Yellow and green decorating schemes have an easy affinity with nature and with spring. It's a colour combination that instantly suggests leaves and flowers and trailing patterns and florals. It is a pairing that, in the right tones, can be used in any room in the home.
Yellow and green evoke spring-fresh interiors, such as bright and inviting living spaces and jolly, fun-themed children's rooms. In a paler register they can be channelled into practical but pretty kitchens or conservatories while, at the deeper, darker end of the spectrum, greens can bring a sophisticated edge and oodles of character to a dining room, TV room or cloakroom.
Yellow and green is a strong colour combination, but you can use it in a subtle decorative way. Consider decorating with white as well to breathe a bit of space into a scheme if you feel the tones are a little overwhelming. Look too at the ratio of patterns to plains as a riot of colour may be too much alongside a full-on pattern clash. Ease back by switching to plains on fabrics or flooring.
You may prefer to restrict yellow to an accent role only, letting green take care of the larger surfaces in your room. Keep yellow for accessories, such as cushions, lampshades and rugs, or specific sections of furniture, such as seats on chairs or legs on tables. Introduce yellow through artwork, tiebacks or table linen.
Even the tiniest shot of yellow is easily picked up and it takes very little to have an impact. Alternatively, just keep yellow for fresh or faux flower displays, which you can move around or switch in and out as the fancy takes you.
Yellow and green dining room with tropical theme (pictured)
Go full-on tropical in a conversation-piece dining room with lush and vivid green and bright sunny banana yellow. An enchanting wallpaper and toning bench back rest create a no-holds-barred setting for a signature black dining table and designer chairs in eye-popping yellow, all set atop a magic carpet in zingy lime. And don't forget that banana tieback...
Wallpaper
Cole & Son
1/10 Chairs
After more design inspiration? Why not try decorating with neutrals or discover out how to decorate with pattern
2/10 Yellow and green modern country living room
Use yellow to bring fun and colour to a neutral-toned living room. On the face of it this space is stark with its wall panelled backdrop, stripped wood floor and distressed tables, but the use of pattern and colour turns it into a truly inviting space. The grey-green woodland-design upholstery fabric turns the chair into a stunning focal point, while the yellow of the rug, lampshade, cushion and artwork introduces sun to the scene.
Love seat
Sofa.com
Tables
Loaf
Rug
Karavan Interiors
3/10 Yellow and green barn-conversion living room
Use a white backdrop to showcase colour. This wonderful open space with its expanses of whitewashed floor, plaster and brick is the perfect setting for a pair of long yellow-green sofas. Continue the symmetry with cushions in woodland patterns and plains and choose a vivid-green pattern for curtains. Patterns in this space are quirky enough to be distinctive without dominating. A barely there Perspex coffee table occupies the middle ground without visually blocking the space, while a white dresser and storage cupboard frame the fireplace.
Curtain
Boeme Design
Similar sofas
Habitat
4/10 Yellow and green hallway with tropical print and retro sideboard
Set the scene for a visual treat of a welcome in a hallway. Pick three showstopping pieces - a patterned wallpaper, retro furniture and a monochrome rug. Here a duck-egg green palm leaf print on the wall brings a tropical twist to a mid-century style sideboard, while a black-and-white geometric patterned rug leads the way. Bright pops of banana yellow on the lampshade and acessories foreground the tropical theme.
Wallpaper
Cole & Son
Stool
Ikea
5/10 Yellow and green kitchen with smart breakfast bar
eam blue-green and pale yellow for subtle colour in a kitchen. Lemon yellow makes a lovely companion shade to honeyed wood in this smart kitchen-diner with its stripped floor and timber-faced breakfast bar. Metro tiles in a stylish blue-green duck-egg shade and grouted white complement the wood and yellow tones, bringing a country feel to this cosy corner.
Similar kitchen units
Homebase
Similar tiles
Topps Tiles
Similar bar stools
Wayfair
6/10 Yellow and green kitchen-diner with bench seating
Let yellow bring a touch of spring to a kitchen dining area. Mix and match patterns on bench and seat cushions, table linen and artwork, but keep them all co-ordinating by matching the tone of yellow. Introduce accents of green to welcome in the season with spring bulbs and tableware and use touches of patterned and pale grey for contrast.
Table and benches
Neptune
Tablecloth fabric
Rapture & Wright
7/10 Yellow and green bedroom with trellis-design headboard
Bring life to a monochrome scheme with lively touches of yellow and green. In this smart, contemporary bedroom with its monochrome fern-print wallpaper, tiled panel and divan bed, a trellis-print fabric in malachite green and a single yellow velvet cushion bring colour and life to the bed. Using a signature fabric like this on an oversized headboard and divan base is a simple way to make a plain bed a showstopper.
Wallpaper
Little Greene
Headboard fabric
Christian Lacroix for Designers Guild
8/10 Yellow and green bedroom with floral chimney breast
Decorate a child's room by choosing a single spot to hold colour and pattern. The chimney breast in this neutral room is the obvious choice and a large-scale floral wallpaper in blue, yellow and green provides colour, fun and cheerfulness in equal measure. Yellow has also been used to pick out the Roman blind and bed cushions, while all the shades of the paper feature on the decorative letters that spell out a name and the striped rug. The white metal bed with high foot and head boards and scrolling side rails is a truly pretty choice.
Similar wallpaper
Graham & Brown
Similar cushions
Store Twenty One
9/10 Yellow and green dressing area with floral wallpaper
A dressing area in a bedroom is a lovely spot for spring florals and here they feature on a large-scale trailing wallpaper design that has been used from floor to ceiling, on bright drawer pulls and in fresh form in enamelware jugs and glass vases. White painted furniture lets the paper behind shine, while a sweet round stool, set upon castors for easy manoeuvrability and upholstered in toning green, provides the perfect perch.
Dressing table
Laura Ashley
Wallpaper
Sanderson
10/10 Yellow and green bathroom with wooden storage
Yellow and green may not be obvious choices in a bathroom but, used alongside a backdrop of white, they can create a modern scheme that's full of personality. Let floor tiles lead the way - this yellow and green splash floral is the key ingredient of the scheme - and channel the shades on to towels and a shower curtain too. In this space a vertical run of yellow tiles adds a quirky touch in line with the towel rail.
Similar wooden cabinet
Heal's
Curtain fabric
Graham Sanderson Interiors
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