5 Blue, Green...and Yellow? (Oh My!)

Anyone who has ever been to any of my houses knows how much I love blue and green. You can see it in (almost) every room of the house in one form or another. I've been thinking about why I am drawn to those colors over and over again.

(Annoyance alert:  skip over this next part if hearing about bloggers' childhoods drives you crazy.)



As a young child growing up in southern California some of my best memories are going to the beach with my family. Today that is still my numero uno favorite way to spend time with the kids. At the beach. To me there is nothing as beautiful as the blue of the sky meeting the blue of the ocean. Every time I use blue it comes back to that, love of the water=blue love. The house we moved to in Arizona when I was 9 until I was married had wall-to-wall green carpeting. Kind of like a light leaf green. My mom always said it was because it reminded her of green grass. Arizonans' know there is a shortage of green; I think she was trying to make up for it. (Unfortunately our dog must have thought it was grass too because he was always trying to pee on it.) With all of that green I guess you're either going to grow up loving it, or hating it. I guess we know how that turned out for me. Green love.

Historically I am not a fan of yellow. I'm not sure why...I've seen it used beautifully time and time again. For some reason I have just stayed away from it. Haven't liked yellow.

But...what reasons are there to love yellow? Especially bright yellow. It reminds me of sunshine and lemons...both of which I had a plethora of in AZ. Our backyard trees hung heavy with lemons every year. My mom's lemon bar recipe is renowned and much loved. In fact, they are so good that when I had a semi-mid-life crisis and the chance to meet my favorite rock band a few years ago I brought them an extra large batch of those lemon bars. The lemon bars were such a hit I received a message from the drummer the next day thanking me for the "LB's", which is cool rock band speak for "Lemon Bars". So, FYI, if you get a chance to meet your favorite band, bring them lemon bars. They will really like them. (But don't wear their band T-Shirt. I learned from the teenage set that is typically interested in meeting rock bands that it isn't cool.)

Recently I was on one of my favorite web sites, houzz.com, when I saw an ideabook titled "Decorating with Yellow: Neutral Spaces Kissed by the Sun" and I thought, "I want my neutral spaces kissed by the sun!"  I found gorgeous "sun-kissed" pictures like these:

         

You'll notice a gray theme in these pictures also. I have a gray-as-the-neutral color thing going on in my house right now, and I have a recently remodeled master bathroom that is gray, white, and screaming for, dare I say...yellow?

Suddenly, yellow accessories are popping up:

                                                   

And I'm testing out yellow fabric samples:

And am finding out how nicely yellow plays with blue and green:

And considering how drab and gray the skies are sometimes here in San Antonio, who wouldn't want a little sunshine every time they go into a room? Oh yellow I'm sorry I doubted you in the past. We can be friends now.