DESIGN YOUR COLOUR SCHEME
Changing the look of your rooms may feel daunting but follow these simple tips and you’ll be decorating like a professional
AN INSPIRED START
Just as we have our own style for the way we dress, we each have a unique home style too. To find out what yours is look around your home and pick out the things you love, whether it’s a picture, a pattern or a colour on a curtain or a coat. As you gather things together you’ll see a pattern emerge. Are all of your chosen things bright and modern? Do they have a vintage feel? Have you gone for natural colours and raw materials? By doing this you’ll discover what you’re drawn to and can use this as a starting point for your new interior design project.
Gather inspiration while you’re away from home. Whether it’s the colour of a wall in a local cafe or hotel bathroom tiles in the most perfect shade of blue, take a picture or ask where they’re from. Look through magazines and sites such as Pinterest, and cut out or save pictures of rooms that you love, creating your own inspiration book or file.
UNDERSTAND THE ROOM
Take a good look at the space you’re planning to decorate and ask yourself the following:
What will you use it for?
If your room is for relaxing it will need a softer colour palette; if it’s somewhere you’ll entertain visitors you may want to show off your adventurous side with bolder colours! Or would you like it to be a space that will help you start the day feeling refreshed with invigorating aqua shades and zingy yellows?
What direction does it face?
It’s a myth that a North-facing room looks bigger if painted in brilliant white – the reality is that it can make a room feel dull and dingy. Colours look greener in northern light, so choose warmer yellows, reds or pink-based neutrals. East-facing rooms have a bluer light so shades of blue and green will look great. In Westfacing rooms that are bathed with a cooler light in the morning and softer in the evening, warm-toned neutrals and gentle pinks will always look good. If the room is mainly going to be used in the evening consider how the colours will look in artificial light.
Are you feeling bold?
Pale tones reflect the light and darker tones will absorb it. The ‘rules’ often say you should paint small rooms in pale colours to accentuate the feeling of space, and while this is true it can look
dull. Small rooms can be stunning painted in rich dark shades of teal, grey, chocolate or green. Be brave and the result will be a dramatic cloakroom, cosy intimate living room or a decadent-feeling bathroom.
Use colour to accentuate architectural features or areas that you love, and to disguise those you don’t. And think about which pieces of furniture you’ll be keeping and therefore have to work around.
COMBINE COLOUR
Use the 12-section colour wheel to find the right mix. In a tonal scheme, select different shades from the same main colour group to create a subtle and relaxed effect. A harmonising scheme uses shades from adjacent sections. A bold contrasting scheme takes colours from opposite sides of the wheel. This works best if one colour is dominant and the second is used as an accent.
TEST IT OUT
Never choose a paint colour or fabric from a chart or just by picking it off the shelf. See how colours work at home with the light the room gets and how they sit with furnishings. With paint buy a tester pot and paint an area on a couple of walls or onto a large piece of lining paper that you can move around to see how it looks on different walls at various times of day. With fabrics get the largest sample you can and pin up at the window if it’s for curtains or blinds, or lay over the piece of furniture it’s intended for.
TRICKS OF THE TRADE
Not all four walls have to be the same colour and the woodwork doesn’t have to be white. Try a darker colour on the end wall of a narrow hallway to give the illusion of it coming towards you and make the space feel wider. Or paint woodwork in a slightly lighter tone of the wall colour to blur the edges of the room and make it feel bigger. Alternatively paint all the woodwork the same colour as the walls so there are no definite boundaries – this looks great with really dark wall colours.