How to Effectively Use Color when Decorating Your Home

Color can become a vital component in the decorating of a home. Some interior decorators and designers even swear by the fact that color reigns above texture and layout when it comes to the success or failure of a home d©cor plan. Reasons for this perhaps surprising belief range from the way that colors can deceive visual perception to how it can be used to manipulate the emotional context of a room.

Visual perception can easily be stage-managed with proper attention to the use of colors in your decorating scheme. One section of the color spectrum provides the ability to stretch out a smaller room so that it looms larger. The opposite end of the color spectrum can be used when decorating a larger room so that it appears to be a cozier place to inhabit. This manipulation of space via color is based on the opposing properties of receding and advancing. Look to use warmer colors when you want to bring the walls and ceiling of a room closer to the spectator. To achieve the opposite effect, use cool colors, obviously.

Color as a decorating tool can be most effective when limited. Just as creativity in the arts can be spurred by the imposition of some censorship, so can painting your interior design with colors be made more vivid by limiting the palette. If you've got a small house or an apartment, you may be tempted to go all in by choosing an array of vibrant colors that you have divided according to rooms. For instance, you may go with a stark black and white monochromatic effect in one room, the warmth of red and pink in another room and earthy hues in yet another room. Using an abundance of colors for decorative effect in this way can result in overwhelming the senses. A much cheaper and potentially more effective decorating choice is to decide on two to four colors you really like and mix them up in each room. For instance, you might like peach walls with lime green trim in your bedroom. Reverse the situation and go with lime green walls with peach trim in the kitchen or bedroom. The rug in the living room may be dominated by red and light blue which can then be juxtaposed with painting the walls of an adjacent room light blue with red bordering along the top or bottom. Repetition of a small set of colors throughout the house provides an enhanced sense of rhythm and continuity.

One very valuable tool for utilizing color in your decorating plans is creative use of inequality. An equal distribution of color quickly becomes boring when compared to an artfully unequal distribution. Choose your colors well so that your primary color can be used to decorate about 66% of the area. This is usually accomplished by splashing the primary color on the walls or ceiling or on the floor. Even less boring is the application of a primary and secondary color on these surfaces. An easier method for creating imaginative use of inequality in the application of color is to cover the major surfaces of the room with your primary color. The remaining third of the room can then be decorated with your secondary color courtesy of furnishings, drapes, wall hangings and trim.

Color choice can become an effective starting point for your entire decorating plan. Some rooms cry out for choosing color first based on the interior design. If you've got a room with oversized windows, for instance, you probably want to attack the question of color choices for decorating those elements and then build the rest of the d©cor around that choice. If you've got an expensive rug or carpet that catches the eye with its patterns and designs, then you've got the perfect object in the room around which to develop your choices for color when decorating the walls, ceiling and furnishings.

The one mistake you don't want to make when you decide to decorate a room is to overlook the value and power of color. The right choice in color can go a long way toward helping you to overcome some existing or potential problems. On the other hand, choosing the wrong color can act like a bomb that explodes in the face of a carefully constructed decorating scheme based on patterns, textures and shapes.