This house in Southampton, N.Y., is not as grand as many of its Hamptons neighbors — but what it lacks in size it makes up for in spunk, thanks to color-bold designer John Loecke (www.jloeckeinc.com)."My client wanted the place to feel lively and energetic," Loecke says,"and because this is a rental, we couldn't change anything structurally, so color was really the key." To select just the right vibrant shades, Loecke looked to his client's wardrobe. "She wears a lot of bright pink," he notes, "so I thought it was the perfect color for her bedroom. The room doesn't get a lot of natural light, but this pink really makes it bright and cheerful."
To add even more sunshine, Loecke added a yellow fabric headboard and touches of bright orange. That's not always an easy combo to pull off, Loecke acknowledges, but can work beautifully if you bear a few things in mind: "Part of the reason this particular pink and this orange work well together," he says, "is that they both have red in them, but the orange isn't too red. They're just similar enough that they play off of each other. Also," he says, "when you're combining two colors that are next to each other on the color wheel, the colors have to be the same intensity; don't put a pastel pink with a vibrant orange, or a peach with a fuchsia."
To help pull the colors together, Loecke used a SeaCloth fabric that incorporates the various colors for the drapes. "But don't get hung up on finding an exact match," he says. "It's really just about blending the colors visually to make it work."
Photograph by Wendell Webber.
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