Interior Design Colors – Brilliant Yellow

As decorators who have worked with dark basement apartments and homes surrounded by trees know, nothing perks up a dull room like brilliant yellow. This color brings a shot of life to a room, whether it's used as a single bolt of lemon or a whole wall of sunlight.

Here, we see first a traditional use of brilliant yellow, in a kitchen's breakfast nook, brightening up breakfast time. The yellow placemats and matching napkins give the perfect background to the glasses of orange juice waiting to welcome the sleepyheads to the table. The yellow orchids complete the table.



The yellow and white diamond pattern on the wall is in softer shades, but provides a nice echo to the colors of the table. The only thing we'd change here would be the chair cushions, which are a pale blue and pink pattern; a yellow pattern would further pull this look together.

A less traditional use of the shade of brilliant yellow is this bathroom, found in a home in central Mexico. Here, we see the designer has gone all out with bright yellow tiles, holding back nothing. The tub enclosure is prevented from being monotonous with the inclusion of a strip of white and yellow patterned tiles, which only serve to play up the solid yellow surrounding it. The glossy finish of the tiles further brightens the room.

The tiles are matched by the yellow lampshade and the wooden shelves painted brilliant yellow. The white shower curtain, tub, and bath mat continue the classic white and yellow theme, and the white adds even more light to the room.

As you can see in these photos, both these rooms making good use of brilliant yellow are small, and could appear cramped with the wrong color choice.

The kitchen table is in a corner of a tight apartment kitchen. This space is made to look less crowded by using a glass-topped table and open-backed white wrought-iron chairs. If the designer had used a wooden table and chairs, the breakfast nook would appear much darker and more crowded. The use of yellow as well fools the eye into believing there is more space than there is.

This bathroom is likewise small, and narrow. It has just one window which opens onto a shady courtyard, so it is a very dark room. But with tiles in brilliant yellow, with those bright white accents, and that yellow lampshade, it becomes the brightest room in the house, and a pleasure to bathe in.
Sheffield School of Interior Design