apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Great kitchen! Those tiles are perfect.

I really like this, and it reminds me of a color question I've beeen wondering about. In the AT book it says you should decide whether a room will be warm or cool and that if you mix the two then it will look off. This kind of concerned me because I bought an orange rug but wanted to put up light blue curtains, but the terra cotta floor/cool wall color analogy gave me pause.

This seems to be a mostly warm room with cool walls so why does this work?

EastVillageAmy: that´s strange, I´ve never heard of this "rule". I think you have to mix it to look good! When you look around, it´s orange with grey, red with blue, red with green... there are many combinations of warm and cool and they look good. On the other hand, red with yellow often looks just "McDonald"... (and other similar combos). I say, never listen to these design advices, because you never know what works until you try it :-).

This looks great! And in a month or so, just add some fairy lights and it's ready for christmas!!! (sorry, I don't know why I'm already thinking of that time of year...)
http://www.notyourgoddess.blogspot.com/

Ah ha! This is the colour blue that I want to put in my kitchen. Beautiful!
I'm hoping to pop it with yellow and green accents. I'm trying to find the right fabric for curtains. It's hard!

EastVillageAmy,

I think when they're talking about warm and cool they mean versions of colors. Reds will have either a cool (blue) tone or a warm (brownish) tone. A red with blue, cool undertones will look fine with a cool blue.

Also, aside from cool and warm tones, if you want a real "pop" you choose contrasting colors. The primary colors are red, blue and yellow. So, if you choose blue, the contrasting color would be the other two primary colors combined, ie. orange (red & yellow). Your combination sounds great!

Did I just ramble, or did that make any sense?

I love this! I will have to keep this in mind for when I get tired of my current black/red/stainless color scheme. What an easy and refreshing revamp it will be!

Those shelves aren't floating. They're the Varde shelves and they have wooden vertical supports.

It's a great color combo. Very French!
As for the cool/warm rule, I have been an interior designer for years and have not heard that. Most complementary color schemes use a combination of the two and it looks great.

~Lorrie @ MyDesignSecrets.com

My dream palette for my kitchen and living/dining room!

Wow... that's MY kitchen!! What a lovely surprise :)

I'm really flattered to have my home featured in AT, you have made my day!

Thanks for clearing up the color thing. I always thought I had a pretty good sense of what colors look nice together though I couldn't say why they went together, and then reading that bit in the book made me wonder. Your color wheel explanations helped.

I was using this photo as a color palette inspiration:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/12721467@N02/2850592893/in/set-72157602086867191/

Hoping to acheive this sort of look:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/12721467@N02/2919044699/in/set-72157602086867191/

Thanks for you help! And Concha your kitchen is truly lovely!

Oh I looove that floor. Charming kitchen that's for sure.