Monochrome Rooms Are Everywhere—Here’s How 4 Designers Make Theirs Stand Out

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OK, so here’s the thing about figuring out your design style—it’s honestly trickier than it sounds. Joan Barzilay Freund gets it, and her book Defining Style is basically the cheat sheet we all need. It’s part inspiration, part field guide, spotlighting the dreamiest interiors across every aesthetic imaginable—from minimalist to maximalist, rustic to refined—so you can finally pinpoint what you’re drawn to and, more importantly, why. Trust me, it connects the dots between what you love and the reason you love it.

In this excerpt, we’re going all in on monochromatic rooms—because honestly, one bold color can do all the heavy lifting if you let it. Think navy layered with linen and sisal, or shades of pink splashed across tile, paint, and upholstery. These spaces prove that tone-on-tone design is anything but one-note. Designers like Clare Gaskin and Paris Forino show that when it comes to color, committing fully totally pays off. Keep reading—you’ll see.

OK but can we talk about monochromatic rooms for a sec? There’s something so undeniably wow about a space that fully commits to a single hue. When one color runs the show, the magic lives in the texture, tone, and finish. Color theory tells us different shades set different moods—blues and greens soothe and calm, reds and yellows bring the energy, grays get you thinking, and whites feel fresh and hopeful. Here’s the key though: layering. Playing with gradations from dark to light adds so much depth. Darker shades ground a room, lighter ones give it lift. And texture? It changes everything, because surfaces react to light differently. Wool, linen, and wood absorb light for a cozier feel, while high-sheen fabrics like silk or velvet and sleek surfaces like glass and stone bounce light back, making a room feel airy and light.

London-based designer Clare Gaskin totally transformed an all-white living room by dousing it in a rich, resonant blue. “It had felt cold, dark, and slightly unloved,” she says—and honestly, we’ve all been in a room like that. She knew going darker and fully saturated would give the small space instant warmth and patina. “It’s a smart navy that has depth and richness,” Gaskin explains. The lower half of the room had wainscoting, which the color suits beautifully, bringing out the smoothness of the wood. Above the chair rail, she papered the walls in a fine seagrass cloth that hits a similar visual note. “The layering of textures played well with the natural and artificial light,” she says—and you can see how the color shifts from painted surface to fabric, then jumps onto the furnishings, most of which are covered in linen and velvet. Obsessed.

Nicole Hollis went for it and completely bathed a San Francisco dining room in cobalt blue, and the result feels like stepping straight through Alice’s looking glass. The room is packed with spectacular lacquered, polished surfaces—many crafted by top international artists like Olafur Eliasson and Mattia Bonetti. Hollis added her own creative touches too, including a bespoke fireplace mantel made of Brazilian blue granite with a bronze surround. The brilliant blue was actually the client’s request, and Hollis agrees it was the right call: “Keeping the room monochrome feels more impactful. The color envelopes you.” Other rooms in the home got similarly singular palettes, including a turquoise-green dressing room with psychedelic stencil work that literally glows in the dark. Like, how cool is that?

The particular shade of pink that designer Paris Forino used in a Tribeca kitchen? Also the client’s call. “I adore pink myself, so I was happy to oblige,” says Forino. “Pink is both happy and pretty. It sparks joy in a lot of people.” And honestly, same. Pink was the dominant color through most of this four-thousand-square-foot loft. The living-room walls are wrapped in rose-toned wallpaper, the primary bathroom is a playground of pinks—from glazed zellige shower tiles to hand-plastered walls—and the primary bedroom goes all in with carpeting, wallpaper, and an upholstered bed frame, all in dreamy dusty pink.

All-white spaces are basically designer Darryl Carter’s signature at this point—the Washington, D.C.-based creative loves how easily white rooms play with any style or era. The living room of a Georgian Revival house in Virginia is a crisp little snapshot of his approach. But don’t be fooled, he says: “Working within a monochrome palette is trickier than meets the eye. These environments are unforgiving and tend to show every detail. If not layered properly, they can be stark.” In this home, those layers come through fabrics and a mix of furnishings. Carter loves pairing contemporary pieces (often his own designs) with gutsy antiques that have organic character—like the blistered leather and exposed stuffing on a nineteenth-century occasional chair. It’s that “disrepair,” he says, that lets the all-white space slip easily into the informality of everyday life. So good.

Lindsay Gerber Northart offers a dramatic counterpoint to all that white. For a San Francisco powder room, the brief was literally “New York City nightclub”—and honestly, I’m here for it. She pulled it off by engulfing the room in a mottled slate tone dripping with mystery. Venetian plaster gives the walls a smoky vibe, while the Nero Marquina sink brings cosmopolitan chic with its ink-black color and white veining. The room’s brightest moment? A pair of ovoid sconces that glow over the room’s soigné visitors. Total vibe.

Amsterdam-based designer Nicole Dohmen was tasked with setting a celebratory mood for a home on the outskirts of the Dutch capital—and her client had serious opinions about color. She wanted her home to project joy and confidence. “She loved mismatched hues and embracing imperfections to create a unique, creative aesthetic,” says the Atelier ND Interior principal. “We were always in search of that perfect-imperfect balance.” Together they tested backdrop colors, watching how each one performed at different times of day and how it played with the overall furnishing scheme. They landed on a custom lilac for the dining room and a related grayish-pink for the living room. “By carefully curating each element, we ensured that the setting was cohesive, yet dynamic,” says Dohmen. Her choice of colors with similar tonal undercurrents creates this gorgeous sense of continuity and balance that you feel as you move from room to room.

Excerpted fromDefining Style© 2025 by Joan Barzilay Freund. Reproduced by permission of Phaidon. All rights reserved.

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