Color Choices

Grandma had an eye for color. The horoscope believers would say it was a Libra trait. I'm not a Libra and I don't seem to have inherited Grandma's eye for color - just her dental curse (along with one from each of my other grandparent's. I expect I'll have full dentures by the time I'm sixty! Oh, joy!!) Since I don't have an eye for color, when I bought my house and began decorating it, I headed for those jewel tones. I figure you can't go too wrong with green, blue, and burgundy. But since I am also cursed with a somewhat creative mind, I am also always looking for a way to change things. Now, understand I never venture far. Changing the bedrom curtains and the shower curtain, bathroom rugs and kitchen rugs are about as far as I can venture. For one thing, I don't want to have to store a bunch of seasonal stuff and for another, I don't much care about having to change things at certain times. So, I have gone to changing the bathroom with the seasons as being my most ambitious effort for changing things. I found a wonderful French flower mart poster shower curtain that said spring to me - on sale, of course. I also found some rugs with some green and brown flecks. As there is dark green trim and a gold and green border in the bathroom, one needs to be careful with the greens. Now, one of the less prominent colors in my French flower mart shower curtain is an icy blue. This is a color I had never considered in my bathroom, but one that intrgued me for spring. So, I went looking for something to highlight that. Fearfully, I bought a very small ice blue mat for in front of the toilet and a larger randomly striped rug of olive, ice blue and taupe. To my surprise it worked. The taupe is the predominant color in the striped rug and as a neutral does not conflict with the dark green and other colors already in the bathroom. The small amount ice blue is refreshing and bright! I look at my unpredictable color combination and think Grandma is probably smiling from heaven with pleasure. You could have never convinced me that ice blue, olive and taupe would go with dark green and gold and black and white and not look like a kaleidoscope pattern. Of course, now that I am really liking my spring bathroom, it will be time to go to the summer decor in just a few weeks. Summer is simple gold and white. You see, I have no confidence in my own color choices. Grandma was so good at it. It just mystifies me - in spite of several successes of my own - witness my pink kitchen. I was convinced I had lost my mind the entire time I painted the kitchen. Now I cannot imagine it any other way other than white. So much for my color choices. It is probably more fear and lack of confidence rather than actual incapacity to choose colors harmoniously.