Color and Inspiration for your Mexican Home Furnishings

I’ve known for several weeks. It isn’t that I was trying to keep it a secret, but finally I decided to just own up to it full on: This year, I have a really bad case of spring fever. Months ago, feeling parched for color, for furniture ideas, for bright home accents and accessories, I searched websites, visited stores, even bought seeds so I could start flowers indoors from seedlings. I needed color, inspiration. Color has a great influence on our mood and attitudes. Color is healing; color is vibrant; color can make a huge difference in your Mexican home decoration, in how you feel when you enter your Mexican living room, dining room, bedroom.

What if you live in Mexico year-round?

If this is the case, then you have ample color all around even in winter: Mexico is bright. Still, even in Mexico, choosing the right colors for various areas of your Mexican home can be tricky. Do you choose key furniture pieces in basic colors and then accent with splashes of color, pillows, throws and smaller furniture pieces (like those in our Cottage Series)? Do you choose to make a bold statement in your Mexican living room and arrest the eye with a sofa upholstered in red, yellow, bright blue? Do you choose a Mexico Designer Series look so that the color in your key Mexican furnishings is a subtle, weathered color, that you can then accent with pillows and fabric to pull the look together? How do you decide? Here’s one of many ways:

How do you want to feel in your Mexican home?

• Alert, motivated? Choose stimulating orange or yellow.
• Cozy, in the embrace of family and friends? Choose earth tones with reddish splashes.
• Serene, relaxed? Choose soothing blues, lavenders, sea foam greens, grays, soft pinks.

When it comes to use of color and choosing your furnishings, the sky is the limit.

The color of the year is Pantone color 18-2120: “Honeysuckle.” I think it is lovely. I would personally have no problem committing to it for an entire room, walls included, using a soft pale blue or green and off-white to finish the look. But then again, I am in major spring fever mode at the moment . If you are, too, here’s more on Current color trends.

In Mexico, where color abounds and even competes for attention, one way to get inspiration for Mexican furnishings, Mexican décor and accessories is to visit Mexican botanical gardens. Puerto Vallarta Botanical Gardens is a prime example of what such beautiful places have to offer. Located between Puerto Vallarta and Barra de Navidad, it is described as “an educational research center and pleasure garden high in the glorious Sierra Madre Mountains.” There you will find not just the colors you see around you every day in Mexico, but also the more rare, exotic and “out there” colors, flowers and ideas in an environment conducive to uplifting, inspiring, helping you think outside the box. If you are not in Mexico, you can keep in touch with this Garden and get colorful inspiration by subscribing to their newsletter.