Excerpt from: 

Color Palettes- Atmospheric Interiors Using the Donald Kaufman Color Collection (1998) 

Cream walls and mahogany trim create a play of light and dark, leading the eye through a richly detailed space. 

            Richly polished mahogany flows throughout this New York City apartment, emphasizing the architectural outlines of the space. Windows, doorways, and ceilings are all delineated by the dark trim, some walls paneled completely in the rich wood. To accentuate and act as balance to the strong personality of the wood, all the walls and ceilings are painted a warm creamy white. This color acts as a crisp foil for the reddish brown of the wood but is balanced to contain enough red and yellow pigments to not appear cold by comparison. A cooler white would be too contrasting, pushed to a bluish cast by the millwork’s depth and warmth.

            The contrast between light walls and dark trims brings interest and energy to the apartment- the interaction between the two colors at the perimeter of the spaces leads the eye from room to room as it follows the path of mahogany. To a visitor moving through the space, vistas seen through doorways are outlined in wood, and framed views much like paintings, are created.

            The single color of the interiors, designed by Mariette Himes Gomez, allows the exquisitely crafted detailing to stand as the strongest decorative element in the space. Not only walls, but the pale sisal on the floor and the light taupes of the upholstered furniture contribute to the cream palette, with wood accent pieces subtly reinforcing the importance of the mahogany trim. The contrast of the cream interiors against the dark trim makes the wood stand out more clearly as a material; the carefully wrought detail of the mahogany is more pronounced in these white rooms, whereas in a room painted red, the delineation of the wood trim would have been obscured. The single-color palette also draws attention to the textures of the creamy elements: the soft velvet of the taupe upholstery, the smooth cottons and linens of the white bedding, the nubby wool of sisal carpeting. Only with this restricted palette could these subtleties be brought to life with such force.