Amy Neunsinger on Color Combinations That Glamorize Your Home

Often when I photograph a home for a magazine, I note that very simple and inexpensive furniture and décor can look amazing when the palette is harmonious. This is something I kept in mind when I created the look for my own home, where I live with my husband, our two kids, and a dog named Lennon.

There are two reasons for the pale color scheme. Aesthetically, I like the clean look. But there’s a professional reason for it, too. I use my home as a photo studio for everything from a Giada De Laurentiis cookbook to an advertising campaign for Target. The house gets rented by other companies for shoots, as well. So the location has to “disappear” to serve their needs (if you’ve ever been to a photo studio, you know what I mean).

The few colored items in the house are décor accents, such as throw pillows with linen covers. They are lightweight and thus easily stashed away. I can swap their casing, which also makes it a breeze to tweak the look of the house.

There’s one room in the house that doesn’t get much light. And that’s the one place where I didn’t want white walls. In a dim room, white can take on grim shades of gray. So we painted it turquoise with crimson-colored beams.

Because even a natural-hued home should have some kind of color somewhere.