apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Burnt orange, brown and natural cream colours. Found in our lamps, artwork, curtains and our boxy corduroy couches. The orange couches had big square cushions that we would use to make forts from - but that's another story. Also teak. Teak always reminds me of childhood. And all those side tables and chairs that my parents (still) have are coming back in style!

Brown, tan, beige, honey... lots of brown. Which I tend to steer away from in my own home. And absolutely no beige for me.

'Autumn' colours, greens, browns and orange. Not for me.

Lots of browns... everything was brown because of the weird 70's "energy efficient" exposed brick inside. Peach, orange, and yellow were the colors in the bathrooms and kitchen. I avoid these colors now, except for the occasional chocolate brown accent.

Brown, tan, beige, honey, yellow and orange, specially coming from sunlight remind me of the afternoon my dad died; for the longest I had a hard time enjoying that whole family of colors. It's kind of funny how such a happy color (yellow) would have such negative implications in my head... Oh well, learned to love all colors... I mean, I had to; life comes in way to many colors to hate even one.

Off-White: When you're a Military brat & moving from house to house, they're all painted a dingy, drab off-white and everyone else's house on base was the same crappy off-white too...

...needless to say, no Off-White in my home!

Wood - the house I grew up in had all hardwood floors, all old antique wood furniture. We had so many antiques in my house growing up that my mom eventually cleaned out the storage we rented and our house (mid-life crisis) and auctioned it all off. Years later when I got my first apartment we still had enough to furnish my place.

BTW when I say antiques I mean a Siberian Maple Shiftrobe that came over when my family immigrated here in 1902, a rifle/cannonball/etc. from the Civil War, a six foot long x four foot high cedar Chest. So maybe it's better to say anything colored in the "old" variety reminds me of home.

Rich earthy tones--oranges, reds, browns, dark greens--and dark woods.

Avocado.

Purple, green & Gold. Yeah. I grew up in New Orleans.

It was always harvest gold and actually a little metallic gold too. BOLD PRINTS. It hasn't been that way in almost 20 years, but I remember it vividly. Just the other day, I remembered all the phases of the house to my mother, she was trying to keep up. It seemed one way for a very long time and then changed many times very quickly, room to room.

I was a military child, so we moved around a lot and part of the time relied on military furniture as well as military housing. This was in the 70s and a lot of the military-issued furniture was shabby, wornout stuff from the 50s, which might explain why MCM makes me want to vomit.

In the place which we loved being stationed the most, my mom decorated a lot in shades of avocado greens plus purple and lavender. So these were the happiest colors I remember from mom's decorating.

As for myself, my very first bedroom that I got to decorate was in orange, and I still love orange to this day.

My own home's colors are avocado & sage green, aqua blue, butter yellow, rust and apricot. I've been developing this color scheme for years and it's my personal signature.

Grew up in an Eichler in the 70's. Mcm green and orange for me and a dash of teak-color thrown in for good measure.

country blue and dusty rose (mauve) especially if it involves a white ceramic goose with a ribbon on its neck.

White walls, expressionist art and oriental/navajo rugs through white-flight and reverse white-flight eras (yes, we moved back to our inner-city 'hood mid-70s). That and bold 60s Scandinavian striped chairs, canary couch and plaid Marshall Fields sleeper sofa.

Harvest gold and avocado.

White and brown for my birth home, but for my real home it's bright blue, bright green and brown - the color of palms against an LA sky.

Turquoise, beige, brown, peach and colors of the Southwest. My Mom loves to decorate with Native American art.