Decorating With Orange

From show-stopping wall paint to earthy home accents, you can easily (and artfully) add orange to any room in the house.

Orange 101

“It’s one of the zippiest colors,” says San Francisco interior designer Kimberly Ayres. Orange shares the attention-grabbing effect of red without as much aggressiveness. And it has many moods: It can be calming (peach) or earthy (pumpkin). Most oranges are warm, meaning they contain red or yellow, which gives them a friendly inner glow. A red orange (like on the wall here) feels graphic, so it works well with sleek furniture; a yellow orange nicely contrasts with dark, rustic pieces. When painting walls orange, don’t use the color elsewhere in the room—stick to neutrals, like white and cream, to temper the shade. And avoid black, so as not to veer into Halloween territory.