Colours are essential in making spaces interesting, dynamic, and attractive in interior design. Furthermore, colours can be combined in various ways to alter the room’s visual appearance. In most cases, multiple colours are used in home interior design to offer variety and texture. Typically, one primary colour and one or more secondary colours are chosen. In addition, accent colours are used to add “pop” and character to more dull and mundane-looking colour combinations.
When dealing with completely white rooms, you have more options and elbow space to experiment. This article will discuss what accent colours are, how to find the perfect accent for your home interiors, and how to choose an accent colour for a fully white room.
What Is An Accent Colour?
An accent colour is a small amount of colour used to add a dash of “pop” or dazzle to the interior decor, similar to a highlight. They enhance your colour schemes by adding a splash of colour at the end. It’s like elevating a dish’s taste by adding a dash of spice to it. Colour combinations, on the other hand, are crucial when it comes to accents and can be used in a harmonising or complementary colour scheme.
Accents are just as important as the primary (or dominant) colour in any case because colour schemes are all about how the two interact with each other. They do not need to be in strong contrast to the dominant colours to be effective because their power is solely dependent on the colours with which they are combined.
What Can Be Used as Accents?
They are usually introduced in the interiors through household accessories like cushions, towels, upholstery fabric, lamp shades, candles, flowers, picture frames, curtains and drapes, blinds, bed covers, kitchen appliances, moulding, etc.
Choosing the Right Accent Colour for a Fully White Room
Accent colour for a fully white room looks great because they prevent the space from appearing sterile, dull, and bland. There is so much you can do with different colour schemes when working with a plain white room. There are no specific rules for how to add accents to white rooms. So go wild and use your favourite colours as accents to liven up the space. You can make them in harmonising or contrasting colours.
Here are a Few Ways to Pick an Accent Colour for a Plain White Room
01. Avoid Pastels, Light, and Pale Colours
Avoid using light or pale colours as they will just blend into the rest of the room’s colour, and there will be barely any contrast. Instead, go for deep or intense tones against the white space.
02. Avoid Black
Avoid using black as your accent colour, as it will create a sharp contrast, and the combination will play tricks on your eyes in the daylight. Instead, use a more subtle dark shade like Payne’s grey or Vandyke brown to give your plain white room a softer contrast. Similarly, avoid scarlet and white (if you are superstitious) and use deeper tones like alizarin crimson or Indian red.
03. Don’t be Afraid to use more than One Colour as the Accent
Use more than one accent colour in your white interiors. Accents work best in a room full of harmonising and neutral or monochromatic colour schemes, as they can appear dull. A single colour as the accent might look monotonous. You can use these accents all over your home as a unifying factor and give your interior design a more cohesive feel. For example, you can place a yellow-orange cushion and a beige vase in a white living room with dark brown as a secondary colour. You can repeat the colours throughout the rest of the house by adding yellow-orange display plates and beige hand towels in the kitchen.
04. Use 60-30-10 Rule of Colour
The 60-30-10 rule of colour helps in developing a colour palette for a space. It states that a dominant colour should make up 60% of the space, a secondary colour should make up 30% of the room, and an accent colour must make up 10% of the room. The 60%represents the background colour, or the colour that permeates the entire space. The 30% of the colour will support the dominant colour while providing enough contrast to keep the space interesting. The remaining 10% of the colour determines the character or personality of the space.
05. Keep the Big Picture in Mind
Don’t just pick colours you like when choosing accent colours; instead, consider colours that work well together as a colour scheme. Consider choosing unorthodox hues like slate blue or rusty orange. They don’t always have to be primary colours like red or blue.
06. Use the Existing Items in the Room as a Guide
If you already have home decor items in the room, use the colour of the upholstery, lamp shades, cushions, etc., to help you decide on the accent. If you don’t like the colour of your furniture or accessories, you can always pick a new accent colour to match your tastes and change the colour of the items, like the upholstery, accordingly.
07. Keep More Accent Combinations In Reserve
Accents are great for adding excitement to drab interiors, but if they are present for too long, they may lose their appeal. So make sure to keep a few colours in reserve so you can switch them out as needed or when the occasion arises. Use accents for easily interchangeable goods, such as pillow covers, cushions, curtains, tableware etc, for this reason.
Don’t add home decor items to your home just because they match the colour of your accent pieces. Your house will feel hollow and pointless as a result. Instead, create a painting on your own using the colour schemes you have chosen for your interior design or paint an old piece of furniture that has been in your family the desired colour.
Additionally, avoid using accents as a wall colour, as they aren’t as easy to change as cushion covers or curtains.
Conclusion
When accent colours are used sparingly, they have the most significant impact. Decorate the room with accents by adding furniture, cushions, curtains, fixtures, flooring, etc. A lime-green or magenta ice bucket, for instance, may bring a tonne of interest to a plain, dull white kitchen.
We hope we have helped you in choosing accent colour for a fully white room. Make sure not to overuse accents in your rooms or to combine too many different accents in one space. This has the potential to be overpowering and disorienting. In particular, if your home is entirely white, we hope that this post has been educational and has motivated you to accent your home with “popping” colours!
Additionally, we have included suggestions for colour schemes for your bedroom. Explore this most recent style:
20 Best 2-Colour Combos For Your Bedroom Walls
Author Bio
Andrea Noronha – Andrea Noronha is a content writer and editor with over 4 years of experience. Although she comes from a finance background, Andrea is passionate about blogging about interior design. Her other interests include travelling, baking, and digital marketing.