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French Country Decorating in Color
”Here’s a selection of color scheme ideas for French Country Decorating. Full-on or subtle - you choose!”
French country decorating can be a wonderfully colorful affair. However, if you prefer subdued, mellow, delicate pastel color schemes, you’ll find those in French country decor as well.
Click on the links to go to the relevant spot on this page, or just read on!
For more information - and pictures - on the topic of French Country Interior Decorating, try any of the following links:
Red, Blue, White
 I remember reading somewhere that French country decorating is a red, blue and white affair. As in the French flag. And I remember thinking, 'what nonsense' ...
... until I had a closer look at the photos I brought home from my last visit to France. There it was – just a lot subtler than the flag’s primary colors.
The picture to the left, for example, shows a doorway in a Provençal house, with a piece of ‘door jewelry’ above the lintel – a beautifully simple earthenware bowl in a deep, burnished red.
Through the door, you see a wall painted sky blue, with the lower part a slightly muddied, dark cherry red that picks up the color of the bowl.
Now, you won’t need a home with rough-hewn interior stone walls to recreate this color scheme for your own French country style home.
 Here’s how you could ‘translate’ the color combination into French country decorating for a modern house or apartment:
Keep the major, upper part of the walls in shades of gray and/or white, with woodwork and details in white or light cream for a fresh look.
Paint the lower part of the walls (up to chair rail height) either in a grayish red or a discolored, chalky blue that is darker than the upper (gray) part.
Use a variety of blues, reds, grays and creams/whites for soft furnishings and accents.
It usually works best when one color dominates against the gray/white neutral background (so you could decide on red or blue as the dominant color).
But it’s not strictly necessary – if you’d rather achieve a ‘happy hotchpotch’ French country decorating effect, go for it!
To make sure this color scheme doesn’t end up looking too sober, liven it up by using different hues/shades of the colors, as in the illustration to the right. That will give the room more depth.
 The following versions of the red-blue-white French country decorating theme show how materials, style, and wall color can impact the overall look.
The photo to the left (that is, when you look into the mirror) shows an antique metal day bed, in a room with light blue walls and terracotta flooring.
(My apologies for not showing you the whole day bed – at the time I took the picture I was much more interested in that mirror frame!)
The mattress is wrapped in a deep, almost salmon pink quilt.
The cushions (now this is the part where you'll just have to believe me!) come in a variety of shapes and sizes.
They're covered in red velvet, soft pink velvet, white lace and blue-and-white striped cotton. Some have ruffles.
The sumptuous, indulgent look & feel of the materials, shapes and colors is tempered by the cool pale blue walls and the rough, rustic flooring.
Compare that to the wall color and flooring in this next picture of French country decorating: similar colors - totally different effect!
 The walls in deep, chalky pink and 'blueberry ice cream' red could look suffocating, but they don’t.
I think this is for several reasons:- The hues of red and pink used here are bluish rather than yellowish-orange (which would be much more cloying).
- The light - very bright light, the kind you get in Mediterranean countries or in Southern California, 'washes' colors out.
- The grayish blue of the door is a large expanse of color that interrupts the succession of red color fields (including the sofa in the foreground).
- The gray cement flooring and the white marble table and porcelain vase – that’s ‘neutral relief’ from all the full-on reds and pinks.
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Soft Seaside Hues
 The following blues and greens aren't strictly reserved for the seaside.
They would be perfectly appropriate for French country decorating anywhere in the country – a cottage on the North Sea coast, a house surrounded by the Bordeaux vineyards, or a holiday flat in the Mediterranean region.
I’ve added some wood to the mix – the yellowish-orange wood tones are complementary to the cool blue-greens and can inject some warmth into a cool, muted color combination (should you need it).
So for a completely 'cool' look, leave out the wood, or paint it white.
These greens and grayed blues look very good with a brick floor, terracotta tiles or cement (tile) flooring.
In their absence, coarse rush matting would do a very nice job as well.
For a fresh, clean look, use lots of antique-white colored items in addition to the blues and greens. Linen (and maybe some lace) can contribute a real sense of luxury.
If you want to create more of a vintage feel, team the seaside colors with unbleached linen and cotton duck in darker hues of green, blue and gray.
 Add white and ivory accents, like simple porcelain, sheer curtains, and fabrics with white stripes or checks.
Wrought-iron garden furniture is a common staple in French country decorating.
These chairs are at home on the terrace as much as in the living-room, in the kitchen or around an informal dinner table.
If you look at the color combination in the picture to the right, you see that the color of the chair is at odds with the wall color – the dark, leafy green is yellow biased, and the wall is almost blue.
Color combinations like this one are great for French country decorating (and for country decor in general); a slight color ‘mismatch’ can look much more ‘alive’ and interesting than perfectly graded color schemes.
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Neutrals & One Color Family
 This is a favorite with contemporary French country decorating.
Walls are rendered but not painted, and then teamed with linen in natural hues, ‘rustic’ cotton twill in solid colors, and ticking.
These hardwearing fabrics look great in combination with simple shapes (like the divan here), rustic flooring and undulating walls.
You could include more patterned fabrics – stripes and checks work very well, but the odd piece of toile wouldn’t go amiss either.
Other color themes that can look very good in French country decorating are ...
...neutrals & green (use the whole gamut from turquoise through grass green to chartreuse)
... neutrals & blue (go from deep indigo to sky blue; include greenish hues, and a bit of white as well)
... neutrals & pink; this looks great if you use several different hues of pink, deep berry pinks as well as soft peachy ones, and a variety of neutrals (ivory, cream, écru, oatmeal, etc.)
If you just used baby pinks and whites, it wouldn’t look right for French country decorating.
Last not least, neutrals & yellow. To make a load of yellow hues work, include generous helpings of gray and white.
Decide on a selection of darker yellow hues (ochre, mustard) and/or lighter tints (butter, straw, primrose, sunflower) and maybe add some greenish and/or earthy hues (umber, sienna) for accents.
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