Sunny yellows, vibrant blues, scarlet reds. We all love color, but when it comes to our own homes and offices, we often play it safe by sticking to boring shades of white and beige. Home decorating shows such as Trading Spaces, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy all have something in common: the designers on these programs are unafraid to use beautiful, vivid colors on walls, fixtures, and furniture. Yet the truth is that even trained designers tend to fall back on whites because they're intimidated by the overwhelming world of color.

Now we can use color with confidence and without risking expensive color disasters. Joann Eckstut, one of America's foremost experts on color, has devised a system of choosing the most harmonious color combinations and presents it in The Color Palette Primer: A Guide to Choosing Ideal Color Combinations for Your Home (Broadway Books; June 14, 2005; $24.95; Trade Paperback), featuring more than 750 error-proof palettes. Now, everyone from first-time home owners to professional decorators and architects have a resource to help them achieve balance and style throughout the home.

Each page of The Color Palette Primer is made up of three color palettes that contain the same dominant color with varying secondary and accent colors. All secondary colors are a neutral shade because almost all environments contain neutral colors, whether in floors, cabinets, or furniture. The color palette at the top of each page is monochromatic, the middle color scheme is analogous, and the bottom color scheme complementary:

Monochromatic   Composed of a single hue
Example: pale yellow, golden yellow, and lemon yellow

Analogous   Colors that are adjacent on a color wheel
Example: green, blue-green, and yellow-green

Complimentary   Contrasting colors that sit opposite on a color wheel
Example: red with green, blue with orange, and yellow with violet

This system is basic and easy-to-use, yet it allows amateur home decorators access to the kind of design schemes that would normally demand hefty consultation fees. The Color Palette Primer gives readers the freedom to match the color they love (or that they're stuck with!) and see three very different possibilities for this color.

Instead of relying on photographs, which can be dated or distracting, the book contains eight iconic illustrations that show a different piece of the decorating puzzle, such as wall and trim, window treatments, upholstery, to show how the given palettes look in these contexts. With an introduction that details basic color theory and 272 pages of color palettes, The Color Palette Primer is a useful and lasting guide that will help Do-It-Yourselfers, graphic designers, design students, and professional decorators alike live in living color.