How I Picked My Home Decor Color Scheme

I know it may not sound like an earth-shattering thing to do, but it really is earth-shattering! If you're like me, you like a lot of different color combinations. When you walk into a model home you think, "ya, that's what I want", until you see the next home and then you want that.

Our last home was a bit of a hodge-podge. And while there's nothing wrong with that, I found that without a color scheme, I kept picking out pieces because I liked them and not because they fit in with at certain color palate. I was ok with that but once we moved into our new house after 25 years in the old one, I didn't want a hodge-podge anymore. I didn't want to spend a fortune on an interior decorator or expensive furniture either.

I had several color palates saved on Pinterest but could not make up my mind.

Then one day, while walking the Naples Pier in Florida, I stood at the spot where the pier connected to the shore and I turned to look at the sandy beach. To the left was a mint green ocean. The water lapped over the sand on shore and made it a light gray color. To the right of the gray was powdered-sugar sand. I gasped and said, "That's It! That's what I want my color scheme to be! I'd always loved the beach and if it's partly due to those colors that I feel the way I do at this moment, I want to capture that and bring the beach into my home. So I took out my smart phone and snapped a picture. Here it is.

I'd encourage you to be on the lookout for color schemes you love like that too. Maybe it's not the beach but a forest, or the desert, a meadow or flower garden. Whenever you find a place where the colors make you gasp, take note. Now, I'm not suggesting you have to pick a palate and then get rid of everything you have

that doesn't coordinate, but you'll find if you replace pieces a little bit at a time, you will introduce a calm, serene feeling into your home. The other benefit to having a color palette is it weeds out a lot of those impulsive purchases that might be gorgeous by themselves, but don't really fit overall.

When we moved into our new home, we had sold almost everything because it would cost almost as much to move all our mismatched furniture as it would be to sell it all, save the moving money and put that money into new furniture in our newly chosen color scheme. And I don't mind telling you, it was painful to have to say no to things that were pretty but didn't fit the criteria. It took a long time! But we were determined to stick to our guns and take as long as needed.

The result is, I LOVE how everything came together! Mainly because the color scheme of the seafoam green, gray and white still takes my breath away. It's a calming something I can't quite put my finger on but I wish I would have known this years ago. Do we have a lot of expensive furniture? No. We decided to spend a little more on one statement piece and then be frugal on the rest. I have décor that I made myself, store-bought pieces, and things I got off of Facebook Marketplace. And of course HomeGoods is my happy place.

Your assignment is to be observent of nature and natural color schemes. It's a theraputic exercise that might also help you discover a new color scheme for your home. Do need to have a color-scheme in your home to have a fabulous life? No. But when you bring in colors that are harmonious (nature is always harmonius) you bring a sense of peace into your home and life that is hard to measure the value of. Even as we speak, I'm looking at what surrounds the TV: Seafoam green shiplap on the wall, a white credenza that looks antique, beachy white...all surrounded by greige wall color. I