The Perfect Palette: Fifty Inspired Color Plans for Painting Every Roomin Your Home

My favorite recipes: "Blueberry Hill" "Pompeii" and "Lilac."

This was a very small financial investment in a book that will really change my whole house.

I am choosing colors that are more adventurous than I would ever have chosen before.

Enjoy this book, I did (and still do).


Beautiful coffee table quality HOW TO book THAT REALLY WORKS   June 16, 1998
34 out of 34 found this review helpful

I'm not a writer, and I'm REALLY no interior decorator. So, when I looked through the zillions of How To books, this one just stood out. I'd even checked out one of the Martha Stewart ones - no contest. With Stewart's methods you'd need a month and a staff of painters. Sorry Martha, you never picked up a brush.

But not only is The Perfect Palette a gorgeous book with flawless room color combining recipes that come out looking amazing, but Bonnie Krims ACTUALLY USED THEM ALL, she's tried them. Plus, she's done her own illustrations and written a little story about each recipe. The book is like a coffee table book, but it's also a really good HOW TO kind of book. I thought doing a new paint job on my rooms was going to be a real drudge, but with this book I really got into it because the colors were so different from what I'd normally think would work, but on the walls, amazing!

Then, based on the finished walls, I used the book's instructions on setting up a room, and after rearranging some of the furniture and knick-knacks and lamps - my friends were blown away. That's all I can say. If you're really serious about getting your rooms in shape, I think this is THE book to buy.


Helped me to select color palette for new home   October 23, 2000
22 out of 22 found this review helpful

Out of all the decorating books I have purchased, this was the most immediately useful to me because I used it to select the color palette for my new home.

I purchased this book prior to closing on my new home, and used it to select room and accent colors for every single room in my home. The book encouraged me to use colors I naturally liked, but showed me how to combine colors so that going from room to room the colors transitioned well.

The book also provided paint chip #'s so I went to my paint store and looked up the colors in the book's palettes, and brought the appropriate chips home so I could see them in my own home.

I will use this book as a color reference guide whenever I do any further decorating projects.

Excellent value for the money also.


The best!   December 19, 2000
18 out of 18 found this review helpful

This book is just awesome. I used several of the colors in the book and they looked wonderful on my walls. This is one of the few paint books that I have bought that actually provide the brand and color names. It is extremely frustrating to pick up decorating books or magazines, find a color that's appealing and then find no reference to the brand or color name. This book actually provides three different paint brands to pick from for each color. I also really liked her descriptions of different color combinations and the feelings (restful, cozy, bright) that goes along with the different colors. The price is reasonable so even if you don't use the colors in the book, its a great place to get ideas. I highly recommend this book. I hope she releases another!


TRIED AND TRUE   May 20, 2002
16 out of 16 found this review helpful

I am a complete stickler when it comes to decorating and paint color. I'll test quarts and quarts of different paint colors before choosing paint color for a room, and am very concerned about getting a flow of color throughout my house. The Perfect Palette has truly been a remarkable tool for me. Up to now, I have yet to find a book that provides paint color combinations and a detailed explanation for using them. Despite the books age, (it was published in '98) and the fact that Benjamin Moore changed their color numbers, this book is the only book that actually helped me to get the paint colors in my house working in a unified, cohesive fashion. The Perfect Palette is very, very useful, which is more than I can say for many of the newer paint books I've looked at. If you want to get your rooms beautifully painted and create a sense of connection between all the rooms in the house, buy this book. It is tried and true.