My oldest is the most bland boring person on the earth. I love her to death, but making a quilt for her was crazy! Her house is beige, tan and black. Her clothes are simple, very few patterns - tasteful, but boring. I decided to go wild, throw caution to the wind and made her an illusion quilt. I used a very slightly off white for the background, a dark charcoal for the 'shadows' and used a collection of greys, taupes, dark cream, very very light maroon and a light denim blue. To cover myself, I did the backing in an allover cream tone on tone print. She loved it! Sometimes they just think they don't want color because they are imagining a wild and crazy pattern. When they see a soft or somewhat muted quilt top, the actually like the color contrast. One thing I did discover is that these folks are usually more taken with the modern quilt designs. Good luck.