“Colour is a power which directly influences the soul.” – Wassily Kandinsky
The standard color design guideline is the 60 – 30 – 10 rule (of course, rules are made to be broken but here it is anyway). The dominant color should generally be 60% of the room (walls, rugs, some furniture pieces); the secondary color should generally be 30% of the room (some furniture, curtains) and the third color should generally be 10% (pillows, art, books, frames, etc.). However, what I am saying is that generally you will match three colors based on the color blogs from earlier weeks. So then, keep in mind the function of the room so the feeling you want to display uses the color to give it that feeling.
Then, after the previous lessons, you might have an idea or a few things written down that can push you in a color scheme direction. For example, if there are pieces of furniture that you are keeping in the room; you may decide to get rid of everything in the room and start from scratch; you might have seen a pattern somewhere, or even a color from a room that you really like, and would like to use as the start of your color scheme; just decide to start with your favorite color.
If you would like to see some images for ideas, CLICK HERE.
- keeping pieces in the room: if there are one or more pieces in that room that you are attached to, or for one reason or another that you’d like to keep (or maybe even because of the budget), try to find a color that stands out that might match all of the pieces in your design plan. The pieces that are remaining might be the determining factor for which style the room will be going in – like you wouldn’t necessarily put a Queen Anne chair in the same style of a room that will be styled to compliment a mid-century chair.
- starting from scratch: then anything goes since the room is expected to be empty of everything and you are choosing from paint to furniture to rugs to accessories.
- a specific pattern: if some pattern or color palette meets your eye and you would like to design from that, you can know that those colors will be harmonious because they have likely been chosen by a company that has designers or creators on staff for that exact purpose. A quick tip: if you have a favorite bedspread or comforter that you use for your bed, use that color palette and your colors are already harmonious.
- your favorite color: if you start here, just refer to the previous lessons to be able to put together your own color scheme. A quick tip: the paint sample cards from the paint store can be a big help in putting colors together, there are some that put colors together for you such as outdoor paint charts.
In addition, there is one other thing I would like to touch on. If you want a room change but don’t want to go the whole way, maybe you like everything the way it is but just want a different look, in that case here is a budget friendly option… change the wall and ceiling paint color, add a new rug even if you already have wall to wall rugs (you can put an area rug down over the wall to wall rugs) and give the floor a different look, and add some new pillows or art or focal point of some kind and voila you have a new room design.
If you live in a rental, you can get a room change even though you can’t paint the walls. In this case you put up some wall fabric or even use removable wallpaper to change the style or feeling of the room.
Next time I will lightly touch on furniture styles. It will just be styles that are likely to be used in today’s residential homes.
