Feel free to mix it up, especially when there are clear divides like public vs private spaces and main living vs basement.

I think you can do this successfully. I remember hearing someone (Christopher Lowell?) say once you can mix and match colors if you stay in the same "row" on the fan deck. For example, if you take a paint strip and your living room is beige and the 3rd color down on the strip, but you want to paint your BR purple...you go around the deck and find a purple that is the 3rd one down on that strip. That way the color "intensities" will match.

I just don't think you want anything too jarring. You don't want creamy beiges throughout the first floor and then a bright red bedroom off the living room.

I think anything goes in the basement....you might want to make the stairway the same neutral as the room/area where the stairs are...again, so you are not opening the basement door to bright orange paint....but once you hit ground level, I think orange is fine...or just do an accent wall in orange.

I also think you can mix styles of furniture...it makes rooms a little more interesting, although I must admit I am not very good at it and I think my rooms tend to go bland because of it.

I like to have some cohesion of both color and style throughout my house. Most rooms have similar colors but in varying proportions. Most of the walls in my house are neutral but not beige, grey, or white. I have browns and greens mostly. The styles in some rooms are more traditional. I am currently thinking of adding a few modern furniture pieces or accessories.

I could not live with only neutrals in any room but I'm sure it would work to have a neutral room and other rooms less neutral. Keep in mind that beige, grey, and white are not the only neutrals to use as wall color. Many designers use pale gold, greyed greens, blues, and even lavender.

I love black accents, have used them in several rooms, and find they add interest.

No reason not to use a bold orange in your basement room. Having furniture and walls all neutral does not mean they are all the same color. Vary tones of your chosen color for variety. Also with neutral schemes it's important to use texture and perhaps pattern.

Look at lots of pics online to see how designers have used the colors and styles you like.

In past centuries, they thought nothing of having "The Chinese Room" that was solidly Chinese, the "Blue Room" ... etc.

If there is visual separation, go for it.

Thank you!! I am searching and searching at houzz. It helps knowing that I can work with the rooms that I am drawn to . . . but know that they aren't cohesive with what i have done in the rest of the house.

Once I get a inspiration room I am going to beg you all for some guidance and honest opinions.

Also, I do think that rooms are successful when they don't fight against the overall style and site of the home, and are cohesive with that.

Example is we just moved from a 1931 traditional/colonial type of home that we had been in for 16 years. Our queen anne cherry dining set was completely appropriate in look and level of formality to that home. The room had plaster moldings, wood floors, wallpaper, brass chandelier, and was appropriate for the house.

Our current home was built in the late 1980s, is on a treed lot with a stream in the back yard, and has a sliding glass patio door leading to a wooden deck off the dining room. While we did not want to purchase new dining room furniture, I did feel it was important to make the space as informal as possible.

It was a dissonance in context to have a highly formal dining room and a deck right next to each other.

When we moved in there was a georgian multi tiered shiny brass chandelier. Out with that to the Habitat restore. We chose a more simple 5 light fixture in a pewter/wrought iron finish. Much less formal.

The chairs were recovered in indigo navy linen. Much less formal. So adding in more texture and less formal accessories made this more cohesive to the setting.

So I think that spaces do need to relate to their surroundings or else it can seem off kilter.