How many times you visited a friend or boss or relatives and turned little blue green with envy looking at a perfect right out of a magazine cover house? Now we know all you wanted at that moment is house so perfect that anyone walking inside your den is truly mesmerized with style, grandeur and perfection. One simple yet effective way is painting your adobe which will indeed turn over new leaf.
Colours and style reflect your personality and character. Where most of us know exactly what kind of ambience and style we want, often we are not that doubtless about the colours you want to adorn your space with. For sure colours can perfectly transform any space. You can pick up a colour of your choice and instantly revamp the atmosphere & ambience of your home. Different colour scheme cannot over beautify any space, but can make you feel more relaxed, energetic, excited & peaceful. The selection of the right colour for making your space aesthetic, classy and peaceful is very important.
Picking up the right colour for your home is vital for your sense of comfort and well-being. Let’s look at some critical and significant tips to ease you out on a specific colour scheme you have been contemplating about.
Tip – 1: Know the Colour Wheel and Colour Spectrum
If we understand the basic colour wheel, it will surely make your task to pick the desired colourless tiresome. A colour wheel can give you an exact visual of the contrasts and complementary colour scheme give you a perfect glimpse of what goes well with what.
The colour wheel might be one of those things that you have learned about as a preschooler and haven’t thought of since. However, to really understand color, you may have to brush up your basics again.
Here’s how the basic one breaks down.
a) Primary Colours:
- Red
- Yellow
- Blue
b) Secondary Colours:
- Orange
- Green
- Violet
c) Tertiary Colours:
- Red – Orange
- Red – Violet
- Yellow – Orange
- Yellow – Green
- Blue – Green
- Blue – Violet
For more detail about colour, refer our most read by our reader’s article on Colour Theory:
Warm colors like red, yellow, and orange; stir up warmth as they remind us of things like the sun or fire. Cool colors like blue, green, and purple (violet); excite some cool breezy feelings because they remind us of things like water or grass etc.
Tip – 2: Recognize the Meaning of Colours
We see colours in everything around us yet all of them stir different emotional and mental stimulation. Generally, we might not give it much thought but when it comes to portraying the right emotion whether it is a bedroom where all you want is peace, calm and love or revamping your office where you want to attract clients towards a specific logo or wall or product etc. For instance,
- Red color symbolizes the heat, passion and love.
- Orange is beautiful amalgamation of warmth and heat of red and playful, joyful yellow.
- Yellow is the color of the sun and all those cute smiley faces.
- Green is universally accepted as a color of the nature, grass, plants and trees. It represents growth, color of spring and rebirth.
- Blue is a calm color that illustrates intelligence and responsibility. Blue is also considered as a color of the boys. Light baby blue is for peace and dark blue is all about depth and power.
- Purple elicits warm and cool emotions. It is a royal color inherently represents Royalty, luxury and prestige.
- Pink is so little girl color which is all about cotton candies, dolls, laces and brightly colored bubble gum. Pink is associated with love, femininity, sensitivity and tenderness.
- Brown is a natural color; it symbolizes the earth and it identifies with stability and support.
- Black can be linked with power and elegance, bold and powerful.
- White represents serenity, purity and innocence. It can create a minimalistic and artistic.
Tip – 3: Leaving Your Imprint of Each Space of Your House
While deciding on the colours for our home we actually have to think about various spaces of our house like Master Bedroom, Kids Bedroom, Study, Kitchen and all these spaces caters to different needs. Thus our focus should be the area and then decide which colour is best suited there some of the instances are cool colours should be used in the entrance, which will give a sense of peace & calm during leaving or returning to home. Cool colours are also perfect for bedrooms and any areas where you want to encourage serenity & balance.
Dining areas can be a mixture, cool for ensuring slower eating and warm for enlivening the conversation. A mix can be achieved by painting in one colour and then using curtains, tablecloths of similar tone, shades, tints, etc.
Warms colours are suitable for bathrooms, this gives an impression of warmth from the shower to dressing, and it also brightens the room for activities like shaving and putting on makeup.
More than one shade can be used to evoke different senses. We can also accessorize with difference coloured lights and curtains etc.
Tip – 4: Make Total Colour Scheme Plan
Essentially making a plan keeping in mind the desired outcome can bring out a lot of clarity on the colours scheme you want to go with. This is a cool practice whether you are only doing one area or the particular room or the entire house.
Tip – 5: Availability of Natural Light
Natural lighting is important. It is enter through doors and windows. Before you finalise colour scheme, just assess, how it reaches every corners of your room. An important point to consider when choosing colour scheme is the light level that room receives throughout the year. You can consider Using reflective cool light colours like white or pastel can bring out the natural light. Also, you can use glossy tiles in kitchen and bathroom which can work as a mirror can shine the natural light back.
Tip – 6: Personalize the Experience of Colour Selection for Your Home
Though the appearance of any colour largely depends on the quality of the light it is seen at home still every colour can be enhanced, softened or highlighted with playing the lighting the way you want. Combining warm colours with soft lights can create a relaxing environment. Cool colours with sharp contrasts and bright directional light can give a dull space an energetic uplift or even highlight the dull neglected corner instantly.
There may be different ways to modernize your home. It can be achieved by changing the soft furnishing only or just painting the house. Now when you decide to remodel the house then along with the new paint consider making way for new curtains, bedspreads, pillows, cushions and rugs. Bring your dream home alive.
Tip – 7: Know Balancing Rule of 60 – 30 – 10
Balancing the right colour scheme for your adobe is a little technical. No of course you don’t need to hire a decorator always. We will simplify it for you, when decorating various spaces, divide the colours into the composition of,
- 60% of dominant colour (most of your Walls, floors, Rugs and ceilings) This serves as a backdrop also anchors the space.
- 30 % of a secondary colour (Upholstery, Furniture)This supports the main colour yet sets it apart to give an interesting look to the room.
- 10% of an accent colour (Decorative Accessories & Art Work) This highlights the accessories and gives a character to the room.
Using this rule can make choosing color simple, and help you achieve balance in decorating.
Tip – 8: Involvement of All Family Members
Painting the house is family coming together in creating what makes everyone happy. Often it is difficult to give free rein to the kids or elders especially when you are a perfectionist. All you wanted was a picture-perfect house coming right out of some glorious interior design magazine. Alas mostly somebody in your family will have a very different idea that they are hell bend on. Still the peace in this situation can be achieved either getting their view or making them see yours. Let all the members of the family choose the colour that soothe, energize or please them.
After all, there are plenty of spaces in the house, so if there are mismatches corners, compromise can be reached. Choice of the colour can be decided by the member who spends the maximum time in that space. Involving everyone can make it not only a teamwork but everyone can have their personal corner in the house which reflects their personality can style.
Tip – 9: Creating Focal Points
You can make room alive by creating a focal point when you are painting a room. You can instantly transform any room just by adding contrasting colors to the adjacent walls or simply splashing a darker color to one particular wall. Painting one wall darker can make a large room look small. If you have a detailed trim on the walls you may pick a lighter shade for the trim and dark color for the walls within the same color scheme to visually expand the room. It can bring life and unique character to the room. Two different shades of the same color can be used if your room has a molding halfway between the ceiling and floor. It will create a wonderful visual contrast. Highlight any interesting aspect like a visible staircase, a large window opening to the garden, or a unique ethnic bookshelf by painting the corresponding wall with a darker color, complementary shade to the one you have chosen for your other walls.
Tip – 10: Sample Your Paint Colors Before Committing
This is a simple ground rule. Sampling the color, you want for your walls will give the exact idea about how it may come out on a particular wall. Before going right into it and committing gallons of paint and hours of labor, you should get the right color, shade, tone etc. You don’t want to skip this. As either you will be forced to live with a color you are not happy with taking the entire deed of revamping the house down the drain or might need to spend more money and time to replace it. This is the most important, because what you see on computer screen might be big different in looks and feel in reality.
Summing up, According to ‘Anna Starmer’ (Author of book called Love Color – Choosing Colors to live with), Colour is a compelling, emotive subject. Everyone has an opinion on colour and the range of colour choices on offer today is vast and can be complicated.
After considering all these tips, always think about the colour scheme in totality. You should have the overall vision regarding your colour scheme at the beginning i.e. Colour of flooring, walls, curtains and other fixtures, bathroom fixtures, other furniture and exterior & even colour of roof, if any. Now that you know how colour theory works, decide your plan of action and get started working on your home.
The colour we choose is a unique expression of our individuality. Colour selection of the house is a beautiful statement of who we are, what we love and how we want to live. Choice of the right colour palate for your house can be a great delight for you and you can proudly flaunt your newly remodelled condo to all your friends. It is a time when the family can come together to accomplish a dream you saw together. Believe me there is no big pleasure then looking at a beautiful smile at your little face. All these tips can make the effort of selection a little less tiresome. We promise the result of your hard work will not only delight you immensely but looking at the admiration in your guest eyes can make you very proud.
Choice of colour is a very personal phenomenon and we all express our love to a particular colour uniquely. The real fun is to be courageous, creative and yet practical. Be original and your home will speak for itself…
