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Colorblind decorating?

12 years ago
For any of you who may be colorblind, have you run across any difficulties in decorating your home? Would love to hear how you have worked with this to find something you like, and also works well for visitors with regular color vision. Any tips?

Share your experience! (photos encouraged)

Living Room · More Info

Comments (35)

  • 12 years ago
    I'm not but my husband cannot discern shades of green or hues with green in them... He calls them all tan. So when I'm picking colors for things I need to describe them carefully. Doesn't make much difference in the long run, though.
    Emily Hurley thanked skagitnana
  • 12 years ago
    My husband is also colourblind but he doesn't let that stop him! "I like that green sofa". "You mean red"? And so it goes! He's forever telling me you decide I'm not that bothered until I decide then he sticks his oar in! Our house is painted white in virtually every room, the only colour we can both agree on. I'd like more colour but subtly done whereas he likes strong colours where he can see if not the colour then the contrast. His teenage bedroom was a doozy. Leopard skin print wallpaper, turquoise bedspread and roadkill curtains. Nowadays I settle for my colour infusions via cushions and flowers and paintings. We go for texture as well to enliven the white - which I like and with loads of children it's easy to repaint.
    Emily Hurley thanked lisalovesquilts
  • 12 years ago
    My husband isn't colorblind, but he can't tell what works together and what doesn't. If he likes the colors, they work regardless. Thankfully he lets me choose the paint colors. He can't fathom why it takes me so long to find just the right color to go with the crazy bathroom floor as anything would work for him. He's so precise in other areas that this is strange....
    Emily Hurley thanked hayleydaniels
  • 12 years ago
    If this is the picture of the room in question, the colors are beautiful and all go together nicely. There is a mid century modern flare here that is just lovely.
    Emily Hurley thanked ptrost
  • 12 years ago
    last modified: 12 years ago
    My otherhalf is not colorblind, per se; he's just color-phobic! We're working on it. :) It's helped to use colors he's comfortable with in his personal wardrobe...blues, greens, browns, grays. (He would never let me use red/pink/purples or pastels or brights...)
    Emily Hurley thanked rredpenn
  • 12 years ago
    rredpenn, my husband refuses to wear a dress shirt that has any more color than off white! Fortunately he doesn't dress up a lot....
    Emily Hurley thanked hayleydaniels
  • 12 years ago
    I have the WORST time telling greys apart from beiges. In fact, I think our couch is very beige, but I'm told it's grey. Same with my old exterior paint.

    It made a lot more sense when we were watching a show about colorblindness through the tests they showed on screen discovered our son was colorblind. ;)
  • 12 years ago
    My boyfriend is also colorblind. After we were together for a several years I moved in with him knowing that a lot of changes needed to be done to have a house I could feel at home with. His ex loved pink and purple and other over the top girly colors and decorations. The main living and dining areas are lavender, the kitchen has a pink and purple floral backsplash, the bedrooms are all either pink or purple, our bedroom is a hot pink, and even the house has pink trim. For my partner it was all shades of gray....

    Luckily for me, he loves black and white (and with good reason) so little by little we are decorating in B&W and doing color accents.
    Emily Hurley thanked Nikane Mallea
  • 12 years ago
    last modified: 12 years ago
    I'm color blind - shades of red & green. But green seems to be worse for me. I think some shades of green have been anything from beige to grey to even blue. :-/ And I recently found out my favorite grey coat is actually lavender. Now I just pretend it's grey. I always ask my husband 1st. And if he says something goes together I get a 2nd opinion because I see what he thinks goes together with colors I have no issue seeing. I LOVE color so being color blind frustrates me because I don't know what colors I can't see or what I'm missing. I just put together the colors that I think go well together. And if they don't, I can't see it so I don't care. When I look at it, it makes me happy and that's all that matters to me.
    Emily Hurley thanked kadtmerrill
  • 12 years ago
    I'm not color blind, but several things others describe as greenish just look dirty to me. Clearer colors look better to my eye, and also I notice to a color blind acquaintance.
    Emily Hurley thanked kiturah
  • 12 years ago
    i'm not colour blind but i think i'm a colour addict !! i need colour everywhere ...there is blue and lime green in my kitchen followed through with orange in the dining area and deep pink and green in lounge ...browns and pinks in office and hall yellow fuscia and blue!! all open -plan .. the only room that is all white is my bedroom because the bedding and cushions are multi coloured!!
    Emily Hurley thanked LORENA
  • 12 years ago
    No color blindness in my family, thank goodness. I have lots of red, yellow, green, pink, blue, black and white so for the faint of heart, my house may be " blinding " to them. I notice that gray is a popular color on Houzz and I've seen instances where it's very pretty, but I don't think I have any gray in my house. Color rules here!
    Emily Hurley thanked grobby
  • PRO
    12 years ago
    Black and White artwork is timeless, classic and makes a bold decorating statement. I have art collector clients who LOVE the flexibility of using black & white with gray hues.
    Emily Hurley thanked Mike Quellier
  • 12 years ago
    My partner and I both have mild colorblindness. We aren't sure of subtle differences in shades of color, and need really good light to get an idea of what color some things are. With our latest house, we had an interior designer look at the colors we thought we wanted for walls, etc. He approved most, and steered us away from some. We tend to go for neutral color schemes, and a lot of neutrals go well together. People seem to love the way we've decorated our house, so we must have gotten things right most of the time. That's probably more good luck than good management!
    Emily Hurley thanked jackscruggs
  • PRO
    12 years ago
    Husband is totally colorblind ! He will not even venture an opinion but gets mad at me because I am soooo particular about the shades being exactly what I want ! He say's just pick a color ! Any color ! It does not matter ! Even after 20 years together he still does not get that , to me, color is everything ! Oh well ! I go right with my color routine and ignore his grumblings.
    Emily Hurley thanked Perfection Home Staging and Redesign
  • 12 years ago
    My husband is colorblind and I come from an architecture/ design/ art background. At first this was challenging, but I have learned that if I want to paint a room sage, for example, I select several paint chips in that range and have him choose the tone that he likes the best. He won't know it as "sage" or "green" but he has definite opinions about what shades of colors are the most pleasing to him while I still get the look that I want. We have done this throughout remodels in two homes and everyone wins!
    Emily Hurley thanked chambanamom
  • 12 years ago
    I'm colorblind. It's taken me yrs to realize this. I've been living with a color I hate in my kitchen and my bedroom for yrs although everyone (husband, kids, friends) tells me it's beautiful. I just recently primed my kitchen, but I'm frozen at choosing a permanent color. I actually love the primer color better than what I had before! know paint chip strips are numbered, the companies make it easy... But since I don't see what others see, I'm stuck. So I'm most likely going with a muted shade, or white. Bold colors I always dislike after trying a sample patch. I've re-painted one patch several times lol! I love sage, tan, and steel gray. I use Behr paint and my cabinets are Swiss Coffee (a soft white) but I'm concerned even a white I choose for the walls may clash... I might have a primed kitchen for a while :/
    Emily Hurley thanked tjaxton
  • 12 years ago
    My husband is colorblind. Grey is pink. Pink is grey. Red is green. Green is red. Therefore the beautiful soft greys are pink. Anything with a grey undertone-pink. Tested 5 different blues on him for the bedroom. All pink but one. A very bright Caribbean sky blue. Thank goodness I love color. We painted my Mom's living room the softest Grey. Looks beautiful. Mom of course teases him. What color is it. With a big grin he tells her it doesn't matter what he sees(pink), as long as she likes it.
    Emily Hurley thanked Deb A
  • 12 years ago
    My dad only saw black and white. Once my mom asked him to paint aqua over an old gold wall at the back door. We got home and roared. Dad had left huge triangles of color unpainted... He couldn't see the difference. We never let him paint unsupervised again.
    Emily Hurley thanked Judy Wren
  • 12 years ago
    When one person has some degree of color blindness and the other is a color nut, it can be difficult to find common ground. My husband does not see green properly but it is my favorite color. Blue is his favorite color but many blues have a depressive effect on me.

    This has had a huge influence on the colors i choose. Certain colors that look great to me, look awful to him, so I don't choose them. It took me years to find a green for the walls that he didn't hate. Of course, it doesn't look green to him, but he doesn't hate it either, so that's as good as it's going to get. I use much more blue in our house than I personally prefer because it is his favorite color. We have found a blue that we both like, so that has worked out as well.

    Kiturah, there are different degrees of "color blind." You may have a slight version of it, which could explain why green looks dirty to you. If you aren't in a field of work that requires you to have color accuracy, then it probably wont matter.

    It is surprising how many people have some degree of color blindness and don't know it. My friend was telling my husband and I that he only found out that he has relatively severe color blindness when he was in his 20s. A job that he wanted made him take a color blindness test and that is how he found out. He showed us some of tests online, circles of dots with numbers in them. If you have no color blindness, you see the numbers. If you can't see the numbers then you know you have problems with those colors. While my friend was showing us those tests, my husband said, "What numbers?" That's how he found out and he was over 40 years old!
  • 12 years ago
    Color blindness is also hereditary. I always passed color blindness tests, apparently I could see enough of a difference that I could pass. But I found out when I was 32 when both of my children failed their tests.
  • 12 years ago
    I recently painted my bedroom blue, but everyone who sees it says it's green. Must be a perfect color, because I love it and so does everybody else.
  • 12 years ago
    For those of you who would like to take a test. http://www.color-blindness.com/color-blindness-tests/
  • 12 years ago
    Interesting. Women can only be color blind if there father is color blind.
  • 12 years ago
    That should have been "their," not there.
  • 12 years ago
    Yes, and fewer than 1% of women get the type of color blindness I have.
  • 12 years ago
    rosebud3, that is incorrect. There are different types of color blindness caused by faulty genes. Hereditary plays a part, but how it is passed depends on the type of color blindness & which gene is faulty. In the type of color blindness I have, it is passed from mother to son & an only be passed to a daughter if the father has the same type of color blindness. Also, you can be a carrier & not suffer from color blindness.
  • 12 years ago
    What interesting conversation. I'm 78 years old and this issue of blue and green is the first time Ive been aware of it.
  • 12 years ago
    What's funny is that although my husband perceives many greens as browns, he also perceives certain grey-blues as green. Also, black can look green to him. It is very interesting.
  • 12 years ago
    My husband is also colourblind but has surprisingly good taste. When decorating, we avoid any beige or taupe that has a green tint or he sees it as green. I really like reds, rusts, oranges and he has trouble distinguishing those colours from browns so he sometimes sees the decor as bland when there is actually a lot of colour. The only colour he sees really well is blue ... And I HATE blue in decorating! We compromise a lot ... Lol.
  • 12 years ago
    My husband has no idea of color combinations.
    Now...if he were color-blind, that would be an explanation !!
  • 12 years ago
    this works!!!! the look is great....
  • 12 years ago
    Not color blind, but like others' my hubby is color phobic.

    One of my friends is color blind. His whole house is a sea of beige.
  • PRO