The House
Asking Terri Shanahan to pick a favorite color is like asking her to pick a favorite child — impossible. “I recently saw a quote that said, ‘My favorite color is rainbow.’ That pretty much sums me up,” she says. “I love so many colors. Why stop at one or two?” When Terri, a blogger, antiques dealer and grandmother of six, and her husband, Bob, bought this Camas, WA, Dutch Colonial Revival in 2014, Terri pulled 10 Pantone chips — the just-right blue, red, yellow, green, etc. — and carried them around as inspiration while shopping for items for the house.
Her kaleidoscopic approach to decorating isn’t anything new: All three homes that she and Bob have shared throughout their 40-year marriage have been filled to the brim with vibrant pieces. But as much as Terri loves a shock of color, she does have her limits. “I don’t love bright furniture against bright walls,” she says. So she painted every wall in this home Ultra Pure White by Behr. And she took the blank backdrop even further by hanging thick white cotton drapes, choosing lots of white light fixtures, and mixing in a few white pieces of furniture so the spectrum of colors really pops. The result? “It feels like a playground for adults in here.”