Freshen Up Your Home With Colour

The colder months are an excellent time to freshen up the inside of your home with colour but settling on a colour scheme is not for the faint hearted.

The choice of colours seems unending and it's hard to imagine how those little paint chips on a colour card will look on a wall that is three metres high!

To help you through the process, the Rohm and Haas Paint Quality Institute has prepared some basic tips for creating a colour scheme that complements your home and lifestyle.

"Colour is a very personal issue," said Stephen Borrie, Paint Quality Institute Manager, Australia and New Zealand.

"Decorating with your own colour choices is what gives your home its distinct personality," he said. "You are the one who has to live with your colour scheme, so follow your instincts."

Look at the colour environment

Before you create your colour scheme, try and picture the environment in which it will be seen.

What looks appealing on a colour card might clash with other painted surfaces in a room or the carpets, rugs, furniture, drapes, paintings and ornaments in your home.

Often a good solution is to choose colours that complement the surrounds.

Understand how colour works

Before you choose a colour scheme it helps to understand how colour works.

Every colour has a relationship with all other colours and this is best illustrated using the colour wheel, a device invented by the English scientist, Sir Isaac Newton.

By gaining a basic understanding of the colour wheel, you will be able to select colour combinations that are likely to work in your home. The combinations are limitless but usually fall into one of four categories.

A monochromatic scheme employs one basic colour that is applied in different strengths. For example, you might choose to paint the ceiling in a light blue and use a darker blue on the windows, skirting boards and doors.

An adjacent colour scheme is where two or more colours are located next to each other on the colour wheel. Examples include blue, blue-green and blue violet.

Complementary colours are those on opposite sides of the colour wheel.

Examples include red and green, yellow and violet. To prevent these colours clashing it may be wise to select a subtle and a dominant colour.

A triadic scheme employs three colours that are equidistant on the colour wheel.

Examples include yellow-orange, or blue-green and red-violet. Unless you?/font>re aiming for a strongly contrasting scheme, choosing one dominant colour and two subtle accent colours will probably achieve the best result.

Change your home with colour

Colour is more than decoration. Used creatively, colour can visually change the size, shape and style of a room!

For example, a light, bright colour such as yellow can make a room appear larger than it is while dark shades will make the room seem smaller.

If you want to visually lengthen a square room, try painting one wall in a contrasting colour. To widen a long, narrow room, apply a deep colour to the two end walls and a lighter colour to the other walls.

If the ceilings are too low you can visually raise them without touching a hammer by painting the ceiling a lighter colour than the walls. Conversely, high ceilings can be lowered using a darker ceiling paint.

Colour can even change the temperature you feel in a room. Reds, oranges and yellows add warmth and cosiness while whites, blues and greens will make a room seem cooler.

Test before you buy

It is hard to imagine how a small paint chip will look when the colour is applied to a whole room so it pays to test your colour choices before purchasing the paint.

Some tips to help you evaluate your colour choices include:
  • Isolate your chosen colour on the colour card to reduce any influence the surrounding colour chips may have on the colour.
  • Certain colours change dramatically under different lights. Look at the colours in both artificial and natural light, and at different times of day and night.
  • Before painting an entire room apply the colour to a test area. Most quality paint manufacturers offer sample packs of paint colour as an inexpensive way to test colour before you buy the paint.
  • Be aware that colour tends to be much more intense on a large area than it is in a colour card or small paint chip.
  • Consider using computer based or touch screen visualisers provided by paint manufacturers to try some of the colours you like in room settings.

Choose quality

Regardless of the project, a quality approach to choosing colour will ensure you get the best possible result.

Manufacturers of top quality paint usually offer a wider range of colours, colour charts, colour chips and colour matching systems to help you achieve the look you want.

And their paint is formulated for tinting to achieve as closely as possible the colour you select from their range.

How do you identify top quality versus ordinary paint?

The Paint Quality Institute recommends that an excellent start is to ask the sales person at your local paint store for the top grade of 100 % acrylic paint in your favourite manufacturer?/font>s range.