Whether you’re just starting to build your home or you’re sprucing it up, it’s important to pay attention to your house’s color palette. Well-coordinated walls can really change a room’s look, make it look contemporary, cozy, inspiring, and inviting. There is really a lot to it and we decided to create this comprehensive guide on how to choose a color palette for your home.
Here you will learn about the different color palettes, the most common interior house color schemes, some useful tips when designing the rooms, the meaning of the most common house interior colors, and how they can affect your mood.
How to approach the house color selection process
When looking for color inspiration, you need to start from within. Think about your favorite colors, the ones that immediately make you feel at home whenever you walk into a room. If you’re just moving into a new home, think about the previous one – which room was your favorite and why? Most of the time, the reason is the wall color and the overall atmosphere of the particular room. Take those experiences and transfer the positive ones into your new space, while staying away from the negative.
Once you have your favourite colours down, see how you can combine them. If you’re not working with an interior designer, you can use an online colour matching tool that will help you out. There you can see all the existing colours, as well as their matching shades, complementary colours and those that contrast them.
Before we go on, however, let’s see what primary, secondary and tertiary colours are:
- Primary – Red, blue and yellow. They are also known as pure colours because they cannot be created and are the basis of all the other colours.
- Secondary – Now we have green, purple and orange. They are called secondary because they can be created by using equal parts of 2 primary colours. Yellow and blue make green, blue and red make purple, and red and yellow make orange.
- Tertiary – And lastly, we have all the other colours that can be created by combining primary and secondary colours.
What about black and white? Here it becomes a little bit more complicated. Technically, white is not really a colour since we can’t find it anywhere on the colour spectrum. To put it simply, a white surface will completely reflect and scatter every visible wavelength of light. Black, on the other side, fully absorbs all visible light. Black is created by combining all the primary colours together. White has to be created artificially, through pigments such as titanium dioxide.
Adding black or white to any of the colours can make them paler or darker.
Types of colour palettes for homes
Now that we’ve covered the basics, let us get started with the most popular and sought after colour schemes used in interior design.
Monochromatic
This is considered to be one of the “safest” ways of painting a room or a whole property. It means using different tones of the same colour, combined with black and white in order to get the exact shade you want. For example, many people who want to decorate their homes “Greek-style”, will choose different shades of blue to create that feel. All of the shades suit each other and people can create very bold areas while still matching.
Analogous
To create an analogous colour scheme, you need to combine colours that are next to each other on the wheel. The most popular combinations are mixing blue with green, red and orange, purple and blue. The possibilities are truly endless. Depending on the type of colours that you choose, you can create different atmospheres in the rooms. For example, the combination of blue and purple is soothing and is often used for bedrooms, while orange and red are more preferred for living rooms and kitchens.
Contrast
A contrasting colour palette is a risky choice for people that are not professionals but if you’re working with an interior designer it shouldn’t be a problem. Contrasting colours are great if you’re looking to create a centrepiece or a bold statement. The most popular choice s black and white but there are many more options for you to choose from.
Complementary
With complementary colours, you have one that is the dominant and the other one is used to complement it like orange and blue. Similar to contrast colour palettes, working with these colours can be risky if you’re not a professional, so we definitely recommend consulting with one.
So these are the most popular combinations that you can use when painting your house or apartment. But it’s important to remember that there are many other things you need to consider such as furniture, type and colour of the flooring, decorative pieces, and much more. Make your plans ahead of time and prepare yourself.
Painting tips for homeowners
To make things even easier, we’ve gathered some practical painting tips from professionals that you can implement into your project.
Match the walls with the furniture, not the other way around
Many people would first paint their walls and floors and then try to match all the furniture and decorations according to that. That is actually a lot more difficult to achieve. We recommend that you choose the furniture, decorations, and overall theme of your home first, and then match the paint with it.
For example, if you have a patterned rug or sofa, you can choose one of the dominating colours there and use it in the room. Doing so will help you create a cozy space that will not feel busy and uncoordinated.
Follow the 60-30-10 rule
This technique can be used when decorating and painting an empty room. It’s very useful because it can give you a simple plan to follow. It’s called “The 60-30-10” because most of the times, 60% of the room consists of the walls, 30% is the furniture and the other 10% are the decorations. You choose three colours that match and use them accordingly.
Go from dark to light shades
If you’ve already chosen the colours but you’re not sure how to use them exactly, we recommend putting the darker shades at the bottom – floor, rugs, etc. The medium ones, use for the furniture and lastly, the lighter colours should go for the curtains, ceiling, lampshades. It works especially well if you’re using earth tones because it imitates nature.
Contrasting warm and cold colours
A lot of people think that warm tones only go with warm colours but that is not correct. Honey shades go extremely well with the grey hues and some blue tones really fit certain red colours. We recommend that you go with similar combinations only for common living areas and not bedrooms since they are usually quite vibrant and will not help people sleep.
Conclusion
Certainly, our most important tip is to plan ahead. It will make the whole process a lot easier and will help you create a home that you will enjoy for many years to come. And if you need some help from a professional, be it with the painting or choosing a palette, don’t hesitate to reach out. It’s your home, at the end of the day, and it’s important to give it your best.
