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I recently received this cry for help:
Dear Abby (I mean Julia),
I know you're into decorating with black and white, but can you offer any advice for those of us that are stuck with navy blue carpet - yuk- in the master bedroom?
Sincerely yours,
Stuck with the Blues
This is the comforter she bought from Bed, Bath & Beyond and hopes to use (above).
To see my answer to her design dilemma, click "more" below:
Dear Stuck with the Blues,
I'm sorry to hear you have to live with navy carpet, but at least it's not the worst color to have to work with. Pity the people who have pink or teal!
If I were you, I'd go for a simple blue and white bedroom that works with it. You could paint the walls a light yellow, toasty tan, pale blue, or white. I would keep the color scheme as limited as possible--maybe one other accent color, but that's it. Make the rest of the room fabulous enough, and maybe you won't notice the navy carpet as much.
Blue with shades of brown or green are also popular right now, but since you already chose a blue and white comforter, let's go with that.
Here are some examples of blue and white bedrooms that I hope will inspire you.
In this blue and white bedroom (Pottery Barn catalog), you can see how well the blue and white bedding works with crisp white walls and dark wood, and just a shot of yellow with the flowers:
Here's a room with yellow walls (paint Yellow Highlighter from Benjamin Moore):
Another good accent color with blue and white is red. Show your patriotism by decorating your bedroom with red, white, and blue:
Okay, that was a joke. Please don't put American flag shams on your bed and tell everyone it was my idea!
Here's a room from House and Gardens that has blue walls and at a least a little blue in the carpet (so far I haven't been able to find a room with navy carpet like yours, though!):
This is Jane Seymour's guest bedroom, featured in her book Making Yourself at Home (why they only photographed half of the bed, I have no idea, but I wanted to show you how it would look with a blue upholstered headboard):
Here's a more masculine blue and white bedroom. The pumpkin orange color is an interesting choice to go with the blue and white if you want something darker:
This room shows how sophisticated tan or khaki walls can look with blue and white (Southern Living Idea House):
What I wouldn't do--use any brighter blues like this (via Apartment Therapy). I think you'll need to stick with pale, powdery, or slate blue tones so that the navy blends into the room better:
If all else fails, you can buy some big area rugs to cover as much as possible. The only danger in that is that you may inadvertently draw more attention to the floor than you want to.
Now I'll open it up to all of my creative and talented readers. What do you think? Got any good decorating advice for working around navy carpeting? Has anyone had a similar dilemma that they found a solution for? We'd love to hear it!
Anyone else got a decorating question? E-mail me or leave it in the comments, and maybe I'll choose yours to answer next time.
For more decorating inspiration: