12 Curtain Colors That Go Beautifully With White Walls

White walls are both a blessing and a curse. Sure, you have a beautiful blank slate to work with, but sometimes white can feel too stark and sterile. You'll likely want to warm it up or make the space visually interesting somehow, and if you aren't able to paint your walls, that's where clever design comes in. Adding texture, pattern, and most importantly, color can be key in making your white walls feel less bare and your room feel finished. Adding curtains to your windows truly is the last finishing touch to a space.

That bears the question: What curtains, and most importantly, what color of curtain, can dress up a white walled room? The answer depends, really, on what design palette you're hoping to achieve and what design purpose you're hoping the curtains will serve in the space. If you want to continue with a crisp and clean canvas to build a funkier design, then you'll want to opt for a neutral combo like cream, gray, or white-on-white (the crispest of the bunch). Or, if you're the kind of homeowner who laments at a big, white box, you can add dimension, depth, and interest to the space with warm oranges, reds, and yellows. Brightening up white living rooms is all about strategic design touches, and with colored curtains, you have the flexibility to do what you want in the room but without too much intervention. Whichever direction you want to take your white room, there is a curtain color that will follow.

The ultimate neutral combo in any room is a white wall color paired with cream curtains. It makes for the best blank slate to let other decor pieces do the talking, particularly if you have statement pieces that you want to stand out. With that said, make the room visually appealing by adding equally neutral but interesting textures and materials. That way, this curtain and wall pairing harmonizes with the fun, unique design pieces that make your house feel like a home.

Leaning further into neutral pairings, a modern white-on-white palette is a clean, monochromatic base where you can either continue to build on the clean theme with other neutral components or go for a dramatic flair with contrasting colors in your furniture. You can rest assured that white curtains and white walls will never go out of style either, future-proofing your design for easy reimagining when the mood strikes. Consider softening the starkness of white on white with some added texture in your curtains, if necessary, too.

Mocha Mousseis Pantone's Color of the Year for 2025, and it's been popping up in various ways in trendy contemporary home design, from simple furniture upgrades to bigger kitchen backsplash renovations. Lucky for us, this mocha hue pairs brilliantly with plain white walls, which serve as a neutral accent for this rich, decadent, but still versatile color. At the same time, Mocha Mousse is a design chameleon too; it can warm up walls with a touch of eggshell, but can also pair well with cooler-toned whites to craft a more modern feel.

For that standard, cool-toned white wall color, try dressing up the room with a similarly cool-toned gray curtain. Something about this combination screams modern and luxurious, and despite being predominantly cool-toned, you can still throw in warm touches, like metallic golds. But to give the pairing a big luxury boost, add matte black fixtures (like rods or curtain rings) to elevate the look. The end result will be a chic, timeless, yet modern-looking pairing that gives a plain white room a dramatic facelift without too much effort.

A unique statement-making pairing, chocolate brown curtains and white walls can craft an earthy aesthetic that's equally modern and fresh, but feels incredibly rustic (in the best of ways). Consider choosing brown curtains in natural fibers, like silk or linen, to harmonize with the more woodsy, forest-like vibe that brown and white (and other accent colors like dark green and black) naturally come together to create. Embrace the aesthetic (without being too campy) by enhancing the room with equally dark-hued woods, brass finishes, and textures that speak to the fabric of the brown curtains.

Icy metallic blue rides the line between blue and gray, making it a chameleon of a color choice when placed up against a white background. To fully lean into the cool tones, add some chrome hardware to make the room feel crisp; black hardware makes the space feel a bit trendier for current home decor styles. Brass and gold-toned hardware against white walls can also skew a little traditional, but rather than thinking this combo is dated, think of it more as a Bridgerton-blue-adjacent hue that your cottagecore aesthetic can build on.

Warm terracotta hues work beautifully with white walls because they add stunning color to the space, but not in a way that feels kitschy or overwhelming. While jewel-toned colors, like deep reds, may look a little cheesy against white paint, terracotta's slightly subdued but rich coloration feels more elegant and purposeful. Since this color has a bit more depth than some neutral options on this list, it defines the dimensions of your space really well, framing out windows and doors in a visually appealing vignette that embraces color, not cheese.

Khaki is an underrated neutral with unique adaptability, including its tendency to skew a little green depending on the shade. The color's versatility as either a beige substitute or a more subdued sage green provides many different design options for the rest of the white-walled room. You can either opt for a Mediterranean palette with pops of olive green on white walls, or you can go a bit warmer, leaning into a mid-century palette of bricks, ochres, and saffrons paired with a white background. 

White walls instantly become warmer with curtains in the goldenrod color family. When the sun hits this curtain color, it washes the white walls in a lovely golden hue, warming up the space and certainly making it feel homey and cozy. This color works particularly well in boho curtain designs, benefiting from an added pom detail or fringe to really make the space feel hygge (aka all the things that make it comfy, cozy, warm). If you'd prefer to keep it more classic, though, consider sleeker window treatments like Roman shades in this color.

Another bold color choice that somehow manages to stay somewhat neutral when implemented into home design, green shades in the sage, olive, or pea color families are extremely trendy at the moment in home design. They're a pop of color enough that it disrupts the potential flatness of white walls, but doesn't contrast too much to the point of imbalance. Rather, these greens provide an earthy touch to a white room, warming it up in ways that goldenrod or dark brown might, but in a color scheme that is palatable and fun to play with.

Butter yellow is having a massive moment in fashion and design, currently gracing many Pinterest boards. Its soft and delicate tone pairs beautifully with white walls, evoking a pastoral and feminine vibe that screams cottagecore, and yet would not feel out of place in a historic apartment in central Paris. It brings the ever-so-slightest pop of color into the mix, while still maintaining a clean look that wouldn't dare try to be too busy or loud. Neither your white walls nor your butter-yellow curtains stand out, letting them fashionably blend away.

Before there was Millennial Gray (which, yes, can be considered by some as a dated design trend), there was the ever-so-viral Millennial Pink, the perfect accent color, in our opinion, that is the Goldilocks of all pinks. It's not too bright, not too dark, just the perfect color that doesn't take away from how clean and crisp your white walls are. Perhaps that's why this pink was as popular as it was. It enhances basic, builder's white walls without too much effort, just an eye to hang curtains correctly.