How To Decorate With Black-and-White

The classic color combination makes any room — from bathrooms to bedrooms — sophisticated, chic, and timeless. From horizontal stripes to graphic floor tile, designers share their favorite black-and-white decorating ideas

 

Designer Carleton Varney created a "young and snappy" kitchen in a 1929 Wisconsin cottage by using a black-and-white color scheme. Walls painted Benjamin Moore's Decorator's White set off by Unity and Embrace baskets made in Rwanda, from macys.com. The table was made by H.J. Martin and Son, the nationwide interior contracting company owned by the homeowners, Edward and Terri Martin. Catalina chairs from Ficks Reed. Through the doorway is an African wall-hanging from Hemingway Gallery. Striped bowl and pitcher, Crate & Barrel.
 

For the 2014 Kitchen of the Year in San Francisco, designer Steven Miller creates a dramatic space for entertaining.

For a client who "wears lots of colors, and even more black and white," designer Stephen Shubel painted the walls of the master bath in bold black-and-white stripes. They complement the black-and-white master bedroom in the San Francisco house.


In the 2013 Designer Visions Showhouse, Jamie Drake took cues from the geometric patterns and bold spirit of the building's lobby, covering foyer walls in Clarence House's Neisha Crosland Zebra. Rose console, Hudson Furniture. Nairobi mirror, Flair Home Collection. Bai jade vases, Robert Kuo.


Graphic patterns extend from the foyer in a Washington, D.C. town house through to the kitchen. "We both like snappy architectural solutions — like the patterned floor and striped wallpaper — that give black-tie panache to small spaces," designer Jeff Lincoln says of the house he designed with Hillary Thomas. The black and white of Montgomery 1 marble floor tiles by Ann Sacks and Block Print Stripe wallpaper by Farrow & Ball is reminiscent of Dorothy Draper.
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