For a Cohesive Home Color Palette, Start With One Thing

 

“It’s easy for a home’s color scheme to come about haphazardly. It can, after all, be overwhelming to choose a color story or theme for every room of a house.

 

But for an interior that feels more curated and cohesive, try selecting hues for the entire home inspired by a single item or concept.

 

With each of her design projects, Gray Walker of Gray Walker Interiors “always starts off with one thing,” she said.

 

She once devised a palette based on the coral lipstick and navy blue clothing her client’s mother wore, but more often, her inspiration is a work of art, like the colorful painting she chose for a Georgia home she recently completed.

 

“The entire palette stemmed from there,” Ms. Walker said. Throughout the residence, she stuck to blues, greens and pinks, shifting their intensities. In the double-height foyer, where the painting hangs, she opted for neutral walls and a Stark Carpet Missoni runner. The runner features all the colors in the painting.

 

Andrea Magno, director of color marketing and design at Benjamin Moore, is also a fan of basing a home’s color scheme on a single point of inspiration, like a work of art, a rug or a photo from a memorable trip. She said it brings clarity and cohesion to the process, simplifies the color selection, and makes the palette personal.

 

“Build the palette around one color family or two- to- three adjacent families on the color wheel,” Ms. Magno said. “By layering light to dark variations within these families, you can achieve smooth transitions from room to room and create a cohesive, thoughtfully curated color story.”

 

Paintings are a natural source of inspiration for many designers. For a family home in Mexico, Aymee Kuhlman and Katherine Cunningham of Light and Dwell started with an oil portrait of a man crouching in front of a citrus tree. The painting, which hangs in the home’s game room, “was the conceptual anchor, and we layered colors on top of it,” Ms. Cunningham said.

 

But they didn’t do so literally. Instead, they took license with its colors and textures. They pulled earth tones from the ground and shoes in the painting, representing them via Mexican rammed earth tiles in the kitchen. They referenced the texture and color of the man’s shirt with white plaster walls in the en-suite bathrooms.

 

Leatrice Eiseman, the executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, prefers to take her inspiration from nature. For a former home near Seattle, she “wanted to create sunlight even on days when there was no sunlight.” To achieve that warmth and luminosity, Ms. Eiseman took pictures of “light sparkling off the Puget Sound” on “bright and beautiful days,” then matched the soft yellow color to Pantone Cornsilk 13-0932.

 

For her current home in Tucson, she built a palette of sunset hues (light peach, purple, and magenta) balanced out with cool ones (turquoise). “You always want to have a touch of the opposite on the color wheel,” she said.

 

The design firm General Assembly matched the interior of a beach bungalow in Amagansett, N.Y. to its natural surroundings. “The unspoiled stretch of greenery, the surrounding dunes, shrubs and pine trees, inspired much of the color and material palette,” said the firm’s partner, Colin Stief. Accordingly, the spaces are muted, with mostly neutral walls and one or two colors (like green, blue or earth tones) in each room.

 

But a palette informed by nature can also be vibrant. Sasha Bikoff, a New York interior designer with a maximalist aesthetic, chose a color scheme for her clients’ New Jersey home based on the flowers in their garden. Each room is a different hue. The foyer is African violet, as Ms. Bikoff wanted a “bold and regal color to ground the space.” The living room is rose pink, the dining room daffodil yellow, the office grass green, and the powder room tulip red (red can be “overpowering” in a larger space, said Ms. Bikoff). For more intensity, she opted for high-gloss oil paint from Fine Paints of Europe. Ms. Bikoff kept the trim white to highlight the original woodwork and provide periodic breaks from the saturated colors.

 

Similarly, a San Francisco family hired Noz Nozawa of Noz Design to decorate their house and picked the rainbow as inspiration. “The client had this vision, in part because of the symbolism of rainbows in L.G.B.T.Q. culture (and San Francisco has been called ‘the gayest city in the U.S.’), and because they love color,” Ms. Nozawa said. In the foyer, Ms. Nozawa kept the walls white, allowing a custom rainbow runner and geode-inspired mural to pop. The living room features deep pink walls and a rainbow rug, while the blue dining room is accented with touches of orange. The fridge in the mudroom is hot pink and each window in the kitchen bears a shade in a different hue. When closed, they cumulatively create a rainbow effect.

 

Such a color scheme might be too bold for many. But the right mix of hues can help your home tell a story, said Ms. Walker.

 

The bottom line? “Do not fear color,” said Ms. Bikoff.” [1]

 

1. For a Cohesive Home Color Palette, Start With One Thing. Cheney, Dina.  New York Times (Online) New York Times Company. Jan 9, 2026