Cobalt Blue Decor Is Stunning. Here's How To Balance It In Your Home

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Cobalt blue has long been a favorite among artists, perhaps most famously used by Dutch post-impressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh in his iconic masterpiece, "The Starry Night." It's a bold, bright color that has the potential to overwhelm a space, so it presents some particular challenges depending on how much it's used and how. While there are many ways to incorporate blue into your home decor, when working with a hue this vibrant, it's all about balance.

There are multiple approaches for creating a cohesive color palette, but at the root of all of them is color theory, the name for our way of thinking about color and how a given color interacts with another. Imagine the classic color wheel, which places complementary colors opposite one another in a circle. Cool blue and violet are directly across from their warm counterparts, orange and yellow, respectively. When two complementary colors are used together, it can create a powerful effect. So decorating with cobalt blue often comes down to the art of balancing it with complementary orange in various decor pieces.

Pairing cobalt blue with a vibrant complementary color can help you achieve your home decor equivalent of "The Starry Night," which balances a deeply rich, cobalt blue night sky with bright orange stars. This cobalt blue 70-inch Velvet Futon Sofa Bed comes with two pillows that match its color, but adding these orange MZPSO Velvet Decorative Throw Pillows would make it truly pop. Other warm colors, like yellows and reds, can also balance cobalt blue, and are sometimes used very effectively together in the same piece of decor. A simple design that incorporates complementary colors as well as emphasizes simple shapes can strike a pleasing balance. That said, sometimes a more complex pattern or texture, such as in this FinRèc Soft Yellow Rug, works to balance what most strongly draws the eye when you enter a room.

Alternatively, color and paint expert Annie Sloan told design magazine Veranda that cobalt blue is best paired with neutral colors, like white, brown, and black. "I absolutely love cobalt with neutrals to create a sophisticatedly chic space," says Sloan. White and cobalt blue are beautiful together, inspiring countless blue kitchen ideas, even though the kitchen is a traditionally very neutral-colored space. Furniture with natural brown, wood tones also balances cobalt blue well, evoking organic pairings like trees and the sky. For this particular combination, think wooden desks or dressers balancing a room lined with cobalt blue-painted walls.