By Zeina Badawi
Choosing Colours for your Home
The colours of the rooms in your home are a direct reflection of your personality. While most of us may not spend a lot of time thinking about room colour, it affects us every day. Room colour can influence our moods and our thought. This is why choosing colours for your home is an important decision to make.
Colour is powerful. It is stimulating, healing, soothing and fun. It is also a big commitment. When you understand how the temperature of a colour affects how it’s perceived, you can use that knowledge to design colour schemes that work for you.
Choose your Colours Wisely
To choose successfully, ask yourself the following questions. What mood do you want to create? Which colours will help you achieve that mood? Is it a social room or a private room?
Cool colours are best in private rooms where concentration, calmness and rest are most important, such as the bedroom, office or nursery.
Cold colours, such as Green, Blue, Violet and their combinations bring to mind blue sky and cold water and are soothing and calming. It seems that each colour has its own unique psychological value. The blue side of the spectrum along with cool browns and grays and the cool of whites possess all of the qualities of coolness in that they are calming, focusing and soothing to our INTELLECT, which craves a cooler atmosphere. These colours quiet the emotions and sharpen our thoughts, allowing our mind to do its best work.
Warm colours work really well in the social rooms of your house.
Warm colours such as on Red, Orange, Yellow and their combinations make you think about sun and fire which is warming. These colours and all the off whites that tend to go this direction possess all the qualities of warmth. They are hot, stimulating and soothing to our EMOTIONS, which crave warmth.
The changing tones of colour depending on accompanying shades
Some tones of violet might seem cool while some others warm. If you place any shade of violet next to a warm red then the violet seems cooler. If you place the same hue next to a light blue then it will seem warmer.
In the first image, the violet wall seems cooler. In the second the violet wall seem warmer
If you paint a room red or orange and an adjoining room blue, then each space will seem more warm or cool. Similarly, in the same room, cool walls will make a red sofa or a wooden floor seem warmer.
Now, it’s your turn. I invite you to work colour into your home and share the results with us. That’s the fun part.
