Picking the right colours for your home
You see a fabulous picture of a home in a magazine article. You walk into your friend's fabulous living room. You are bombarded with fabulous images of celebrity homes on television. However, when you try to incorporate these designs into your own home, your home turns out to be miles away from the neighbourhood of fabulous. Are you tired of your home feeling like the before picture? Do you ever feel like there are some secrets everyone else but you knows?
Decorating can be made simple and done without spending a massive fortune by understanding a few basic tenets of design. You do not have to have an artist's touch to create a refined and polished home. Think about those moments where applying a touch of red lipstick instantly dramatises your face, or putting on a blue power suit instantly transforms your mood.
The same rules apply to decorating: Choosing the right colour is the key to embarking upon a home that is stylish and suitable and for you.
Colour is the basic issue that needs to be addressed from the beginning of decorating, says Gunn Yamasmit, managing director of Big Trees Design 39, an experimental and visionary interior design studio in Thailand. The effects of various colours can virtually alter the shape and ambience of a room. Choosing the correct colour for a room depends on the dimensions and purpose of the room.
Interior design experts at a local US company, Valerie DuVall Interiors, differentiate colours between warm and cool tones to reflect various mood. Red, orange and yellow fall into the warm family, while shades of blue, green and purple are classified as cool colours. Designers at Valerie DuVall Interiors suggest that warm colours can be used to create dramatic and passionate feelings.
For example, red can evoke feelings of intimacy or stimulate the appetite, thus can be used in a bedroom or dining room. Orange is also a bold colour, but not as harsh as red, thus is an appropriate choice for a living room to create an inviting feeling. Yellow is perfect to light up a drab room, and has been shown to evoke feelings of happiness.
However, experts at Valerie DuVall Interiors warn that bright yellow can be too strong and may actually cause anxiety in infants, young children and the elderly.
For more appropriate colours for a children's room, Yamasmit suggests using cool and light tones. Designers at Valerie DuVall Interiors suggest that colours such as blue, green and purple create sentiments of serenity and calmness. These colours are reminiscent of beautiful aspects of nature such as oceans, meadows and flowers, and can be used to create soothing effects. Shades of blue are very effective for children's bedrooms.
However, experts say that contrary to red, blue supresses the appetite, so it is not an effective choice for a dining room. Green can be used anywhere in the home, and is very popular as a trimming for kitchens and bathrooms. Purple has not been a popular choice for homes in the past, but at Valerie DuVall Interiors, designers experiment with adding more shades of red to purples to create a softer hue. With a blushing shade of purple, it is an ideal colour for children's play areas or study rooms.
Once colour has been established to set the mood a room, it can also be altered to change the dimensions of a room. Yamasmit states that the basic rules is to always start with a lighter colour for the ceiling than the walls, and darker colours for the floors. The colour that is chosen for the ceilings and walls must blend in and come from the same colour family to create a wholesome effect.
When choosing shades of colours for a room, using a paler or darker version of a colour also makes a difference to the proportions of the room. Pale colours make walls recede, while dark ones bring them in. To make a room bigger, accentuate its width through horizontal bands, says Yamasmit. The same principle that is applied to clothing, where horizontal stripes can make a person look wider, can also be applied to rooms.
In order to receive the best results, experimentation with colour is necessary. Yamasmit advises that if you are not sure about one colour you can experiment by painting just one wall before you decide to do the whole room. You can view the room during the nighttime and daytime to see if it feels right.
If you find yourself panicking while looking at your bright orange walls and green ceiling right now, do not fret! Just cautiously pick up the paint brush and use the helpful tips in this article to guide you.
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