Colour Theory: How to use paint to create visual effects in your home

Not everyone is lucky enough to live in houses that are in proportion, Do you have awkward shaped ceilings, low ceilings? Small narrow hallways and tiny little box rooms you don't know what to do with?

If this sounds like your place then don't worry, there is a paint technique that can help minimise all the awkward spaces that we all have in our homes. Let me show you how....

 

Using Colour to make a tall ceiling appear lower

 

Using a darker tone on the ceilings and by bringing the colour slightly down the wall, as demonstrated in these pics, helps visually lower the height of a space and also creates a feeling of intimacy. You don't have to go for black, as these pictures show, just use a colour that is slightly darker than your wall paint to achieve the same effect.  

 

Using Colour to make a low ceiling appear taller

There are a few ways to help make a low ceiling appear taller. One of these is to paint vertical stripes on the wall, but that's quite a statement and not to everyones taste!

A simpler way is to paint the ceiling lighter than the walls, the ceiling will appear to float above the walls and give you the perceived height you are after. 

Another option, if you have any moulding or cornice, is to paint this the same colour as the walls and again paint the ceiling a lighter shade than the walls.

The last option, and my particular favourite, is to paint everything the same colour, your skirting, walls and ceiling all one colour! Your traditional painter and decorator may have kittens when you ask them to do this but trust me this is the best way to make your room appear bigger. The boundaries of where the wall ends and the ceiling begins are blurred and without this definition of the boundaries between wall and ceiling the eye will read it as one thus giving you the height you want.

 

Using Colour to make a small room appear bigger

I imagine this is probably one of the key problems many of you face as not many of us are blessed with massive rooms. One of the most commonly held beliefs about how the best way to make your room feel larger is to paint everything in similar tonal light colours. When there isn't a huge variation in colour between the floor, walls and ceiling you create a feeling of space as your eye can't detect any definite edges, I appreciate that not everyone wants to rip up the carpets that they have and paint the floorboards a colour to match the walls and ceilings to help create that feeling of space, but what you can easily do is paint the walls and ceiling the same colour, this alone will help make the space feel airier and grander instantly. The use of lots of reflective surfaces, i.e mirrors and the like also help bounce light around the room, but more of that later! 

I believe and many others do too, that if you have a really small box like room or hallways with not much natural light the best thing to do is not fight it and to embrace the darkness and paint everything in a dark colour. This has the same effect of blurring the boundaries of where the the floor finishes, the walls finish and the ceiling starts. If painting your room a really dark colour is a little frightening then another quick and easy way to make your room feel bigger is by painting your hallway in a dark colour so all the rooms leading off it will feel large and brighter and airier by comparison. You don't have to go really dark, just a couple of tones darker than any of the other rooms will give you the desired effect.

 

Using Colour to make a floor area seem bigger

 

 

An easy way to make the floor area seem bigger is to paint the skirting boards the same colour as the floor, again this helps blur the boundaries of where the floor finishes and the skirting begins and gives the illusion that its all one expanse.

If this isn't possible in your house the use of one single colour or material on the floor will help create a seamless transition through the rooms of your house and will help make the floor area seem bigger as there isn't any break point. You can do this by having one single colour carpet or tiles run throughout your home or you if you have wooden floor boards you can choose skirting boards in the same colour to achieve the same effect.

 

I hope this helps give you an idea as to how you can use colour to create visual effects in your own house, If you have any other queries about how to decorate your room in order to maximise the feeling of space or help hide any awkward small spaces then please get in touch, I would love to help

Colour Theory: Colour in Interior Design

So even though I'm a big fan of neutral and restrained colour in interiors I appreciate that not everyone else is and whilst you are can be a big fan of colour you may not be sure what colours go with what and how to get the exact scheme you are looking for. Well let me help you with my little go to guide on colour schemes, and once you know what the rules are you can go about breaking them and creating your own unique scheme.

Interior Designer Cheshire

One of the most fail safe and easiest ways to pick a colour scheme is by using a colour wheel, this is something that anyone who has studied art or works in any of the creative industries is fully familiar with using and it is an easy way to see what colours go with what.

The Colour Wheel is made up of 12 Hues (Colours), these are then divided into what are commonly referred to as 'Cool' colours (Yellow-Green through to Violet) and "Warm' Colours (Red-Violet through to Yellow).

They are further divided into:

Primary colours: these are colours which cannot be produced by mixing any other paint colours, they are essentially ‘Pure’ Colours and are specifically Red,  Yellow and Blue.

Secondary colours  are made by mixing two equal amounts of the Primary Colours together, so Blue and Yellow mixed create Green, Red and Yellow create Orange and Blue and Red create Purple.

Tertiary colours are made by mixing one primary colour with an adjacent secondary colour, there are 6 in total; red-orange, Yellow-orange, yellow-green, blue-green, blue-violet, red-violet

 

So now we know the basics how can we use this to create a scheme?

Complementary Colour Schemes

 

Complementary colours are ones that are opposite each other on the colour wheel. So for example, Orange and Blue, Purple and Yellow, Pink and Green.

These colours naturally ‘complement’ each other and they tend to create bolder and dramatic colour schemes.  A complementary scheme is believed to provide the ideal balance in a room as it includes both a warm and cool hue.

Different tints and tones can be used to help soften this look if the boldness of using strong colours doesn't appeal to you.

It is best to pick one of the colours to be more dominant of the two otherwise they will fight for attention and subsequently cancel each other out.  Adding neutrals, such as white, grey, cream, helps to balance and ground a complementary scheme and helps to create a sense of harmony.

 

Monochromatic Colour Scheme

 

Contrary to popular belief a Monochromatic Colour Scheme isn't made up of black and white but it's one where different tints, tones and shades of one colour are solely used. If you think of the colour card strips you get from Dulux and Crown this gives you an idea of what a Monochromatic Scheme would look like as they take one colour and then provide you with the tints, tones and shades of that colour.

To stop these interiors becoming one dimensional, shifts in tone and intensity of colour and also using plenty of neutral colours can help provide depth, interest and contrast.

To be a fully Monochromatic colour scheme you should only use one segment of the colour wheel i.e  All tones and shades of red, rather than mixing red and red-orange

 

Harmonious Colour Schemes

 

Adjacent, Harmonious or Analogous colour schemes all mean the same thing and are schemes where colours that sit next to each other on the colour wheel are used. Up to 3 or 4 colours can be used within the one colour scheme.

This type of scheme works best when the colours share the same tonal value and intensity.

An adjacent colour scheme can result in a very balanced scheme that is easy on the eye and you can use neutrals in this scheme to help provide some tonal contrast.

 

So we've talked about Neutral Colours a lot but what exactly are they??

Neutral Colours

A Neutral Colour is a colour that doesn’t appear on the colour wheel, i.e White, Cream, Beige, Taupe and Black.

They are also sometimes referred to as ‘Earth’ colours as they take their colour from natural earth products such as stone etc

Neutrals can make spaces feel airy and relaxing or timeless and refined but when not executed correctly they can quite easily create a very bland one dimensional interior.

To counter act this mixing lots of textures and neutral tonal values can help create depth and interest in a room.

Adding black to the scheme can add definition to the scheme whilst a little white can add a freshness and crispness

Neutrals can often be used as a background colour, to provide a canvas on which you can experiment with accent colours, just look at the way the red shoes in the image above 'pops' out against the neutral background, imagine this now was a cushion or throw and the impact it could have in the room!

 

So now you know the rules you can go ahead and break them! 

I'll be completely honest, I have never used a colour wheel to design and plan the colour schemes in any of my houses preferring to go with my gut and doing what I think is right so my recommendation is to have fun with paint, its only paint after all.

I'd love to see some of your colour schemes, so please feel free to leave some pics on my Facebook page!