Ever Heard of a Split Complementary Color Palette? It's the Secret to Perfecting More Unexpected Pairings

Image of a kitchen that has olive and yellow green paint on the walls and cabinets with a red orange and magenta red tile and trim. .

Split complementary colors can be considered the sister to decorating with complementary color palettes — they are very similar, but their respective nuances make them unique.

While a complementary scheme pairs two colors directly opposite each other on the color wheel, a split-complementary color scheme takes a base color and pairs it with its direct complement, as well as the color adjacent to it.