Have you every toyed with the idea of redecorating your home and felt confused?
Wondered what colours to use and how much?
Should you paint a feature wall?
Is that colour too dark or too light?
Using colour takes practice and experience. You need to take into consideration what mood, feeling and energy you want to create in the room, when you use the room, the age of the people using the room and the aspect (north south east or west) of the room.
The aspect is important as the amount of light changes depending on which direction your room faces. A south facing room is darker and needs warmer, lighter tones to give it some warmth. Whereas a west facing room gets the hot afternoon sun and needs cooler shades to balance the heat and strong light and darker tones as the strong sunlight bleaches colour out of the walls.
Colour can make a statement and change the way you feel.
If you want warmth and positive energy in a room use yellow. Yellow is stimulating to the mind, brings optimism, is awakening, brings warmth and is sociable. However, too much can feel overwhelming and have too much energy – you can’t settle surrounded by too much yellow. This room from http://www.home-designing.com has a neutral base and using the bright yellow gives a happy, uplifting and friendly energy.
By contrast, the living room below left from http://www.imbrandon.com is a lighter tone of yellow, is calmer by balancing the yellow with white furniture, green cushions and plants.
The bedroom above right from http://www.rsdinteriors.com is a powerful yellow giving off a lot of energy. Too much energy in a bedroom can affect your sleep.
If you want to use a strong colour, try balancing it with a cooler shade. Or paint the walls a neutral colour and use accessories, eg curtains, vases, cushions, throws to bring in some strong colour.
Using cool tones is similar. Blue is calming, cooling, brings clarity, communication, inner peace and inspiration. Green is balancing, eases stress, soothing and brings new beginnings. Too much blue can drain your energy and make you feel depressed. Too much green can cause indecision, lethargy and inaction. Try a neutral colour on three walls and a darker colour as a feature wall while adding warmer and lighter toned accessories for balance.
This pale blue bathroom on the left gives a soothing and relaxing energy with white bath and light coloured floor to balance and lift the blue, from www.frenchmadame.com
In contrast, this striking dark blue dining room from http://www.feathr.com/blog/best-of-modern-blue-interior-design gives a very intense energy with walls and floor being the same dark blue.
When deciding on how much colour to use, find some images of rooms in the colours you want, and notice how you feel when looking at the image – calm, happy, sad etc. If you like the feel of strong colours, go for it. If you like the colour but it’s too strong, trying using a lighter tone. Once you understand the energy you want in a room and recognise the way you feel, when using your chosen colour, it’s a lot easier to know how much colour to use.
Happy decorating.