Rethinking Yellow.
Admittedly I have NOT designed many yellow rooms in my career – it’s just never been my favorite color historically (yellow paint being one of the hardest colors to get right in my book). The guest suite above was the most yellow space I have photographed I can share- which is not a lot of yellow. But if 2025 was the year I fell back in love with red, 2026 is going to be the year of me and YELLOW. I’m finding myself saving a lot of rooms done in yellow on IG and have a pile of yellow fabrics I’m loving on my desk. All of a sudden I get really excited when a client suggests yellow for a room! So I pulled together some favorite things I’ve found in this tone. All the links can be found HERE.
How do you feel about yellow? Are there other colors you want to try out in 2026 that maybe used to be on your “no thanks” list?
Browse:
I love yellows! I have used very pale shades in a nursery, a Nancy Lancaster shade in a former living room, and had a lovely yellow Cape Cod style house at one time. Yes, shades can be tricky, but we have so many tools to get it right these days— and the world needs all the cheer we can inject these days!
I chose an end unit Federal style townhome that faces south and east. I chose Sherwin Williams ‘Afterglow’ for the living room walls. It offers a happy atmosphere in morning light and a rich luminosity when lit with incandescent light at night. The undetectable peach undertone of this warm yellow has an organic feel, yet still offering a period sensibility to the architectural exterior style.
I do love a yellow – but I grew up with a lot of it from the pale yellow and blue bedroom of my childhood (complete with Winnie the Pooh accents at one stage), to the shade “vellum” by Benjamin Moore that had a chokehold on my Mom and my aunts in my teenage years (early 00s). It’s fun to see it reinterpreted again, especially with all the buttery yellows in the fashion space.
Having grown up in the era of harvest gold—along with over-ripe avocado, and turquoise—I’m afraid yellow will forever live in infamy for me. But I admire the courage of designers/owners who select it and try to live with it. Eager to see what yellow magic you create this year. Cheers!
I’d love a coastal post- we just got a beach house and would love ideas for bedrooms and bathrooms (paint, vanities, curtains, lighting, decor) that are beach without being too on the nose.
I agree that it is a challenge to choose just the right shade of yellow. Benjamin Moore Chatsworth Cream is a favorite. I prefer to avoid the gold tones.
I had yellow rooms as a kid – paint colors I chose – so I’ve always liked it, but agree it’s really difficult to get right. (The hunter green I paired it with in the 90s is still a hard pass for me.)
A color I usually hate is orange, but I’m attracted to rusty shades lately. They feel sophisticated but soft, which is how I feel about mustard too.
I love yellow rooms, I just don’t know if I’d do one in my home, that said, after these holidays I want to embrace more red this year.
Happy 2026, Erin!
I really like mustard yellow…always have. Many have a love/hate…but it works foe me. Yellow is happy!! “Happy 2026!!”
franki