Decorating With Pastels For A French Styled Home

Louis Vuitton’s Spring 2012 Ad Campaign Starring Daria Strokous, Kati Nescher was full of soft muted  colors in the pastel tones.  Pastels are perfect for someone who wants a home that is vibrant.  Pastels really allow you to push color into your home while at the same time be restrained.

 

Pair of carved gilt Louis XV style armchairs From Nadeaus Auction

If you truly love the luxury side of 18th century France, and adore anything to do with Marie Antoinette, you will love yourself for choosing this color palette.

Try working with the color wheel when deciding on the fabric for your chairs. Velvet can be extremely rich and vibrant for French furniture. The orange chairs above, would be ideally paired with coral, or a lighter pastel orange. Or having a settee in a lighter mint green, and choosing a coordinating pastel green for two accent chairs would be very striking.

The Louis XV style gilt Rococo parlor suite comprising of love seat, armchair, side chair use one pastel color- that being pink and combine it with two other neutral colors. This makes it very easy to decorate with pastels.

French Painted Louis XV Chest in Blue - Decorating With Pastels From FRench Madame Blog

Adding color doesn't mean your house has to be fluorescent.  There is a number of ways to go about decorating with this style.

1.  Paint your furniture a pastel color, and accent with with gilt furniture ormolu such as the chest above.  The gold ormolu showcases the color quite nice and causes it to appear very high end than your regular run of the mill shabby chic painted cottage furniture.  Adding the gold furniture accents really makes your piece look like a million dollar gold cocktail ring.

2.  Add pastels in with your upholstery.  If you are not talented at upholstery, try a simple chair seat.  Replace your dining room chair seats with fabric more of your liking and the particular period style you love.

In this post I list some of my best tips for upholstery supplies.  Over the years I have had my fair share of mistakes, and I even make mistakes today, but I have saved a boat load of money over the years painting and doing my own upholstery.

3.  Try sewing some throw pillows for your sofa, chairs and beds.  This is a very simple way of adding vibrant colors of the exact shade of your liking.  If you don't know how to do the cording, simply sew a box inside out, and leave an opening for stuffing, and sew it shut.  It can be as complicated or as easy as you desire.

4.  PAINT!  One simple and easy way of getting color into your home is through paint.  Consider stenciling your walls.  You may not want something so bold, and it doesn't have to be. Stenciling can add some detail to your walls, and it doesn't have to be out there, punchy and in your face.  Consider cream, and light yellow, which would make a perfect backdrop for gilt ornate french paintings.

In this picture, you can see they framed a wall with a pastel orange, and it can be a way of fooling the eye that you have molding.  Get the classic french molding look with painting boxes of color on your wall.   You can showcase your chairs, sideboard, or bombe chest inside the box.

5.  Create hand made art for your walls.  It doesn't have to be complicated.  I hate to degrade this art piece, but you can create fabulous art with just tape and paint.  Choose the shade of paint you want, buy the sample size and create a piece of art that ties in the color of the upholstery you have decided to run with.

6.  Layer in accessories that you can paint.  One week I decided to paint my waste basket in my bathroom a baby blue, and added ring ornate gold hardware to either side of the basket.  Look at this picture of vases worth thousands, get the look by being creative.

Consider taking old vintage lamp bases, and throw away the lamp but keep the brass base and pair it up with an oversized bowl, and make a beautiful floral arrangement out of it.  I did this with a lamp, and an old vase.

This vase would be just amazing spray painted a pastel color.  You first would have to prime the vase using an oil based primer, and then you can use what ever you wanted over the top.  Pair this with a very ornate brass lamp base to give it that high end french look.

You can prime the bowl with an oil primer, and paint it the color of your choosing.  Here you have a centerpiece worth thousands of dollars, which you can replicate out of old lamp parts and an oversized bowl such as this.  Paint the outside of the bowl and place it on an ornate gold leaf base.

Porcelain Colored Vase with Hand-painted Design and Brass Handles

Asian Imari design- Hand painted Oriental Vase

Chinese Blue & White Porcelain Tung Chi Vase - Landscape

Adding a bit of soft color and working with the pastel tones will allow you to have a soft touch to your home that you will absolutely adore.  For most people making the leap into the soft pinks, light blues and cornflower yellows causes them to second guess them-self, because most people choose gray or beige.  Make your house your own, and go with what you love, not what everyone else expects.  Have a home uniquely YOU!

Simply Stunning  Pastel Painted French Furniture By Euro Antics