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It’s one thing choosing what colour to paint a room, it’s quite another choosing a colour scheme for your entire house. This is certainly not a decision you want to rush into for several reasons. Firstly, choosing the wrong colour scheme could leave you feeling disappointed and frustrated with the end product. Secondly, the vibe and look of your home has a massive impact on your mood, you want it to be your sanctuary and a place you love spending time in. Finally, off-putting colours or clashing schemes can put off buyers should you ever decide to sell your house. So as you can see it’s vital that you get it right.
It can completely transform a room and a home completely. It has an immediate effect on our mood; it can calm or invigorate and create energy and depth of field. Colour is the most crucial element to consider when decorating a space. Colour is a powerful thing, and when used intelligently can transform a space into anything you want to it to be.
That said, choosing a house colour scheme isn’t easy. You could have a unique theme in each room, but a sense of continuity throughout the house is essential. The trick is to create cohesiveness by selecting complementary colours where rooms connect. Here are some tips and inspirations to help you choose a stunning palette for your home.
Discover Your inspiration
Colour inspirations will help you envisage how you can transform your home. The worst place to look for inspiration is a colour chart that contains hundreds of different colour variations.
Don’t waste your time flicking through swatches or magazines from big homeware stores. Instead, take inspiration from your life and the things you have around you. This will help you to choose a colour scheme that better reflects your personality and that you’re guaranteed to love. Start by looking through your wardrobe – is there one colour that sticks out? Do you always find yourself drawn to items that are this particular colour? If so, that could be a great place to start.
Look at your cushions, duvet sets, curtains and those things around you that you’ve chosen in the past. Go out into your garden and look at the flowers you’ve chosen. If there’s a particular colour you love that you’ve found on these items you can take them in-store and have the paint made up especially for you. Not only does this mean you’ll love the colour, but it also means you’ll have something unique to yourself.
Don’t go for specific colours just because they look good together. Find something that represents how you want your home to feel. One of the easiest ways to choose paint colours is from a print fabric – cushions, bedding, and even table cloths can inspire you. One of the best ways is to select colours is from artwork in your home. Artists are masters of colour and light, and you can benefit from their expertise by selecting colours from your favourite painting. Works of art usually contain a multitude of colours that complement each other. So you can pick out several different colours to create a colour scheme.
Choose your base colours
Begin with three base colours that come from your inspiration piece – a neutral and two other colours. The neutral colour will run throughout the house, creating a sense of continuity. The other two colours can be used differently in each room. You may decide to make one of the colours the dominant colour in one space and as an accent in the next.
Once you have your base colours, you can expand your pallet. You can pick out more colours from your inspiration piece, or you can use a colour wheel to generate colour scheme ideas. With a turn of the wheel, you can see which colours complement your base colours. You probably won’t paint your home in the exact colours you see on the wheel. But you can head down to your local paint store, and they will be able to recommend colours based on your preferred colours on the wheel.
Balance is everything
To create a balanced room, you should spread your chosen colours throughout the space. Don’t use a single colour or make one side of the room colour heavy. This will ensure harmony within the space and carry the eye throughout the room.
Bold colours and patterns are great in moderation. An eye-catching colour or a bold patterned wallpaper or material can elevate a room – but it’s essential to get the balance right. Design balance in decorating should be considered before any decorating begins. In an unbalanced, chaotically decorated room inhabitants feel uncomfortable and anxious.
The goal is not to match but to blend seamlessly. Balance a bold colour with a large pattern that blends but doesn’t match exactly. Balance a bright warm tone with a cool shade. Or choose colours that are the same hue but vary in intensity and scatter them evenly around your room.
Keep your theme running throughout
Whether you’ve chosen three or five colours, you need to repeat these from room to room if you hope to make the house look coordinated and keep your palette obvious throughout. While you might have chosen to use one colour for a feature wall in one room, you can add splashes of this colour in the next room using artwork, cushions, throws or wallpaper. You can be creative with how you connect the colour palette, just avoid cramming every room with five colours or your house could end up look very busy and visually overwhelming.
Consider the lighting in your home
Before you start decorating you want to make sure you’ve got your colour palette right, and lighting plays a huge part in this. While your colour might look great on the tin, the shade can differ when it’s actually in the room depending on the lighting. Whether there’s a lot of natural light or not much at all, it can make your chosen hue look very different.
To combat any nasty surprises it’s best to buy small tins of your chosen colours and paint large sheets of paper or card with them. Then you can pin these up around the house and take a look at how these are affected by natural lighting, and by your lights and lamps in the evening. This will give you a better idea of whether you’ve chosen the right shade.
Edward is the managing director of Sloane & Sons Stylish Chairs. He is an expert in quality, comfortable upholstered chairs.
