3 Types of Color Schemes For Your Home
Have you ever set out to decorate a room from scratch? Just like an artist faced with a blank canvas, the prospect of picking colors and a stylistic direction for a room can be intimidating. How do you even begin? Sure, finding inspirational images on sites like Houzz or decorating magazines is a great start, but what if you can’t find exactly what you’re looking for? Luckily, designers have a few tricks we can borrow.
The Color Wheel
It all starts with the color wheel. Maybe you haven’t seen one of these since grade school, but color wheels are incredibly helpful when you’re choosing colors for your home. We could go into great depths when exploring color theory, but today we’ll keep it simple and look at three common ways to use a color wheel to come up with a color scheme.
Monochromatic
Photo by Mary Prince Photography
Working with a single color and exploring subtle variations of tint, shade, and tone can be a great way to create a cohesive look without over thinking the decorating process. This color scheme works well for the color shy, but can also be a fun way to celebrate a favorite color that may be on the bolder side.
Analogous
To create this type of scheme pick your color of choice off the color wheel and then look to either side of it for your additional colors. As with monochromatic schemes you can vary tint, shade, and tone to create an interesting, multi-layered effect. Rooms that rely on analogous colors can be soothing when lighter tints are used. They become much more lively when the more saturated versions of colors are used though.
Complementary
Decorating a room with complementary colors is not for the faint of heart. Complementary colors are direct opposites on the color wheel. The extreme contrast in color makes for an exciting and lively space. Exploring lighter tints of complementary colors will take away some of the intensity, and can look fantastic, especially in nurseries or children’s rooms where pastels are more commonplace.
Working With Your Color Scheme
One important thing to remember when picking a color scheme is that you are not constricted solely to 1-3 colors. White, black, or wood tones all act as neutral elements in a room. You can work your neutral colors in as much or as little as you want with your color(s) of choice.
Once you’ve picked out your perfect color scheme a high-quality painter can help you transform your room into the space of your dreams. If you live in the Northern Virginia area, contact us for your estimate today and learn how we can turn your decorating dreams into a reality.