Some time after we moved into our apartment, we put up ALL the boys' artwork from Head Start (they're now in 1st grade and Kindergarten). It COVERED the walls of our living room from about waist-high on up. They loved seeing it and showed them how important they are to us and how much we liked what they did. Now I'm trying to condense a little (down to our biggest wall) and put up some more educational posters like #s to 100 and months of the year (which are up already).
It's a furnished apartment. The walls are white, the carpet is brown and the furniture is brown mix. Not much room for colorization there. I tried to keep some dark green towels and such in the bathroom, but most have bleach drips on them. But having three children now, no one (except for maybe my mother, my MIL and her sisters, all of whom are Born Organized) expect us to be able to keep the place SPOTLESS.