Interior design is lots of fun, and most of us enjoy freshening up our space with new colors, furniture, art work, and accent pieces. Sometimes it is difficult to decide on a color scheme for your space-you love a lot of colors, but you aren’t sure what will work in your space. Check out these tips on design to help find a color palette that you will love for years to come:
1. Look to your closet. Your closet is like a diary-it holds all your style secrets. Glancing through your closet gives you an idea of your favorite color schemes, whether your prefer warm or cool tones, and any aversions you have to certain colors. Colors that you prefer to wear are often a good choice for your interior design color palette.
2. The 60-30-10 rule is your friend. Design experts swear by the 60-30-10 rule-60 percent of a room should be a dominant color, 30 percent of the room a secondary color, and 10 percent of the room an accent color.
3. Understand your lighting. Natural light reflects differently off paint and fabric than artificial light, and different types of lamps, recessed lighting, and light fixtures offer varying intensities and shades of light. If you have a room with a lot of windows and southern exposure, the light will be very bright and create a lot of shadows-mid-tone colors suit these rooms best as they are crisp during the day and rich at night. Windowless rooms (or rooms with small windows or northern exposure) tend to be cooler and have less direct sunlight, so a warmer color palette will brighten these rooms and make up for the lack of natural light. Once the sun goes down, keep in mind that incandescent lights are warmer, while fluorescent lights are cooler and tend to have a blueish tint.
4. Lighten up with height. Colors should be lighter as you move higher in the room. For example, if you want to put color on your ceilings, choose the same color as your walls, but one or two shades lighter. A room feels larger when there is minimal contrast between walls and ceilings.
5. Don’t be afraid of an open floor plan. Choosing a color palette for an open floor plan seems like a tricky task, but there are many tricks to help you along the way. A monochromatic color scheme breaks up the space and gives each area a unique feel. Another option is the three-color scheme-one color on all the walls, one color on all the trim, and one color on the ceiling. Bookcases and other storage furniture can be used to break up long walls-decorate the shelves with wallpaper or accent paint colors to add a different look. Rugs can be used to personalize each room, and separate the areas.
Please feel free to contact us for more information and design tips that will help you create an awesome interior space.