How To Pick the Right Colours for Your Room.

A quick guide to choosing the right colour scheme when you decorate a room.

Firstly what colours you use will depend on certain things:

Is the room a ‘blank canvas’ as in you have moved into a new house, flat or apartment and there are no existing furniture, curtains, carpets etc. The room will be empty as you begin to plan it.

Or if not / The room already has a mixture of items in it some you will keep and some you will not be re-using in the new interior design.

Or/ You can only change the colour of the walls with a coat of paint everything else has to remain. So what colours you will use will have to be picked to go with what must remain.

The first option is probably the most desirable i.e. the ‘blank canvas’ but without any predetermined things to include. However as you will be free to pick from a wider range of colours starting to choose what colours and furnishings will go into the room may make it harder to select your colour palette for the room. If that is the case think of it like this once you have made a major purchase such as floor covering and furniture in time you are likely to paint the walls several times more before you replace say the carpet or sofa & chairs. Therefore it might be a good starting point to look for the furniture and carpet first. Once you know your colours for that you can pick your curtains/blinds/rugs, cushions and paint colours to go with the furniture you will be buying.

A ‘mood board’ can be a useful starting point.

To make a ’mood board which is a board/or sheet of paper with a collection of colours, fabrics and interior ideas that you like...

Gather together curtain fabric swatches, paint chart samples, wall paper samples, magazine cuttings of rooms that you like, pages from furniture catalogues and then cut them out and stick them onto a large piece of paper or card. You can even start from picking a photo or painting that has colours in that you like and then build your mood board around that.

If you are trying to pick a colour theme for a room that you share and the other persons taste in décor differs from your own make a ‘mood board’ each. It will then make it easier when you look at them together to compile a mood board together of ideas you both like.

For anyone having to put together ideas for a room with existing items take photos of the furniture or cut pictures from furniture suppliers catalogues onto the mood board at the start. You will then be able to build your ideas and colour schemes around them.

When picking paint colours for your walls ask yourself if you want all the walls the same colour or do you want one or more walls to be feature walls. If you wish you can have the same colour on all the walls but vary the shade by picking a tint or tone of your selected colour; so that one or more walls are a darker shade. Or you can be really bold and pick two or more colours that are a dramatic contrast. Small tester pots of paint are sold so try them on the walls and check them before you buy your paint to avoid exspensive mistakes. Remember colours look different in sunlight to artificial light. Also the colour you are painting over will dictate how many coats of paint you need to cover the wall surface; that means light(old colour) to dark (new) will require less than trying to cover a dark painted wall with a light colour. Sometimes it is easier to paint a layer of white paint over a very dark colour before you begin to decorate the room in the shade you have picked.

It is possible to take a swatch of fabric a cushion or anything else that you like the colour of and match it to the colour charts used by paint manufacturers in the stores that will mix the paint shade you want especially for you. This can work well, as it is possible to have the same shade made up in different finishes of paint such as matt, flat matt, silk vinyl, egg shell or gloss. The range of colours is larger and it can be easier to find shades that compliment your exsisting decor.

Regarding the use of colour one of the other things to consider is the lighting in the room both in the day and at night; look at the colours you are interested in at different times of the day. For example is the room cold looking in that case you might need to pick warmer colours and steer clear of colder blue tones and greys; paint companies offer advice about this in their booklets and charts.

Also it is worth considering do some colours make you feel happier, more relaxed and what mood do you want the colour scheme of your room to make you feel when you use it.

Most of all you need to pick something that you really like and can live with, whether it is calm, vibrant or dramatic you are the one who will be living with it. At least until you re-decorate it.