How to Choose a Color Scheme: 8 Tips to Get Started
As a Custom Home Builder and Custom Home Designers we know how difficult it can be to choose the right color scheme to your dream house. As a home owner, you will need to make a thousand decisions while building or remodeling. Choosing the color scheme is one of them.
To help you, we chose 8 tips that will make it a little easier:
Tip #1. Choose a color scheme from the largest pattern in the space.
If you’ve got patterned upholstery, an Oriental rug or large piece of artwork, pluck colors you like from the pattern. For a neutral wall paint color, look to the pattern’s whites and beiges.
Tip #2. Start with the formal areas of the house.
Specifically, the living room, dining room and entry way. Choose a color scheme for those areas first, and then pull one color from the scheme. For example, take the red sofa and tone it down (say, to burgundy) for an accent in more private spaces such as the den, office or bedroom.
Tip #3. Decorate your space from dark to light, vertically.
A real “cookbook” way to make any space look good without much risk, designer says, is to use darker color values for the floor, medium color values for the walls and light values for the ceiling.
“Any interior space replicates the outside world,” they say. “The exterior environment is generally darker below our feet (the earth itself), medium-valued as you look straight ahead (buildings/trees) and lighter values skyward.”
Tip #4. Study the color of your clothes.
Most people buy clothes in colors they like to wear and think they look good in. Similarly, you should decorate your rooms in colors you look good in. The colors of the rooms in your home are a direct reflection of your personality. While most of us may not spend a lot of time thinking about room color, it affects us every day. Room color can influence our moods and our thoughts.
Tip #5. Use the color wheel.
In general, analogous color schemes – colors next to each other on the color wheel, such as blue and green – are more casual and relaxing, and work best in informal or private spaces. This is a good strategy for a bedroom, where you want to rest and recover. There is so many colors to choose from, and the color wheel will help you to combine different colors and make any room look fabulous.
Tip #6. Use the rule of 60-30-10.
When decorating a space, divide the colors in the space into components of 60 percent of a dominant color, 30 percent of a secondary color and 10 percent of an accent color. The walls will most likely be the majority, the upholstery would represent the secondary color and accessories such as a floral arrangement or throw pillows would make up the rest. The colors are properly balanced and there is a shot of color (the 10 percent color) for interest.
Tip #7. Go with the architecture.
If you have a small room in your house, don’t paint it white to make it seem bigger. Instead, cozy up to its architecture with a rich, warm color scheme. Let your big rooms expand with light, and your small rooms wrap you up and nurture you.
Tip #8. Follow your personal style.
Be confident and add something that describes you. Add your own taste to the mix of things, like a nice faux finish design. Be creative and enjoy it.
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