Turquoise is a beautiful color, but it’s challenging to base an entire color palette around this fancy hue. Should you go safe and use neutrals or add some very bold accents? I’ve had this challenge in my home and clients who wanted it to dominate theirs.

When I had turquoise in my home, it was not on the walls; that would be way too much of a commitment for me. I had it on a camelback sofa. My dilemma with my sofa was I had an Arts and Crafts home, cherry baseboards, and honestly, I wasn’t 100% thrilled with the color, but a free sofa is a free sofa. I had to choose a wall color and decided to go with a very light, pale muted pink. I know that doesn’t sound very good, but it looked great with the cherry wood and was a light neutral enough that the turquoise was happy as well. I wound up donating the sofa to GoodWill and repainting the living room.

I recently had a client who LOVED turquoise so much that she painted it in just about every room of her home, BUT it was on her furniture. It was on her kitchen cabinets, the furniture in her bedrooms, and just about every other cabinet or nightstand that was paintable. She wanted a new wall color and wanted MORE turquoise on the walls! I couldn’t do it! I wound up picking neutrals so it wouldn’t distract from all her turquoise. She was not happy, to say the least, but I could not suggest MORE turquoise for her walls with my name attached to it. Oh well, you can’t make everyone happy!

So, what color is best to use with turquoise? As much as I’m not a fan of beige, it’s really a lovely color partner to use with turquoise. You can use grays (uggg though) off whites would be really pretty and warm creamy beiges to stand next to this hue. So yes, I’m keeping it neutral here and going with beige.