Some folks are great with designs and colors. Whether it is picking clothes or painting the walls of their homes, they get it right without much effort. Sadly, not all of us are gifted that way and not everyone can afford a professional designer to get it done. So, we do a ton of research to figure out what works best before every major decision. And the internet has become a great tool in helping us get there. And that’s what we are here to do today.
When it comes to painting your home, you want to find great ideas that reflect your personality. But you must also remember to find colors, combinations and palettes that work with the architecture of your home.
Like, what color works best for a small room? What to do when there is a shortage of light in a room? What’s the look you are going for and what are the dominating colors in that style of design? These are just a few basic questions that need answering before you jump into the painter’s catalog. You need to have a basic awareness of colors, materials and contrasts.
A lot of people start this research with the notion that one color scheme will work for the entire house. They are not wrong because sometimes, it does. There are quite a few benefits to picking one color scheme for the entire house.
But what if you want a Scandianvian style kitchen but also fancy a country style bedroom? Well, not to worry. There are benefits to that kind of thinking too.
Now, whether you want a uniform look or make the decision depending on what you will do in that room, you need to understand how color and light function. No matter how creative you want to get, understand that some color palettes always work better than the others for each room of the house. That’s because they are in harmony with the function of that room. We’ll take a look at them but you can always break away from those principles if you choose to. Because, as they say, you must master a rule before you break it.
Every room in the house has a certain vibe and you probably have a vision for it. Though you should let your instincts guide you, picking wall colors is not always an easy task. There are many different shades and tints and hues.
Every room in the house is a mix of many elements like colors, accessories, furniture to name a few. And sometimes, you will have to decorate an open plan space. So, it can be quite the task and a bit distracting because you have to match so many things. If you’re looking at different rooms, here’s the key to getting it right.
Unless you are starting from scratch, you are likely to have some furniture for each room. So, don’t start planning the wall colors first. Look at the colors in your furniture and find colors that will match the corresponding wall.
For instance, if you are planning your living room, look at the color of the existing couches, chairs and rugs. Research the expert-suggested color palettes for a living room. Now try to match your decor with the suggested colors. I mean, if you have a mustard sofa, a grey wall works better than a beige one, right? This method is easier and cheaper than deciding the colors and force-fitting furniture into it.
The exception to this rule is, of course, when you want to shake things up. Think of the mood you are going for, pick the color scheme and get furniture and accessories accordingly. If you do this, be ready to spend money on replacing some of your existing stuff.
Now, if you have an open plan space instead of many rooms, it’s a good idea to divide it into smaller spaces and decorate them in different styles. In many homes, this trick works for combined kitchen, living and dining areas. Shared bedrooms are another example and it can be done without having to build permanent structure as dividers.
The simplest and honestly, a little obvious way of doing this is to switch color combinations. Find contrasting colors like bright pink and vivid yellow for two different zones of the same room. And the white walls and furnishing styles will tie it together to keep it from looking like a mess.
The beauty of colors is that you can use them anywhere to mark different territories. Decorative ceilings, types of flooring, different wallpapers, rugs in different colors or patterns are all excellent ways of establishing different zones in a room.
There are many different styles of interior design and each of them has its own elements and preferred color palettes. These are very useful in deciding the mood of every room in the house and picking colors that create that mood. This is also an evolving space and there will probably never be an end to the number of ways in which a single space can be decorated. But let’s look at the basics.
Each of these styles comes with a certain character and nothing highlights a place like color, be it for wall paint or decor. Let’s take a look.
There are many starting points when it comes to picking a color scheme. Here are five simple ways of getting started.
When it comes to picking a scheme for the whole house, you often hear the words neutrals or accent colors thrown around in interior design discussions. It’s time to look at some basic colors and decode all those conversations.
White: This is a great color to start with because it goes well with trims, cabinets, furniture and often walls and ceilings. Keeping white as the base color leaves you options for every room in the house.
Neutrals: Colors like beige, ivory, taupe, black, gray are all default colors for all open and connected parts of the house. They are also great backup colors when you are not sure what to do with a space. These colors look great in closets and bathrooms that you want to revisit later on. You can use neutral to connect the front door with the foyer and up the staircase too. They are a good choice for hallways and loft spaces.
Bold Colors: These are a mix of bright shades of basic colors like blue, red and green. They are used in combination with neutral to create an X-factor. They make for great wall colors whether it is the nursery or the dining room. It’s a bit tricky to make them work in open areas and are preferred in separate rooms or accent walls.
Accent Colors: These colors are used in combination with neutrals when you want to add a splash of color to a space. They are used sparingly and on certain walls with a vision to create a mood.
Extended Colors: These colors are used to separate different rooms of the house without creating a jarring visual effect. The idea is to extend the existing color and not make a mess of the scheme. So, you must choose different shades of the neutrals or one of the three basic colors in your color scheme. For instance, if the bold color in your home is teal, your laundry room can be turquoise. You should also take light into account. Now let’s expand on the concept of one of the three basic colors in the house.
Now that you know the terms, it’s time to figure out which ones to pick first and how to go about it. The entire scheme should stop at a maximum of three colors.
First, you must pick a bold color which is the darkest shade of the color you choose. This must match or complement the existing decor or your neutral color. So, if you pick red to raise energy levels, the Sherwin Williams Rockwood red is a good example. And, if you pick blue for a calming feel, the Sherwin Williams Loyal Blue or SW Hyper Blue are great choices.
Then you must pick an extended color so that you know what to do with the rooms that are close to each other. Like your bedroom and the bathroom.
Then you must pick a second color. This is if you want to play compare and contrast in the room. It can be a neutral to be a contrast to your bold color or something that complements it. So, if you pick green, your second color could be yellow or gray.
Then you must pick the accent color. You will use very little of this color but it will be for a dramatic effect. If you’re going for a monochromatic look, keep it in the bold color family. Pick a lighter or darker shade of your bold color.
If you’re going for an analogous look, look at the color wheel and pick a shade of what’s next to your second color. For example, if purple was your bold color and blue was your second color, the accent color could be a shade of blue (monochromatic) or green (analogous).
If you want a complementary look, the accent color is opposite the bold color or second color on the color wheel. For example, if blue is your bold color and green is your second color, your accent color will be orange or red.
You can pick one of the neutrals to serve as a backdrop in different rooms or a connector between spaces.
There are a few basic rules all designers like to follow to get the look right. Whether you’re designing your home or just an enthusiast, it pays to keep these in mind. Let’s start with the golden one.
As promised, an elaborate explanation of one of the oldest interior design color rules. It’s called the 60-30-10 rule and it tells us how to use colors in a single room by dividing the color scheme into percentages.
Sixty percent of every room should be in one color. This is usually wall or floor color (if you’re using carpets or area rugs) along with a couple of pieces of decor. They don’t have to be solid colors but one color must dominate them all.
The next 30 percent of the room will be the second color in your scheme. If you’re sticking to the same color family, this one should have half the saturation of your main color. This color doesn’t want attention but works with the main color. If you pick a contrasting color, it creates depth. This could be the curtains or drapes in the room.
The last 10 percent will be the accent color. It’s used sparingly and is used to create a contrast to the entire scheme. Your decor should heavily be influenced by this color. This is good for throw pillows, accessories and artwork.
Here’s an example of how to make it work depending on the style of your color scheme.
If you’re going for a monochromatic look, choose one color like gray, cream, white or greige. Use three different shades of that one color in 60-30-10 proportions for everything in the room. This is the matchy-matchy style but works great for some colors.
If you’re going for the analogous look, pick three colors that are next to each other on the color wheel. For example, blue-green, green and yellow-green are next to each other. You will see that green is in all three colors. So it’s the dominant color (60 percent). This is how it works.
If you’re going for the complementary look, you must pick two colors that are opposite to each other on the color wheel. Like a shade of cool blue and a shade of warm orange. This is how it works.
You might have noticed that the color you picked in the catalog looks lighter or darker on your wall. That’s because of LRV. Light reflectance value is a very important aspect of using color as it measures the amount of light that a painted surface absorbs or reflects.
It is measured in percentage. Shades like absolute black are closer to zero and absorb all light and heat. Pure white is 100 percent because it reflects all light. These are used to predict how a particular shade will appear in a room and can be used to decide whether you want the room to look brighter or darker.
The decision helps with balancing the amount of natural light a room receives. Apart from creating a certain mood, LRV is also useful in creating energy-efficient spaces. Picking a color with higher LRV could mean you won’t need too many lighting fixtures.
This is used not only by color consultants but also by architects and engineers. LRV is also used to calculate the types of lighting in a space to create a specific effect.
Consider this. The color Monet Magic 0665 is a soft blue color from Color Essentials Collection and has a Light Reflectance Value of 66. Since colors with more than 50 percent LRV are lighter, they bounce light. This means Money Magic 0665 reflects most of the light that falls on it back into the room.
A color wheel is like a rainbow with primary, secondary and tertiary colors. It is used as a guide to find colors for your dominant shade in your color scheme. It is based on color theory which is the science of how the human brain interprets colors and responds to certain combinations. This often starts with understanding the color wheel. It is used by artists and scientists alike to understand how human beings interact with color. Artists use this knowledge in paintings and drawings, designers use it to build color schemes.
Now, if you find this intimidating because you’re not an artist or a designer, don’t worry. There is a way to get this done a bit easily. That’s by reading a color wheel. It is divided into 12 colors in three categories: primary, secondary and tertiary.
Red, yellow and blue are primary colors because all the other colors are created from these three. Between these three colors, you will find range, green and violet which are created by mixing two primary colors. And when you mix a primary color with a secondary, you get tertiary colors like yellow-orange, red-orange, red-violet, blue-violet, blue-green and yellow-green.
You can use this wheel to create monochromatic, analogous and complementary color schemes. Pick a color and start by applying the 60-30-10 rule.
Cooler colors are typically the ones which provide a relaxed vibe. So, it is no surprise the blue is on top of that list. It helps calm the mind and is known to reduce tension. That’s why it is a favorite in bedrooms and bathrooms.
Suggested shades:
Second on the list is violet, which also comes from blue. It is believed to bring out inner balance and peace. The key to picking these hues is to stay away from colors which have a little too much black in them.
Suggested shades:
If blues make you moody, jump to the other side of the spectrum and go for pink. As Feng Shui teaches us, it has a soothing energy and looks beautiful in any room.
Suggested shades:
If you like nature and are looking for a touch of that, the visually soothing green is a great option. It is the harbinger of calmness and freshness. That’s why, parks and gardens feel so relaxing.
Suggested shades:
You might think gray is dull and boring but it is actually a cooling presence. It is a neutral color that works well with furnishings and artwork too. And what’s great about it from an interior design point of view is that it looks great in every room.
Suggested shades:
Sherwin Williams is a very popular brand. In fact, it’s hard to miss the name when looking for paint colors. Now, a lot of people start their color selection with neutrals. So, it is no surprise that the top 50 Sherwin Williams paint colors have a ton of grays, beiges and blacks. The best thing about their website is that the moment you click on one of these colors, it gives you combinations this shade can work with.
For example, Sherwin Williams Agreeable Gray 7029 is the first color on the top 50 list. Click on it and you will find out that SW Extra White 7006, SW Coral Rose 9004 and SW Incredible White 7028 coordinate well with this shade. The gray itself has a light reflectance value of 60 which means it reflects most of the light back into the room. That works well for small spaces.
If you were looking for something dark, check out SW Tricorn Black 6258. It goes well with SW Classic Light Buff 0050, SW Blithe Blue 9052 and SW Ice Cube 6252. This one has a light reflectance value of 3 which means it absorbs most of the light that comes its way. So, it is good to anchor for large spaces in the house.
This is another name you can’t escape when looking for interior design paint colors. And unsurprisingly, their top color collection is also dominated by neutrals. Gray, beige, white and earth tones are their best sellers. Now, this website doesn’t give you coordinating colors but you can see what it looks like on a wall. That’s got to be even better.
Their most popular color is White Dove OC 17 with a light reflectance value of 85. That means it reflects most of the light back into the room. It is a classy and soft shade of the color white and is highly preferred for moldings and trims.
If you want to move out of neutral colors, the most popular Benjamin Moore paint color is Palladian Blue HC-144 which has an LRV of 61. Seeing as it is above 50 percent, this is also a great color that reflects light and is perfect for small spaces. It brings a sense of calm and has an airy blue undertone that is a mix of sky blue and a pearl.
Neutral colors are typically used as a backdrop in most houses because they go well with any bold color. A lot of people think mixing two or more neutral colors makes it dull and uninspiring. But there is a way to do that and give a room an elegant flavor. Here’s how to get both of those styles.
If you want to decorate a room only with neutrals, you must use different hues of the same color. For this, you must look at the family of a color and choose shades that are in harmony with each other. Let the pop of color in the room come from upholstery.
For instance, an area rug that is a darker shade of your wall color goes well with wooden flooring. If you’re more of a carpet person, get the same shade as you did for the walls. The accessories will have the shades of your wall color and carpet/area rug to tie the room together. An all-neutral room shines when combined with hardwood flooring and a fireplace made of wood, brick or stone. It has a warm and understated look.
If you want to use neutrals as a background for your bold color scheme, start with the walls again. If you want a bright room, pick lighter shades and the opposite if you want a dark room.
For example, if you pick a brownish gray (taupe), let the sofa and chairs be navy blue or stripes of ivory. Get an area rug in the same shade of taupe. Tie the room together with taupe throw pillows that are in the same pattern as the chairs. A brass or glass coffee table with a dash of brick red will add some color.
Once you learn about light and colors, this is pretty easy to figure out. We know that mirrors are a great way to create optical illusion and make a place look big. But the same is true for softer shades.
Light colors are great for most spaces and darker shades can make a place look cramped up. But if you are worried about a room looking dull, you need to be clever with the way you use contrasts.
The simple answer to this dilemma is using light colors. Bright walls make a space look reflective, open and airy. This can be amplified by using colors with a high light reflectance value. What dark colors with a low LRV do is absorb the light and make a space seem smaller than it is.
If you want to find a balance, use soft tones of white, blue and green. This need not be only wall colors. Paint your wall trims and moldings in shades lighter than your wall colors. This creates a look of the walls being farther back.
And as far as lighting is concerned, natural light is the best way to make a space bright and roomy. This can be done with large windows that connect you to the outside world. If you don’t have a great view, try to put plants and flowers near the windows. But if that is not an option, look for some creative lighting fixtures. Just regular lamps can also brighten the room.
The same logic from above works here too, with a little extra manipulation.
This isn’t a question non-professionals think about. But it’s an excellent one. Think of the ceiling as the fifth wall in the room and consider its impact on the room. There are a bunch of factors that determine whether or not you must use the same color for the ceiling and the walls in the room. Let’s take a look at them.
If you spend a lot of time at home, it helps to have beautiful walls to stare at. And the trends have made sure there’s a little something for everyone.
If you like neutrals, then the warm cream shades and stone colors are back in business. Terracotta tones and warm pastels are also coming back in style. This is for folks who like to have an entire room in one color. Natural and earthy tones are expected to be a big hit.
If you’re into blues, then navy blue and blue-gray are expected to dominate the scene. The serene color has become something of a new neutral. Add to that, Pantone’s 2020 color of the year is Classic Blue and Sherwin Williams’ color of the year was also Naval. So the cool blues aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
If you’re sticking to the monochromatic style, some bold options are making an appearance on the scene. Cobalt Blue, Kelly Green and Aubergine, which evoke personality and elegance are great choices.
If you’re looking for moody hues, look no further than Current Mood from Clare. It’s one of their best selling colors and gets a lot of love on Instagram according to Nicole Gibbons.
It’s one thing to pick a color. But if you don’t pick the right finish, it doesn’t matter how carefully you choose the scheme for your home. Here’s a little guide to help you out.
Matte finish is good for water-based paints because they have the least amount of reflection. So, they hide blemishes well on the wall. But these paints are difficult to clean and if you use a cloth or sponge, they might come off the wall. It’s not durable. So, areas with least traffic like ceilings must get this finish.
Eggshell finish is also water based and comes with a little gloss. It’s more reflective than matte but doesn’t cover blemishes as well. It’s also a bit more durable and hence it’s chosen for living rooms and dining rooms where kids are not likely to touch the walls. A primer and two coats is recommended.
Satin finish is for water and oil-based solvents. It is shinier than eggshell finish and is one of the best choices if you want shine and be able to clean it effectively. This is good for high-footfall spaces like bathrooms, kitchens and even bedrooms.
Gloss and semi-gloss are options for water and oil-based solvents. They are the most reflective of the lot but don’t hide imperfections on the walls as well. They are good for busy spaces like the kitchen and bathrooms.
A well-designed house has a lot of advantages for your mind and soul. We like to design our homes and other spaces to reflect our personality. It’s nice to show off a bit but more importantly, it makes us feel comfortable and like it’s our own space.
For instance, a bedroom that is well done can help you forget the worries of the day. If you pick the right colors, contrasts and accessories, it can manage your stress levels effectively. It will give you a good night’s sleep and make you want to jump out of bed and take on the day in the morning.
And it’s not just about how you feel. The way your house is designed and organized has a huge impact on your cholesterol levels and heart health too. Colors have the ability to slow down your heart rate and bring down blood pressure.
The right paint colors in any room create the coveted vibe and make you want to stay home and hang out in those rooms more often. Bright yellows make you feel motivated. Slumber parties and hang sessions with friends get more cheerful and lead to bonding moments. The ambience can also give you a self-esteem boost. A blue-colored bedroom can help you get the eight hours of sleep you need and guide you to a cheerful morning.
When you plan a room well, you can cleverly arrange storage space to minimize if not avoid clutter. Admit it. You like the way it will feel when your room (if not the whole house) makes you feel about your ability to plan. If that doesn’t help, there will be a bad day once in a while and coming home to a self-designed paradise might just cheer you up like you never expected it to. Look in a corner and a good lamp that eliminates the hissing sounds of traditional fixtures will give you the quiet you were looking for all day long. Imagine having a headache and coming back to a room with soothing colors.
And yes, planning the color scheme of the whole house is an exciting creative outlet. Deciding the artwork you want to hang and picking a sharp color for your desk makes for a very engaging project. It keeps the creative juices flowing. And there’s no feeling better than that!
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