Basic Tips for Decorating With Color

Color is one of the most important aspects of any rooms design. It can also be one of the most frustrating parts of decorating a space. Trying to find the right color to create the right atmosphere, and then trying to choose other colors to compliment and match it, while trying to keep everything from clashing, can become a very complex process. Luckily there are many tricks you can use to help you make the perfect color decisions for your home.

Warm Vrs. Cool Colors

All colors have a temperature. Warm colors simulate fire and heat, and consist of reds, yellows, and oranges. Cool colors consist of greens and blues, which make you think of ice, snow, or a shaded wood. If you take a standard color wheel and cut it down the middle, you will find that warm colors end up on one side, and cool colors are on the other.

Warm colors tend to be more exciting. They raise peoples metabolism, and make them more active. They also make people hungrier, and more aggressive. Use these colors as a way of making a room interesting, and in spaces where you want to encourage interaction.

Cool colors tend to relax people, and make them slow down. These colors are good if you want to create a peaceful escape, or if you are trying to create a place where people remain sedate.

Dark Vrs. Light Colors

Dark colors make things seem smaller. If you paint a room a dark color, it will cause the walls to visually collapse in, and will make the space seem smaller and cozier. By contrast light colors tend to make objects seem larger, and will make that same room seam roomier.

Lighter colors can also be used to make a ceiling seem higher. Most decorative schemes use light colors on the ceiling, as this simulates nature. However, if your room has a vaulted ceiling that makes it seem distant and remote, you may want to use a darker color to give the space a cozier feel.

Size & Color Intensity

Basically, if you have a large room, you don't want to fill it with a variety of intense colors, as it will be difficult to draw the space together into a single whole. Instead you should use lighter tones throughout, to create a harmonious pattern that makes the entire space seem like a single room.

If you have a smaller space, you may want to create the illusion of more room by adding rich, vibrant tones throughout it. This will make it look as if more is going on in the space than really is.

How You Feel

These are really only general suggestions as to how to use color in a space. The most important factor is psychological, and is based on how you and the others in the building feel in the room. Color is a very important and very personal aspect, and has to be used with the mental state of the occupants kept in view.