Home decorating with ideas to find the right colours for each room
Happy Autumn from Sydney Australia! Autumn is my favourite season with the leaves changing to beautiful warm colours, and the mornings with a crispness in the air.
I wanted to share today how I use inspiration as a guide to choosing colours to decorate a room. This example is for a child’s room. The steps for any room are the same. Your inspiration can start you on a journey to tell a story.
My inspiration is fabric, there are so many beautifully coloured fabrics to choose from. This dinasour fabric is great, lots of bright colours for a a child and has cute characters for some fun.
My starting point is to know what the fabric is going to be used for. This one will be a quilt/doona cover for the bed to give lots of brightness and a fun feeling when sleep time comes around. You could also use an counting activity, or learning colours.
Have an idea of what you want to decorate
Do you want to paint the walls?
Do you want to add storage or bookshelves?
Do you want to add soft furnishings – cushions, curtains?
Are you replacing the flooring?
Kids love bright colours – they are fun. However, if you use too many bright colours, or the walls are painted too bright or dark, the feeling is overstimulating and overwhelming, meaning a child may have trouble settling in the room.
My next step is to visit a hardware/paint store with the fabric and I choose paint samples that match the fabric like this.
These are really strong colours, and need to be used as splashes of colour to prevent overstimulation.
My next step is to pick lighter tones of these colours like these. I have purposely not included red as it feels too bright and energetic, and there is enough red on the fabric.
If you’re thinking of painting the walls, a very light green or blue are calming – possibly the lightest examples in the colour samples above. Green is like being outside amongst the trees and the blue reminds me of blue skies.
I would avoid yellow walls, as yellow is overstimulating and cause insomnia.
Remember to consider the colour of the flooring. Whether you have floorboards or carpet, this is a large amount of colour to match with your colour scheme.
The colour you choose for the walls also depends on the amount of natural light that comes in, and the aspect (north, south, east or west). In Australia, the hot westerly afternoon sun creates a lot of heat in a room, so cooler pale blue wall helps with a feeling of coolness. To create a warmer feeling in a cold room, a warm pale green can give that feeling.
If you would prefer neutral walls, the same suggestions apply, taking into account natural light and aspect.
If you’re unsure, place a few colour samples on the walls and watch how change in appearance during the day and the amount of heat coming into the room.
As there is so much brightness in the fabric, I would keep any soft furnishings, pictures on the walls and furniture to neutral or lighter tones, using textures – for example cane baskets in a storage shelf or a lampshade or bean bag a light colour.
Here are some bedroom examples and how the colours work.
A lovely room with neutral walls to grow with your child. The brown wall gives warmth and a grounding feeling. I feel the inspiration may have come from the pink chair as a starting point. This flows is through with the pink drawer on the desk, and the softer pink in the blanket and cushions, a pink drawer in the wardrobe and the deeper pink headboard on the bed. Green sits opposite pink on the colour wheel and in the right tones, works well together. Green is soothing and calming, with a very small splash of bright green on the desk below the foliage plant, and the teal green drawer in the wardrobe.
This bedroom is great and the inspiration looks like the curtains which are red London busses on a grey background. This has been carried through to the multicoloured cushions on each bed, the small red lamps and the patterned rug on the floor. The walls are neutral and there is a very small amount of red, so it’s not too overpowering. The room is also neat giving it a calmness and character at the same time.
Let’s say the inspiration for this bedroom is the rug, in different tones of blue, complimented by the different tones of blue in the bedding. The walls are neutral, so it’s a lovely base to work with. The floor is light and lots of natural light, giving a feeling of openness. There could be heat from the window (depending on the aspect), so blue is a good choice to feel cool. If there was just blue, it would bring your energy down. To offset this, there are pale green sheets, and a brightly coloured cushion on each bed. The bright blue plates on the wall are a different texture and match the blue in the rug, giving harmony to the room.
Creating a fun bedroom for you and your children is important so it’s a place they love to go, and especially important to create the right atmosphere for sleeping. And when toys are packed away and the bedroom is less cluttered, this helps to calm the mind as well.
It’s also important that we, as adults, create the perfect place for us to rest, regenerate and heal our mind and body after each busy day. Rooms that create harmony and balance and tell our story.
I hope I’ve inspired you to have some fun when decorating and the steps to choose the best colours.
Happy decorating!
Find my e-book “The Insider’s Guide to Decorating with Colour” showing easy ways to decorate with colour
Find decor for your home at my Zazzle store