The Ultra-Pale Color Shea McGee Uses When a Room Needs a Mood Boost

Whatever you’re wearing right now will end up in your home four years from now—and we don’t just mean it’ll still be hanging in your closet. Fashion trends always find a way to inspire interior design trends, even if it happens to take a few years for us to realize it. Example A: In 2019, we reported on the #StickOfButter aesthetic, a term coined by writer Harling Ross. Devotees using the hashtag were dressing in warm neutrals with some pops of ultra-pale yellow thrown into the mix. We loved the idea of using the same creamy golden hues in, say, a living room, too. So we’re happy that the butter trend has officially shifted from the runway to the home, and we are delighted to learn that interior designer Shea McGee is here for it. 

“Butter yellow is such a good shade, landing somewhere between beige and yellow-yellow,” says McGee. “I love how sunny and relaxed it is without going full force into lemon territory.” She’s been leaning into the mood-boosting shade in both her McGee & Co. furniture collections (peep the Giulietta hand-knotted Rug and Mark Making print on canvas), as well as projects like the Studio McGee spec home (pictured above). “I love seeing butter yellow on soft textiles such as rugs, pillows, and lampshades, but I also think it’s neutral enough and classic enough to incorporate in longer-lasting parts of your home like wallpaper,” explains the designer. Unsurprisingly, chefs are digging the food-inspired hue, too. Just take a look at Molly Baz’s full-on butter yellow kitchen in Altadena, California. (We’ll save you the time: Her cabinets are painted Benjamin Moore’s Good Vibrations.)

Here are some small (and big!) ways to finally embrace butter yellow at home. 

Pair It With Earthy Colors

So what other colors go well with pale-pale yellow? Look to nature, suggests McGee. “If done right, butter yellow can act as a neutral and pair with almost anything in the muted family, but two of my favorites are a light greenish gray and a deeper earthy blue,” says the designer.

Lean Into Soft Goods, Beyond Pillows

Because it’s such a cozy color, butter yellow happens to look best on cozy things. That includes billowy curtains or, in the case of jewelry maker Sara Burns’s Queens, New York, apartment, fabric panels that hide pantry staples. Burns’s home is also a reminder that butter yellow is ideal for tiny spaces: It will bring add a bright and big look.

Single It Out

Butter yellow might be on the subtler side of the color wheel, but that doesn’t mean it can’t stand out in the right setting. Consider applying the color to a super-utilitarian object or singular piece of furniture, like Nick Poe did with this basic metal dining chair. 

Meet Friends at the Front Door

Take a page from this Kazakhstan apartment and paint your entire entryway butter yellow. If you think about it, it’s the perfect place for the shade: It greets your guests with a warm hug, even when you haven’t yet made it to the door yourself.