Aloha,

I'm working to make my bedroom/office at my new house a livable, happy space. Conveniently, living in Hawaii has led me to be inspired by the tropical beauty of the area. As such, I've got some wall lamps that have a faint tropical flora pattern (vivid green on white) -- GYLLEN by Ikea (I'm not sure if my particular design is on their website).

In addition, I have a rich, chocolatey duvet cover that I'm looking to complement w/ either green or red sheets.

However, I'm looking to fill out the color palette and seek advice. I have a tendency to become too "matchy-matchy" with colors and end up w/ a lot of colors too close on the spectrum or a lot of solid primary/secondary colors.

Anybody have suggestions? I would really like to add some color to the room (a red, perhaps), and then soften some of it with more neutral tones. I'm hoping to use dark wood furniture against light wooden floors.

I clearly have no idea what I'm talking about. Any advice?

this is a palette i used in my husband's office. he wanted tropical too. he has a reggae band so i looked to Jamaica for inspiration. this is based on tropical foliage. i don't know how something like this would work with your chocolate duvet, though. let me think about that...

here's another idea. i'm thinking the coral as accents. is this the right lamp (look in the palette)?

You got the lamp right!

I like your palette quite a bit. I'm not quite sure about the coral, but it's helping me to think more about the accent I'd like to use. I really like the oceanic shades of blue and am trying to figure out where I could incorporate those into a floor covering or some such.

If you have more ideas, let me know. I really like rich colors (hence the green and brown), but you certainly have a knack for using colors that appear both vivid and subtle.

Thanks for the suggestions!

this is actually quite fun. i think i'll work on another for you. of course you know you'll have to post a few pictures when you're finished so i can see how it turns out. ;)

okay. here's one using more green.


and here's what stephy did with this palette!

tWhat about something like this:

a href="http://www.colourlovers.com/palette/290690/Hawaiin_tropics" target="_blank">

And maybe some accents of the blue that is in my avatar.

Is this the lamp? wall lamp If so, the major colors range from:



through:



I love lizcrimson's you like bold? above -- maybe you could see what it looks like with these colors substituted for her green and yellow?

GreenMyEyes wrote:

Is this the lamp?

I love lizcrimson's you like bold? above -- maybe you could see what it looks like with these colors substituted for her green and yellow?

that is the right lamp, and my darker green was taken from a pixelated photo of that lamp. i went with the brighter colours after that to keep it tropical.

i'm going to try a palette with your colours too, GreenMyEyes.

Here is an option with the red and using the green that lizcrimson came up with for the lamp. I am thinking that red is kind of intense for what I think of as tropical.



Again, using the green that lizcrimson came came up with, this is what I came up with that felt good to me.

here's one with GreenMyEyes' two greens. again with the red! i can't help it.




and one using the turquoise-y blues.

I love yet another try, particularly with the proportions suggested in your widths palette.

my 2 cents worth....