Balancing Patterns With Color

The upper bedroom in Clairbourne Manor shows great ways to balance detailed pattern through the use of color. The highly detailed wallpaper sets the main tones for the room, and the crochet bedspread takes the main three colors and highlights them. Using those colors in simpler patterns elsewhere in the room helps to unify the scene, without competing with the details of the detailed bedroom furniture.

The soft grey blue on the large chair, the plain gingham curtain and the braided rug all do their part to spread the same tones of color around the room, while limiting obvious pattern to the wallpaper, the furniture, and the bedspread. Adding all the main colors and a strong pattern to the crochet bedspread gives it the main drawing power in this very complex scene, while keeping it from overwhelming the furniture.