Eight Unexpected Places You Can Add a Pop of Color to Your Home

As anyone who has ever tried to design their home knows all too well, neutral always works. Beige, white, and various subtle shades of gray are the safe choices in any room—they may not be exciting, but they also won’t irritate you over time or cause your guests to whisper about your choices behind your back. That safety combined with a long-running trend toward minimalist and uncluttered spaces has led to the color “pop”—a blast of vibrant color as an accent to add a dash of drama to your otherwise bland spaces.

But as concepts like “unexpected red” demonstrate, you aren’t confined to painting an accent wall or buying a big red sofa when you want that pop of color. While picking one wall to paint a bold color is an easy way to bring energy to your room, that bold color can work in a wide variety of ways and in often unexpected spots. If you’re looking to turn up the color drama in your home, think about adding color in some of these less predictable spots.

Behind the toilet

If your bathroom is a bit monochromatic, you might be looking for a way to bring color into the space. You have a lot of options, of course, ranging from colorful towels to an accent shower wall—but if you want something unexpected that concentrates the impact of a color pop, put it behind the toilet. It’s a bold choice that serves to define space in an open concept bathroom, with the (most likely) white toilet providing a touch of contrast that will make the color pop even more effective—or choose a toilet that’s not white for a more complex interaction.

Inside cabinets and shelving

Painting the interior of cabinets in your kitchen or bookshelves in other rooms of the house creates a pop of color with a bit of surprise that also adds dimension to your storage, giving the impression of hidden depths. For a little extra oomph with your color pop, consider using wallpaper with a graphic design inside those cabinets and shelves. Every time you open up a cabinet to grab a coffee mug, you’ll be rewarded with a blast of vivid color.

Interior doors

If your interior doors are all white or neutral colors, an easy way to bring a pop of color into the room is to paint that door. It’s a large enough area to make an impact, but not so large as to overwhelm the space. If you leave the trim and surrounding wall a neutral color it will emphasize the color pop and really make it stand out.

Window sills and trim

The inverse of painting an interior wall while leaving the trim white is painting the trim in the room a pop color while leaving everything else neutral. This has the effect of stretching that color pop throughout the room, making it part of the overall design without introducing a monolithic slab of color in one spot. If you have a picture window or other large window, using it as a transparent accent wall by painting the trim an eye-drawing color is a nice variation on the concept.

Floor

You can create an accent area in your room utilizing the floor—either by painting a portion of it (yes, really) selecting a section to tile in a bold color or by simply dropping a brightly-colored area rug in the right spot. This allows you to leave the rest of the room in a neutral palette while still getting the effect of a color pop. Using an area rug also makes it easy to swap out different colors any time you want without having to break out the paint brushes or the sledgehammer.

Ceilings

Another alternative to the accent wall is the accent ceiling, which works best in a small space, like a bathroom or small guest bedroom—in larger spaces it can get a little overwhelming. High ceilings amplify the impact, drawing the eyes up and emphasizing the height of the space while making a small room feel larger; but even if your ceilings aren’t that high painting them a bold color is unexpected and will surprise anyone who walks into the room (in a good way).

Stairs

The risers on your stairs are often overlooked opportunities for some design fun—they’re essentially a series of blank canvases. Since most people take stairs for granted, encountering stairs that have bright colors or bold patterns (using paint or wallpaper) on each riser will startle and delight people, and since the stairs are visible from the room but not part of the room, it’s a great way to get just a little bit of subtle color pop into a space.

Appliances

Finally, if you’ve been riding the stainless steel kitchen appliance trend for the century or two it’s been in effect (or maybe it just feels like centuries), consider replacing (or vinyl wrapping) one with something more colorful. This very literally breaks up the otherwise fairly neutral color palette of a neutral kitchen with monochromatic appliances. For a more cohesive and visible impact, combine a colorful appliance with painted cabinet interiors.

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