Choosing Colors to Inspire
Decorating with Paint
Decorating with paint is one of the least expensive and versatile things you can do decorating. If you make a mistake the worst that can happen is that you will need to repaint or add another glaze.
Choosing Colors
There are as many ways to choose color as there are personalities. For some, it's finding inspiration through a favorite painting, a piece of fabric, or the inside of your clothes closet.
Color can affect your mood as well as the perspective of a room. Think about the scale of the room and the feeling you want to achieve. Color can make a small space appear larger, and visa-versa.
Cool Colors
Cool colors are whites, grays, and those pale watery blues and greens that remind you of glassy pools and icy streams.
Emphasize cool colors for relaxation, and areas like a bedroom or living room in blues or greens. The pretty and pure shades have a delicate beauty.
White, the color of snow, frost and cloud is the most enduring of all interior paints. Whether it’s whitewashed of a
simple cottage interior,
or the flat white latex that accentuates the classical architecture of a federal entrance hall.
Decorating with paint in small dark spaces can be transformed to give an illusion of light and increased volume by the simple application of white paint. It expands space, making walls recede and ceilings lift.
Hot colors
Make you smile, are cheerful and extroverts and are impossible to ignore. Because they are so strong they are not to everyone's taste.
Of all the hot colors yellow is probably the most approachable. It can give the illusion of sunshine on the grayest of days and make the even the most unappealing space cozy.
Use warm tones in high energy rooms such as a kitchen, or family room.
Yellow's nearest color cousin is orange. Orange has recently seen a revival thanks to the resurgence of interest in the Seventies style.
Which brings us to red, the most versatile of all the hot colors. Red can either sooth or excite in equal measure depending on it's hue, saturation or lightness.
If you are looking for color that makes a statement decorating with paint in a red is pretty much the front runner.
Selecting an Earthy Color Palette
Neutral colors bring a sense of tranquility to a room. Earthy colors are hues in nature that evoke a grounded sense of well being. Stone, cream, sky, and terra-cotta are good examples.
Their intensity can be played up or down to suit your taste and the amount of light in a room. It’s a natural compliment to rustic or informal rooms, and they also lend themselves to more refined living rooms.
The richness of neutrals works well with a wide variety of accent colors. Neutral tones are sophisticated, crisp, and tailored, especially when paired with a creamy white trim.
Soft Colors
Soft colors are romantic, flattering, enduring and include a large range drawn from gentler hues such as, cerulean, lavender, and lemon.
Soft colors have been natural choices for the bath and bedroom, but are also flattering for living and dining rooms too.
To make soft colors work well in any part of your home choose slightly grayer counterparts as opposed to pastels. The pastels might come off too sweet or bright.
Soft colors layer well with neutrals, and benefit from being finished with clean white trim.
Return from Decorating with Paint to Paint Color
|
