Choosing the Right Color Scheme for Your Home
The color of a home is one of the things that guests will notice first when they come inside your house. To make sure that you choose the right color scheme for your home, it’s best to select a general tone and use a color wheel for the complementing shades.
Color is often the first thing that comes to mind when you
think of designing your home, and understandably so. It’s the first thing
people notice when they walk into a room, and the last thing they forget once
they leave. It’s also the color you’ll be looking at for the next few years,
unless you can afford to repaint your house every week. That’s why it’s
important to think long and hard about your home’s color scheme.
So how do you choose the right colors for your home? The
first step is deciding on a general tone. Do you want your room warm or cool? Warm
colors like red, orange, and yellow are cozy and relaxing, while cool colors like
blue and violet are more soothing. You can use warm and cool in combination,
but one should always be dominant.
Next, you need to consult a color wheel. It sounds
elementary, but it does help you see how certain colors will work together.
There are four types of color combinations: monochromatic, complimentary, analogous,
and triadic.
- A monochromatic scheme uses different shades, tones, and tints of one
color. It’s the easiest scheme to work with since you only have to mix white
into one color, but it can also make your home dull and redundant. You have to
be sure you can live with one color for a long time. You can introduce variety
in other ways such as changing the texture or introducing white or black.
- The complementary scheme combines two complementary colors—colors placed
opposite each other in the color wheel. Complementary colors are complete opposites
in tone and hue, providing a contrast between light and dark, cool and warm.
Examples are yellow and violet, blue and orange, and red and green. A split
complementary is a subtype wherein you take one color and complement it with
the two colors beside its opposite.
- Analogous schemes involve any three adjacent
colors. The effect is similar to the monochromatic scheme, except that there’s
a bit more variety. Red, yellow and orange is one of the most popular analogous
combinations.
- Finally, the triadic scheme uses three colors placed at an equal distance from
each other on the wheel. This usually means the three primary colors, the three
secondary colors, or any three of the tertiary colors.
Your next decision will be the tone and value of your
colors. The tone determines how bright and reflective the color is; the value
is how much black or white is mixed in with the color. Adding a lot of white to
a color creates a pastel shade. You can use tone and value to create illusions
in your room. If your room is small, you can make it seem bigger by using lots
of pastel color. Paint a ceiling darker than the walls to make it seem lower,
or lighter to make it seem higher. To make your colors come out, add blocks of
black or white to provide contrast.