Irina

Butter yellow interiors: how to embrace this sunny trend

Posted on 15th February 2025

Soft, creamy, and utterly delicious, butter yellow is fast becoming a favourite amongst renovators. To help you embrace this joyful look, we’re exploring the latest decorating ideas…

From cherry red kitchens to avocado green bathrooms, homeowners are becoming more confident in decorating with cheerful colours; and the latest hue to take over our interiors is butter yellow.

Tash Bradley, Lick‘s director of interior design and colour psychologist, explains the allure of this mellow shade: “Butter yellow looks stunning in kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms alike because of its uplifting and inviting qualities. It oozes all the qualities you want in a home – it is warm, optimistic and sunny, without being too overwhelming.”

How to use butter yellow in your interiors

For a contemporary take, Tash advises painting the walls, woodwork and even your ceiling in this buttery colour. Marianne Shillingford, creative director and colour expert at Dulux, agrees and adds: “One of my favourite ways to bring a bit of holiday heat to a room is by adding yellow to a ceiling, to create the illusion of poolside sun-soaked bliss. This is particularly effective in bedrooms, where you can blink open bleary eyes to a blanket of beautiful sunshine every morning. You can also line windows with yellow to give your rooms a buttercup-under-the-chin glow as the sun streams in.”

Butter yellow is a versatile shade, which means it can effortlessly pair with a variety of colours, explains Anna Hill, brand director and colour consultant at Fenwick & Tilbrook. “You can use it as if it were a neutral, painting walls and cabinetry to create a beautiful backdrop for bringing in accents of blues, greens, blacks or whites for a sophisticated feel, or alternatively, turn it into a feature colour by painting it on a feature wall,” she recommends.

Alternatively, if you are more of a maximalist, dare to welcome in richer tones. “We are seeing more and more buttery yellow kitchens with pops of red like our Red 01 (on chairs, inside cupboards) and accents of burgundy (on kitchen islands, for example),” explains Tash. And, alongside a beautiful colour palette, you can include your favourite patterns – from timeless stripes, dainty florals to abstract geometrics – to achieve a truly charming, playful look.

So, are you ready to get inspired? Scroll down to see how you can spread a bit of butter yellow in your kitchen, bedroom or bathroom…