Colour has such an impact on the overall aesthetic of your home, so it pays to think carefully when choosing the right paint colour scheme. 

Colour often sets the tone of a room, so choosing the right paint colour scheme to adopt for your home is a significant decision. Despite this, it may surprise you to know that many interior designers actually recommend leaving the selection of your interior wall colours until last. Why? Because it’s often far easier to change the colour of your walls than the colour of your furnishings.

There is no right or wrong way to choose a colour scheme. The appeal of colour is so subjective that following a set of rules or this year’s style trend won’t make you happy in your home if it doesn’t suit you. Rather than following trends or consulting the colour wheel, you may prefer to choose shades that reflect your personality and style. Here are some tips for choosing the right paint colour scheme for your home.

Start with room elements

When starting with a blank space, resist the temptation to choose your paint colour scheme first. Paints can easily be matched to any furnishing, artwork, or wallpaper, making it far easier to select the room’s other elements first. You may find while furnishing the room that you come across a painting or rug featuring a colour you would never have selected for your space had you not waited. 

However, there are some features that you may find easier to choose once your colour scheme is firmly in place. Light fixtures and security doors are just some of the home elements that many homeowners forget to colour match to their scheme. You may need to hunt around for the right light fixtures to suit your palette, and security screen doors can be powder coated in a colour of your choice to either match or highlight your colour scheme. 

Look for inspiration

Trying to imagine how a colour scheme will look once applied can be tricky, so it can help to scour the internet and lifestyle magazines for inspiration. While you know your home won’t look exactly the same as in the picture, having a jumping-off point is helpful. When choosing your colour scheme this way, pay careful attention to the proportions of each colour and shade so that you can recreate the aesthetic – an imbalance of hues can throw off the whole look and turn a chic styling choice into a jumbled mess.

Consider balance

In decorating terms, the ‘value’ of a colour refers to how light or dark it is. To create a cohesive paint colour scheme, a mix of values within your painting project can help to keep a multi-hued palette from looking chaotic. To get the right balance, try selecting one dark colour, one light colour, and one bright colour in each room. 

Plan for the whole home 

When selecting colours, it’s not just about one room. While you don’t need to carry every colour throughout each room, the colour scheme of a whole home should flow. You might choose a bright colour for your entrance hall and convey that colour as an accent into your living and dining rooms, bringing out the light colour as the feature in those rooms. The easiest way to select a cohesive colour scheme for your whole home is to draw a plan of your home and list what will be in each room, such as the carpet, artwork and furniture. That way, you can find the focal points and feature colours in your furnishings and plan your paint colour scheme accordingly.

Consider your outdoor spaces

When your home has large windows or glass doors, you also need to be mindful of how your colour scheme will look against your outdoor spaces. If your garden is overwhelmingly full of bright foliage and vibrant flowering plants, you may find that a pastel scheme for your interior clashes with the garden backdrop. 

Choose colours to complement the outdoor spaces you can see from the inside, paying particular attention to your fences and outdoor furnishings. You can easily have outdoor paint made up in the same hue as your indoor accent colour and have your fence painted to match your home’s colour scheme.

Consider how the light will affect the colour

Few people pay attention to the impact of lighting on colour schemes before it’s too late. Consider; colour is a reflection of light. Therefore, the type of lighting in a room will affect how well the colours work.

A room that enjoys a lot of natural light will be the easiest to style because daylight is considered the perfect light source – it has nearly uniform intensity over the entire visible spectrum of colours. Be wary, though, that natural light changes from sunrise to sunset, so you will need to paint samples of your colour choices on different walls and spend time throughout the day watching how the colour changes with the light. 

When considering colour schemes for rooms that use a lot of unnatural light, it’s good to remember that different kinds of electrical light project different shades and hues. Incandescent light bulbs, for example, emit a redder and warmer light than natural sunlight. On the other hand, fluorescent lamps generally create a bluer, cooler light. To get the right hue from your paint colour of choice, you may need to have your electrician replace your lights, especially if that room is mainly used at night.

Colour schemes for open floor plans

It can be more challenging to select a colour scheme for a home with an open floor plan. While you don’t have to dress each area within the space in the exact same hues, you will need to carefully consider how each area flows into the next one. An easy way to achieve a cohesive look is to select a series of two or three feature colours for your whole home and change the proportion of each colour to define different spaces. 

When transitioning between colours, let the architecture of your home guide you. Look for corners and transition areas to work as natural places to stop and start a paint colour. If you have trouble deciding where to transition between colours, talk to your painter in advance of buying the paint. 

In summary

Choosing colours for your home should be fun, not stressful. Select mindfully, considering your furnishings and the flow of your home. Most importantly: don’t rush! Take the time to consult with your painter and sample as many colours as you need to be happy with your choice.

If you want professional help choosing the right paint colour scheme for your home, Jim’s Painting is just a phone call away. For lighting installations to showcase your home, contact Jim’s Electrical. Phone 13 15 46 for more information or to arrange a free consultation and quote.