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White - The Height of Fashion
 
  Long ago, in the eras before home design became fun and individualistic, there were many hard and fast rules. One of the most adhered to was the rule against light colors.

Happily, those days are long past. Today, white and off-whites are the height of fashion and should be understood as all-year-round looks that can add vibrancy, excitement and airiness to every room in the home.

In living rooms, for example, off-white upholstery fabrics allow for infinite color choices - everything goes with white. And with today's beautifully made slipcovers, there's no reason not to use white when you can send those slipcovers out for drycleaning.

One great advantage to off-white is that lighter colors take up less visual space. Whites are also more reflective, so they don't absorb the available light in the room.

But whites have application in many other rooms as well. Painted white wood product for dining room and bedroom supply many of the same advantages as white upholstery fabrics - open, light, airy, reflective. Domain's Jolie bedroom, for example, brings French charm reminiscent of the South of France into the master bedroom. To make this off-white group even more reflective, the front of the armoire is mirrored with hand-painted floral decoration.

White wood furniture looks best with an aged patina. Some rub marks, some worm holes, some discoloration - all of these techniques are "value added" to the furniture. The intent is to suggest that these case pieces are heirlooms from an earlier time - clearly a time before the Victorians banished white from their lives.