Making a Choice of
Home Decorating Colors
While most of us can name home decorating colors we prefer, many times we find the enormity of pigment choices available in paints, wallpapers, fabrics and flooring options intimidating.
Coloration is a very personal decision and it can be hard thinking outside of your comfort zone and avoid the safety of neutrals.
Think about the room and the way it will be used.
What makes you feel happy is as good a place as any to begin, and when narrowing down your choices try to include both warm and cool tones.
Mood & Space
Warm and cool tones can be used quite effectively in the way a room is perceived visually as well as emotionally.
Warm hues such as reds, yellows, peaches and creams are up lifting. They appear to advance the walls making objects seem closer, and allow a large room to feel cozy and more intimate.
Warm paint is effectively used in rooms where there is a lot of activity like the kitchen or make an imposing hallway more inviting.
Conversely cool tones and neutrals appear to recede and can be used to open up a smaller space. They tend to be more soothing and restful. Reserve your cool tones of blue, green, gray and purple for the rooms where you want to relax and unwind, or open up a small room by painting the walls a cool powder blue.
- Generally speaking sharp contrasts have the same impact as a dark tone, reducing the perceived space.
- Monochromatic schemes enlarge space.
- Neutrals of similar value make walls retreat and flow unobtrusively from one room to the next.
In addition to altering the mood, effective use of coloration can compensate for negative factors such as lack of natural light or awkward proportions. You can use coloring to enhance an interesting detail or disguise an unsightly feature.
Home Decorating Colors and Light
Lighting can change the complexion of a room dramatically, so it's best to consider the changes of natural light throughout the course of a day, and at which time the rooms are used most.
The best way to test the suitability of a shade is to paint some test samples on a large piece of cardboard or the wall and observe it in different parts of the room at different times of the day and in different qualities of light, and watch the change.
- Rooms with a northern exposure will be filled with bluer, cooler light which weakens warm tones but intensifies cool hues.
- Rooms facing south will have a warmer yellowish light.
- A room that gets little sunlight may need to be warmed with colors such as yellow, apricot or terra cotta.
- A room on the sunny side of the house may benefit from cooler tones.
Add a touch of yellow pigment to blue and it won't be as chilly. Add a touch of blue to red and you'll have a cooler cherry.
Early morning sun has a warm glow that can be intensified or played down.
The light at noon is fairly neutral and does not alter a room's colorations.
In the evening, light becomes increasingly blue so you may want to counteract this with warm rich tones.
Remember too that artificial light will cast a slightly yellow tone over the home decorating colors you have chosen.
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