Home Décor Colors
Most people are scared to death to attempt their own home decorating, therefore they spend big bucks to hire a professional decorator. Emphasizing interesting architectural colors in your home is really very simple, interesting, and fun once you get the hang of it.
Before you start, look at the natural light that illuminates your room. General illumination is your background ambient lighting and it is usually the foundation as you start to decorate. Think about adding focal or task lighting as a directive sense it creates a bright spot that draws our attention to a particular element of activity or center, but be careful as task lighting tends to create shadows. Basic in lighting is the cool northern light which renders colors more accurately than does the light from the south. It is more intense and even, providing steady levels of illumination. Keep lighting in mind because it will have an effect on the colors you choose.
Now then, what is your favorite color or colors? A color wheel is the first thing a professional decorator will show you. To analyze color relationships observe how the color wheel is divided; it has three color types, primary, secondary and tertiary.
- The three primary colors are red, yellow, and blue. As you learned in elementary school, these are the pure colors in the spectrum and can not be made by mixing others colors together.
- Then you have three secondary colors which are orange, green, and violet made by equally mixing any two of the primary colors together.
- The six tertiary colors which are yellow, orange, red-orange, red-violet, blue-violet, blue-green, and yellow-green are all created by mixing in equal parts with an adjacent secondary color.
The next step will be to evaluate the three basic decorating schemes based on these colors.
- Analogous or monochromatic is an approach that is nearly always successful using colors that are adjacent on the color wheel. Different shades of the same color also work very well together.
- Triadic scheme incorporates three colors equidistant from each other on the wheel, such as yellow, red, or blue.
- Contrasting scheme focuses on colors opposite each other on the wheel, known as complementary colors. When used in this manner it offers a vibrant appearance, therefore you would want to use one as a main color and the other as an accent.
To achieve your goal go to an arts and crafts store and buy a cheap water color set and start mixing and matching colors together until you find your eye’s delight.
A few other tips in using color are to emphasize interesting architectural features such as beautiful moldings with a contrasting color. You want to make ugly obnoxious radiators or the like go away by painting them the same color as the walls. Make a long rectangular room appear wider by painting the end walls a warm color or the side walls a cool color. In a small house you want to also use a light flooring color the same as the walls or lighter to fool the eyes; making it look bigger.
Category: Home Improvement, Home maintenance
