Colour choices

Annie Sloan, colour expert

Choosing the correct shade

for your home office is as important as your job! Select the best hues depending on your personality traits and what your job requires of you. For example, those who lack focus will benefit from bright colours, while those whose roles require deep thinking should consider contemplative blues.

This space needs to appeal

to you on an aesthetic level so that you don’t dread spending time there. It’s actually a wonderful opportunity to be more creative and bold with your design choices; you don’t have to consider restful qualities as in a bedroom or crowd-pleasing palettes as in living areas.

Basic colour psychology

can come into play here, but fundamentally whichever colour you choose it should be something you love. I think strong colours are important whatever your role: this is not a room for relaxing, you want the space to feel dynamic.

Paint Matisse-inspired shapes,

squares that can double as noticeboards, and squiggly lines to add interest – what is a wall other than a big canvas? Graphic shapes such as arches, circles and line work are easy to achieve.

Make your office area

a brighter space than the rest of the room. Picture a spotlight shining on your desk and paint a circle of colour that covers the floor around your chair and goes up the walls for a ‘zoned’ area. Chalk Paint® can be used to paint anything so you can include your chair, desk, lamp, even your bin in the zoning area.