Eeny Meeny, Miny, Moe – Which Color Should I Go?
Here are 15 simple tips to remove the color “noise” from making your perfect home.
Sometimes choosing color (hue) seems like you are in the middle of a children’s nursery rhyme or a picking lottery numbers. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe – which color should I go?
Too many choices and no idea of how to pick just the right ones. It’s like being in a candy store with all that lovely sweet temptation around you – so much choice, it all looks good and only 50 cents to spend! How do you choose the perfect candy? My solution is choose one of as many as you can afford and then next time you will know your favorite! That’s my candy store theory, you may want to try it yourself.
Image credit – Viktor Talashuk
How do you pick your lottery numbers – do you go random numbers or have a set formula? Does it really make a difference? It is pure luck if your numbers come up and lets face it, the odds really are against us, so you may as well play around with some fun numbers before you throw away your money on the dream of winning big. Do you then keep the same numbers or start fresh each week? Yes, that’s is food for thought.
Luckily for us, unlike the random lottery numbers or the candy store selection dilemma, choosing color does have a formula or process that helps us eliminate a lot of the “noise”.
Here are 15 simple tips to remove the color “noise” from finding your perfect color.
- Choose how you want the room to feel – warm or cool, this narrows down the palette by half. Use the color wheel to choose a warm or a cool color.
- Don’t use too many colors as your eye will not know where to focus. Stick to a maximum of three to balance throughout the room.
- Use the color wheel to help make selections that you know have a formula for success. Analogous schemes (colors that are next to each other on the color wheel) are great for creating an “easy on the eye” scheme. Not too much change in color – blues and greens work best for this scheme and are usually calming and restful, ideal for bedrooms.
Image Credit – Jean-Philippe Delberghe
- Use the largest pattern in the room and choose one hue from that, it could be a rug, curtains, a painting, upholstery fabric on a chair or sofa, if you don’t want to go with a solid or bold hue, select from the patterns background or neutral palette.
Image – Credit – Sidekix Media
- Use a dark color to ground your scheme and gradually lighten up as you go vertically in the room with a mid tone color for your walls and a light color/white for the ceiling.
- Go out and look around you. See what other people have done and decide if it works for you or not. You don’t have to copy it but it will get you thinking about what you like and what you don’t.
- If in doubt use neutrals and texture. Some people just can’t live with color in their home – stick to neutrals, black white and gray, you can’t go wrong with this combination. Remember to use texture so your scheme doesn’t look flat and washed out under lighting.
- Be true to yourself (or your client) really understand what you like and don’t like, this rules out may options to start with making it easier for you to select one or three.
- This may seem too easy – but take a look at the colors you wear. These will be ones that you like and flatter you. If you are into wearing all black and use jewelry to set off your outfits, then look at using a black leather sofa with a chrome and glass coffee table. You like florals with lots of color, then pick one strong color for your highlights like cushions and occasional chairs and a couple of coordinating neutrals for your walls and main pieces of furniture and drapery.
- Use grey and a pop of color, soft pastels for a calm effect or hot pink or vibrant orange to add movement and interest.
- A monochromatic scheme is the easiest to master and always looks good. Here you use only one hue, you just have to decide on the one you like best.
- If you want to hide something that you can’t move on a wall – simply paint it the same as the wall color. If you want it to stand out – use a contrasting hue to make it a feature.
- Using a light color will make the room look bigger and more open, using a dark color will make it feel more enclosed and smaller.
- Using tried and true traditional combinations is an easy way to success. Black and white or blue and white for example.
I hope that you have now found a way to make great choices for your home.
If you love color, you may want to take it one step further. Lean about color for interiors
