The Color You Need Now ... Celery

"Celery is very much a neutral," says designer Celerie Kemble of Kemble Interiors, Inc., which has offices in New York and Palm Beach. "Green is omnipresent in the natural world, and our eyes are comfortable accepting a lot of it." For the Palm Beach bedroom at left, Kemble says, "I started with the striped wallpaper and had a faux finisher glaze the trims in a slightly deeper shade of the same color. One of the magical elements of a celery room is that it's cool and warm at the same time."

Here are more of Kemble's color strategies for this room -- and lessons that you can apply in your own space as well.

Use a liberal hand. "For this bedroom, I wanted the space as enveloped in the color as possible," Kemble says. "There aren't as many cool colors in the spectrum that actually feel quite as cozy as celery. The more of it you put in a room, the less it feels like a jolt of color and the more it feels like a spring backdrop."

Add a dose of color to temper sweetness. Although this space has feminine overtones, the green palette keeps it from feeling overly demure. "Celery is the perfect antidote to the yellows and pinks you normally expect to find in a feminine bedroom," Kemble says.

Keep the color scheme focused. To add more visual punch, Kemble suggests layering different patterns and textures, as she chose to do here. "That continuity of celery keeps it interesting, but still restful and serene," she says.


RESOURCES: Celerie Kemble, Kemble Interiors, Inc., 212/675-9576 (New York) or 561/659-5556 (Palm Beach), www.kembleinteriors.com.