Almost everything in my parents' home was brown, beige, or tan. To this day (I'm 62) I don't have any of those colors in my home or my wardrobe. Earth tones just look sort of depressing to me. I'm drawn to white interiors, with maybe some gray and a little bit of color.

I know this isn't the type of response you're seeking, but it's a very foreign idea for me to think that my parents had colors. Divorced since I was 1, and my mother moved us around a lot, I can only recall one home that was painted in colors she chose and by then I was a teenager.
The most stable home in my life is that of my grandparents, they've lived in the same house for 40 something years. All the walls are white or wallpapered in a light beige. I guess I've "rebelled" and gone the opposite of that, I'm painting walls purple and dark teal...but in the main living area it is a greige, so maybe I'm not.

In any case, I think you're very lucky to have that sentiment of even knowing what kinds of colors your parents prefer, and having a family home that reflects those choices.

Nope. My parents are very into an antique-y Victorian meets country kind of style. Deep colors, leathers, woods... My house is full of light blues and greens with an MCM decor.

My mom was an obsessive redecorator. She'd prioritize home decor over groceries. Who cares if the kids are starving, as long as there's new wallpaper!

Changes were too frequent to really target any specific colour or style. She'd repaint every couple of months whereas I'm just changing my colour scheme out after 10 years of blue and brown.

Uh, avocado green, harvest gold and burnt orange?

Heck no.

No. Not at all. They tended towards very soft colours, and I prefer to go the other way entirely: bright and vibrant.

HOWEVER. I will note that their colour decisions are now frequently influenced by me.

As an adult, married, with kids and a house, I got to choose the paint colors. The exterior became a clear, fresh yellow (with green trim and a blue door). After a year in the yellow house (the neighbors call it the Fruit Loop look) I remembered that around the time I was four, my parents presented me with a freshly painted pink bedroom. New paint was nice, but I really wanted yellow.

However, I find that I really appreciate beautifully finished natural wood - of which my parents had an abundance. They put ash cabinets in the kitchen, and ash paneling in the dining room and den. Antique oak furniture in their room and MCM walnut in the living room.

Like jess13 above, I too had a pre-adult life spent moving (100 times by the time I was 18, and 116 when we moved into this house, which my husband and I built 13 years ago) so many times with my mother that I don't recall a single house that had any distinguishing colour scheme. I vaguely recall my mother repainting the then family home the year after I moved out at 17 (and I only spent one year there) with greys and grey-lilac (colours I detest) throughout, but I only went home once for a few days and I barely remember it.

Personally I tend to avoid colour on walls, since paint is so expensive here in Australia (even the cheapest, poor-quality paint is around the $60/gallon mark) and use colour in furnishings and accessories - far cheaper and much easier to change out a lampshade and scatter cushions than to repaint. The walls that are painted in our house are painted a slight off-white called Antique White USA, the rest are bare plaster white, which I actually like. They look clean and crisp and fresh all the time :)

My mother kept our house pretty simple. We didn't paint the walls, and we had the original grasscloth wallpaper that came with the house. She put up some drawings and paintings from their travels, but that was about it. It wasn't until I got older that I realized how minimalist her decorating style was. For me, I have never painted my walls in any of the places I've lived (also out of laziness), but instead, have tried to accent the walls with either a few prints I've bought, or though patterned curtains to break up the white walls. I really do just enjoy the brightness and cleanliness of white walls.

Since nearly all my furniture is cast off or inherited, my parents' (and inlaws') choices are pretty much my own. I tend to take these colors/items in a lighter and brighter direction with accessories and less clutter than I grew up with.

My parents weren't into colour much, despite having some design sense when it came to furniture. Maybe it's because they are European, and people don't do much colour there, tending to stick to whites and perhaps yellow/ochre.

I've played with colour in every home we've ever lived in, and we've lived in a lot. Painted our first living room pink, for starters (and no, not a shell or blush pink either). We have a very deep greenish brown/dark loden wall in our living room, and I painted 2 walls in my son's nursery black (it was actually very colourful with his bright wooden toys). I once painted the ceiling of our bedroom metallic aluminum and the walls Martha's aracuana green. Mostly these days I play with shades of luminous whites.

Not like my parents at all.

My parents were big fans of avocado green. Our refrigerator and living room furniture were avocado green LONG past its stylishness. I don't think I could do buy anything that color now even if I wanted to! (I don't.)

No. My parents favorite color was blue and they also like the craftsman era colors (maroon, hunter green). My color inspiration mostly comes from the 1950-1960s. I like to use turquoise, kelly green, red, and pale gray.

This color is Newberg Green. I painted my living room Newberg after seeing this pic several months ago. My mother, the redecorating Queen of Danish Mid-century Modern spartan decor, about died. Ha! Satisfaction :o) I really do love it!

I find that often people like myself who grew up with white walls think they're just fine (and in fact I miss it sometimes). People like my husband who grew up with coloured paint often find white walls very unfinished looking, like no one could ever possibly choose white, and they have a hard time living with (to them) "unpainted" walls.

My parents have very muted, sedate, and...well, typical.. colors. Sage green, buttery yellow, tan. As a result, I have none of those colors in my home and hate them with a passion. They just seem so boring and stuffy.

My Dad constantly painted everything white. I remember being a teen being so mad that he wouldn't let me paint my walls a deep burgundy that I swore as an adult when I got my own home I would paint my living room that colour.

I'm an adult now.
Every wall in my house is white. Yeah.

Not at all. My mother's choices are mostly traditional rusts, reds, and soft blues with brown tones. I go for clear, saturated colors with green and yellow tones.

No. My parents did a lot of beige, with some slate blue and rust red thrown in. My house colors come from the Crayola 8-pack.

My mother always had white walls, white carpet, rich wood furniture, and muted colors in artwork. Her wardrobe was consistently tan, white, black, pops of red. As a result I paint everything super intense saturated colors and have a closet that can only be described as "color/pattern barf."

My mother LOVES bright colors. Loves, loves, loves. And flowers, flowery stuff and DIY painted furniture. We had the kitchen remodeled in the mid 80's and she had a kelly green countertop installed that you could see from almost everywhere in the house. Our house was always very visually busy. Every room was a different color and nothing was neutral.

After I got my first grown-up house, I was hosting a party for my parents. My mother's best friend and neighbor for 40 years came in and said, "This, this is what I expected from you." Earth tones, muted palette, unpainted wood.

I'm looking around my house as I write this and the only thing my living room and my mother's have in common is a lot of art. We're both artists and our personal color palettes are really reflected in the art we make and the art we collect.

My mom's favoriate color is blue, and she had a collection of cobalt glass and blue willow-esque pottery and dinnerware that I loved growing up. Now my home includes that color a lot, along with my own touches of brighter greens and aquas.

My parent's kind of hate color for decorating. The most interesting color they were willing to put on the walls was eggshell white. So, every house I've lived in on my own has been filled with color. I love it. I almost can't wait to get color on the walls. My favorite bedroom was a paint color called Positive Red and it was this amazing deep red.

We lived in military housing for years (absolutely no painting!), but even when my parents bought a house, they never painted. Everything was the leftover white or bathroom wallpaper of the previous homeowners. Since my parents split, my mom's house is still primarily white, though she is transitioning to beige. Furniture-wise, the staples have historically been forest green, brown, burgundy, gold, etc.

I prefer much more colorful spaces. Nothing too wild, but I tend toward cool colors.

My mother is still going for the pastels, especially peach, cream, pistachio... I like it in her home, but not in mine. My walls are painted in eggplant, lavender, grey with black accents and white furniture. Totally different! She likes my style, too, but not in her home...

I grew up in the seventies. The family room was grey. The kitchen was blue and brown, and I love that room. Today, my place is in shades of blue, brown, and grey. I was very much influenced by my mother's taste.
Moreover, my parents' house was an elegant mix of Scandinavian modern and Hollywood Regency. My apartment is an updated version of the same style/mix.

Ditto what inchbranch said, "Uh, avocado green, harvest gold and burnt orange? Heck no."
On top of that every room in the house was paneled. Horrors. It's only in recent years I've been able to incorporate anything remotely associated with those colors into my home without having nightmares. The one saving grace of those years was that my parents allowed me to choose the carpet for my bedroom. It was a thick, plush cobalt blue and it kept me sane. The rest of the house was harvest gold shag (yup, those were the days).

This was followed by years of incarceration in boring Beigeville rentals where no painting was allowed, during which time I vowed when I owned my own home every room would be bright & cheery. Finally, we bought a 60's ranch & dontcha know, only the guest & master bedrooms were unpaneled. When the last box was unloaded, I drove straight to the paint store & grabbed the loudest, brighest color I could find. Before I even unpacked my kitchen, the guest room soon required sunglasses. (think raincoat yellow as someone referred to it recently).

THAT kept me sane as we worked through the rest of the house, although I have toned it down a bit elsewhere:)

I wouldn't say color in particular is something I take from my parents: my mom's color style is bright and vibrant, with lots of oranges and corals and bold prints, while my own is a little moodier (she hates all my greys). But I do owe them important home debts: my preference for old, grainy wood and the premium I place on tons of light are right from my mom and my dad, respectively.

My parents never did much decorating. They changed "themes" every few years...from angels to North Woods to Wild West. Most of the walls were either left white or a cream color and I absolutely craved color. I would have loved to have been able to paint my walls growing up, but I was never allowed to. Now that I am moved out and married I have a red wall in the living room, a cobalt blue wall in the bedroom and a sort of earthy gold in the bathrooms (thinking of changing that though) with the rest a neutral cream. Once they saw what I did, they actually started to come out of their shell and painted one room something other than white!! Haha.

My mother painted our living room orange one winters day. She then proceeded upstairs to her room and cried.

After drying her tears, she finishing the paint job. Mom then cleaned herself and her orange room. Searching the home for ways to accessories her new room.. she made a few more bold and clever choices.

The room received many compliments, and even a few copy cat rooms from others in her circle and other visitors to our home.

This taught me not be timid with my use of color. And even when things look bleak - I can recover and even shine.

My parents would only paint their walls pastel colours. I hate pastels. My favourite wall colour would definitely be a deep olive green, but I also love extreme brights and super dark walls.

No. The only rooms in our house that weren't white (or some variation thereof) was my bedroom, because I chose the color. Furniture was powder blue, mauve, maroon, etc. So not my style.

I grew up in a home with white wool carpets, white walls, white sofas in the living room. When color was introduced later on in the family hime, it was pale, subdued, boring. In my own home I have no white walls. I love rich color, texture, (limited) pattern, strong contrast. I am not my mother...thank goodness.

I don't have my parent's taste at all. What I did glean from them was no fear of color. My living room is sky blue and my kitchen is butter yellow. My bedroom is a blue-grey and I'm loving the pic up top and thinking I could do that in the office!

We were renters and in those days, that was a no-no. I have no fear of color so whatever mood I'm in, that's what goes up on the wall. I've never regretted any color choice.

My mother is a talented interior designer but her choice of white on white on white always made me anxious and I was never comfortable growing up in a showroom environment. So I went in the opposite direction. I want my home to feel lived in and went with color and lots of it. pops of primary color everywhere. Mixed Fiestaware in the kitchen. Colorful prints & textiles everywhere else

My parents were such a mixed bag, decor-wise. They erred on the side of oversaturation (five-piece Mediterreanean bedroom suite where every piece was huge and clunky and wouldn't let you forget what style it was), or they erred on the side of indecisive dilletantish eclecticism (the living room contained one seat in each of the following styles: contemporary mod, needlepoint bouquet, carved high Gothic, woodsy colonial, gilt brocade Rococo, plush cut velvet, French provincial toile).

Colorwise, they were kind of aimless -- until my mother became enough of a lady of leisure that she started getting manicures again instead of going without nail polish. Then we noticed that she kept trying to decorate with colors that reflected her taste in nail polish. The kitchen, with its aqua formica countertops, received a coat of salmon pink paint on the cabinets. The pine paneled den received an earth-tone-upholstered sectional with accents of "shrimp" in the fabric. The yellow basement rec room was redone with the dominant color of coral. The tiny guest bath got a fun mod wallpaper in a tiny Chinoiserie print that featured hot pink and lavender, and Mom was so mad when she was told that nobody was manufacturing hot pink towels.

All these rooms came were probably rebellions against her experience with the Florida room, where the pink would have been really successful. My parents envisioned lots of black and white everywhere, but with pink carpeting (I'm assuming a pale cotton-candy pink or maybe a hot pink). But there was no pink carpeting to be had in 1970. Alas. (They got a nasty variegated sculptured affair in shades of gold, yellow, and green ...)

To answer the question, how do their colors influence me? I think of myself more as someone who copies my grandfather's palette of grayed-out tones that harmonize through being of similar subdued intensity. But I make the smae mistakes my parents made, just with different hues, and with the same proud pleasure in the results.

Oh Goddess no ... white walls and that horribly ugly burnt orange, cream and burnt whatever floral upholstery in the 70s (I know there was some puke green shag in there somewhere too), which turned to white walls with beige, beige and more beige in the 80s, perhaps dressed up a bit with cornflower blue. To this day I truly dislike both white walls and beige. I love deep, rich colors like reds and purples and royal blue, and animal print (though not overdone).

Oppose. I've lived in apartments since the age of two and white walls are in every childhood picture. Not even nice, Pride & Prejudice style paneled walls. Those gross, weirdly textured walls you find in cookie cutter apartments. My mother has two brown couches in her living room and a gold/beigeish one she got from my grandmother. They are so different and clashing I avoid looking at them. She loves green and burgundy and gold accents. She was also really into light woods while I was growing up.

I hate green and brown and burgundy and gold and still can't afford my own home but when I do probably only the trim will be white, and a clean, crisp white, not off-white. Though I do love wood pieces, Magnussen Joplin collection ftw, I prefer a deep dark Pottery Barn almost-black brown.

However, a lot of her accents are/were very traditional in style (my preference) such as rococo art/picture frames or late baroque table legs. Unfortunately, I never got to decorate my room and when I tried to organize my multitude of books in an interesting style, was chided for it, so I wouldn't say my mother has stylistically influenced me.