March 6th, 2013

Yellow sitting room: sunny & vibrant or too much of a good thing?

Continuing the recent theme of “Inspiration”, last month I revisited the Soane museum https://www.soane.org/ in London’s Lincoln’s Inn Fields with a good design friend of mine. It’s well worth a visit, packed full of ideas and also some interesting stories as to how it became a museum. Given the current lack of sunshine, this particular room cheered me up, although possibly too much of a good thing (?). It’s the south drawing room painted in “Turner’s Patent Yellow”, a fashionable pigment of the day!  Farrow and Ball  http://www.farrow-ball.com/ have several equivalents (try Babouche no 223 or Dayroom Yellow 233). It has to be one of the brightest yellow rooms I have come across in a while.

Yellow drawing room, Soane Museum
Martin Charles, Courtesy of the Trustees of Sir John Soane’s Museum

If you like it (not too much of a good thing?) here is the modern day version, the lobby of the Haymarket Hotel London http://www.firmdalehotels.com/london/haymarket-hotel.  This really works, especially on a grey London day.

Lobby, Haymarket Hotel, London

If you’re not that brave, but love an accent of yellow and want to ring the changes as Spring approaches, try something like this…