Good accent colors for light purple?

Elegant ways to paint a room using two accent colors?

• What are some clean-looking and elegant ways to paint a room using two accent colors, but only painting the walls- not the ceiling or the trim? I'd like to paint my bathroom. It currently http://imgur.com/a/6Onvm#0 like http://imgur.com/a/6Onvm#1. If I can find a way to pull it off, I'd like to use three colors-- one main neutral-ish color and two brighter accent colors. I'm looking for ideas about how I can use three colors but leave the ceiling and trim white. I like the crisp, clean contrast of the white trim and our white towels against the colors I'm currently thinking of using. Searching online (Apartment Therapy, paint manufacturer sites, etc.) hasn't yielded many ideas or examples, so I thought I'd ask you. These are the colors (http://imgur.com/a/6Onvm#8; http://imgur.com/a/6Onvm#9), though I'm not completely committed to them, but lets assume a warm-ish light gray/brown and two brighter colors that fall somewhere between pastel and neon, but aren't either. The http://imgur.com/a/6Onvm#2 above the http://imgur.com/a/6Onvm#3 could be an accent/color block wall, but it's too much for the room to be all one bright color-- between the windows and the doors there's not a lot of wall in the http://imgur.com/a/6Onvm#4 of the http://imgur.com/a/6Onvm#5 for the main color to be, well, main. I would like to somehow use both accent colors on this particular wall, but am open to other suggestions as to how I could use them throughout too. Couple of things: -- I like a very minimalist, clean style (joked about in my family as a reaction to my mother's tchotchke-filled house-- Hi Mom!). One thing I don't know how to do is to make this look warmer or cozier, but that's a question for another day. -- I have painted a rectangle in my dining room that appears like a frame for a cherry-blossom tryptich (partial photo http://imgur.com/a/6Onvm#6). I really like it there, but I don't want to repeat that in the bathroom. -- I don't want to paint circles-- I don't think that looks especially elegant. Varying size floating rectangles aren't terribly appealing either. -- I would consider stripes of varying widths that go from one side of the wall to the other, but would need some guidelines as to how to pull this off without it looking like racing stripes. -- If there's a way to carry one or more of the colors onto the other walls, that would be interesting as well. -- I haven't received them yet, but I have ordered some clear rectangular wall vases that I could see filling with stones and water and water-plants and hanging partway up the wall (maybe three in a row, attached just under the halfway point up the wall. Depends on how they look when I get them. I've also thought about wall decals but since I've got that going on in the living room, it would likely be a bit much. -- Another reason I don't want to paint the wall one solid accent color is that while the main color is more flattering when reflected upon the skin in a bathroom mirror (I held up a paint chip to find a nice one as per recommendations on design sites), a brighter yellow wall (for example) would reflect badly, and a turquoise color (for example, and according to my experience in a spare bedroom that I painted an antiqued blue) doesn't look nice to me with greenery in front of it, should I decide to use the vases. -- The wall is very easy to see from the http://imgur.com/a/6Onvm#7. -- We own the house, so there are no restrictions as to what we can do. I know this is very long and perhaps overly detailed but I wanted to try to answer as many questions as possible in advance. If using two accent colors in a clean presentation just isn't possible, please tell me so-- but if you can give me some ideas or even point me to images or sites with examples where it has worked, that would be much appreciated too. Side/bonus question: I also really like the look of subway tile but I haven't the slightest idea how to incorporate it into a bathroom like this (new construction, really lovely but also without a lot of personality), so ideas about that would be welcome too.

• Answer:

  Helpful painting tip: If you're using masking tape to mask off areas for accent painting, paint the edges of the masking tape with the existing color before you paint over it with the new color - that way, the paint that bleeds under the tape will match what's already on the wall there and you'll end up with a much cleaner line from the masking tape.