me, blue is one of the easiest colors to work with. I almost consider blue a neutral.

I love to pair it with shades of green and white.

posted by JulieLeanne on October 8th 2009 at 1:28pm
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My kitchen, just after I painted a blue border under the chair rail.

http://jumpyfroggy.com/gallery2/d/10832-2/2006_01_16_4665_kitchen.jpg

posted by jumpyfroggy on October 9th 2009 at 9:30am
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We just added a few peacock blue accents to our mostly moss green living room, and I'm loving it! I was inspired by a new throw pillow with a design in chocolate, peacock, moss, and chartreuse - it really works!

posted by Emily the Cat on October 11th 2009 at 10:27pm
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