White is a wonderful backdrop for paintings and accessories, giving the decorator the best opportunity to showcase her work.

I think wall color preferences go in cycles, like most everything else in decorating. But, I've always liked white or cream walls, regardless of that. To me, they look fresh and clean and I enjoy how my dark furniture and art work look against them. IMHO, white looks awesome on our exposed adobe walls, and 95% of the walls in our home are exposed adobe. Painted them green or blue would look terrible. Our art looks wonderful showcased on or in front of the white walls, as well. It's not competing with colors, although I do appreciate other colors on the rest of your walls in other parts of the country. My own walls are actually a warm cream color, but that's splitting hairs when it comes to talking about White Walls ;^P
Lynn

Designers often prefer to live in very neutral surroundings, since our days are filled with color and pattern and visual stimulation of all kinds. And many clients prefer that, too, particularly those who live in big, busy cities with lives that have a lot of moving parts. So the mastery of the cream-to-white-to-gray palette becomes a necessary part of the skill set. And as Graywings says, a good white can showcase a good collection for those lucky enough to have them.

The big drawbacks of white, IMO, are, one, that it is so tricky to get a good one; and, two, that white only looks really good in a large, light-filled space. The great misconception is that white will make a small space look bigger and brighter. It won't. Without air and light, white is depressing and dead.

Many people (me included) think that a masterful use of neutrals makes for the most soothing, elegant, and sophisticated environment. Virtually any color can be tweaked into a neutral in the right shade, and the best neutrals actually have a lot of color lurking in their backgrounds.

And then after about five or ten years of that, suddenly everybody is bored to death, longs for color, and everything is turquoise and oxblood and coral and lime.
Besides, if we didn't come up with new ideas and new must-haves, who would hire us to do it all again...???

I think for photographs white is wonderful. It gives a clean, crisp background for stunning design and highlights often daring or unique architecture. For large immaculate spaces, particularly modern ones, that are likely to be photographed, white works.

For everyday living white walls can be impractical and often boring. If you live in a 60s ranch white isn't going to have quite the same impact. Just like a white couch: Lovely idea in a magazine, terrible idea in your neighbor's family room for all sorts of reasons.

LOL . . . I have two white (actually cream colored) sofas in my own living room and we never get tired of them! I have dark tapestry throw pillows on them and rich, jewel-like accent colors elsewhere in the room. But, I totally understand where MRH is coming from . . . and agree ~ white walls (or a white sofa) can work wonderfully in one situation and horribly in another. House styles, decorating styles, lifestyles, children, pets, the color of the other furniture in the room (wood and upholstered), lighting, light sources and many other factors play a big part in whether white will work in your own home.