Your house is the place you spend your life in. You live in it, you make
memories in it, you invite the people you care about in it. It more or less is
a living testimony to the life you have spent. Thus your house should be
nothing less than a reflection of your personality and nothing screams who you
really are more than the colours you choose to paint your house in.
Thus if your style includes loud and exuberant colours and bold hues, do
not at all be reluctant in using such colours to paint your rooms in. Even if,
in your opinion, that colour would not go well with the age and architecture of
your home.
From the blue-painted hearth of a Colonial Revival to the deep red parlour
walls of a Queen Anne to the teal accents of a Craftsman bungalow, there has
always been a place for colour inside the house. Even in today's open-plan
homes, where kitchens, living rooms, and dining rooms are often one large
space, colour is used to help define interiors and create focal points in
relatively featureless rooms. The trick, of course, is figuring out which colours
to use and where to put them.
Choose Colour based on Architecture.
Among the many methods to choose the hue of colour that could completely
transform the room in the most effective of ways is to play up its architectural
features. Moulding, mantels, built-in bookcases, arched doorways, wainscot,
windows, and doors all offer an opportunity to add another layer of interest to
coloured walls.
- If you going to add a little bit of
shady work.....
To bring attention to detail you can always add a subtle shift in colour
by painting the moulding one shade lighter or darker than the wall it is
adjacent to. Painting a metallic glaze right on top of an existing painted
element, like a ceiling medallion, is another way to draw attention. You can also achieve the same effect by adding
a copper or bronze finish. It is very translucent and gives a nice shimmer that
enhances the architectural feature of the space it is being used on.
- If you are going
to go bold....
For a bolder approach, try using two different colours in the same room.
Like, you can always paint a built-in bookcase or niche a shade of green in a
room with blue walls, which will highlight the items on the bookcase or inside
the recessed area.
- If you are going
to use the same colour....
Of course, architectural elements can also provide continuity throughout
a house if they are painted the same colour in every room. Just make sure you
use different hues of the same colour to compliment the lightening of the room.
Starting in the Federal period and continuing today, white and off-white have
been the traditional choice for moulding, windows, and doors so you can always
choose that, paired with a bold choice for trimming if you’d like.
- If you want a room with a view, sheesh.. my bad! A Wainscot…
A room containing wainscot provides a good opportunity for a contrast
between light and dark. A dark wainscot below a bright wall will draw attention
to the upper walls, while a bright white wainscot next to a coloured wall will
focus the eye on the wainscot.
You can also use paint to create the effect of wainscot where it doesn't
exist by covering the bottom third of the wall in one colour and the upper
walls in another; then place a piece of flat moulding along the intersection
and paint it the colour of the lower wall to reinforce the wainscot look.
I hope all that makes sense to you as it does to me.
- If “accent” is
your cup of tea...
To add a little drama to a plain featureless room you can always add a
little oomph by painting an “accent wall” in a vivid and gorgeous hue. If drama
is your goal, you might rethink the entire notion of painting a wall from
corner to corner and you'll create an architectural emphasis where one doesn't
exist.
- If you are going
to go for an all-around amazing look...
When moving around the room in a clockwise direction, try painting a
third of one wall and two thirds of the adjacent wall, wrapping the corner in
colour. Then paint the last one eighth of the second wall and three quarters of
its adjacent wall, covering that corner.
Another bold play: Take a big wall and, working in from both corners,
paint it almost to the centre, leaving an 18- to 20-inch vertical line of white
space, and hang artwork down the centre.
- If you have
special plans for the ceiling...
Consider the ceiling the fifth wall of a room. Though sticking to
"ceiling white" generally makes a space feel airy, a similar effect
can be achieved by painting the ceiling a lighter shade of the wall colour.
Like if the walls are painted green, you can choose to paint the ceiling a very
sunny shade of yellow instead of the boring old white.
Just take the paint sample card that has your wall colour as the middle
choice, and then go one or two choices lighter for the ceiling colour. The
result will be a room that appears larger, because the contrast between wall
colour and ceiling colour has been softened. In a small room, such as a
bathroom, the ceiling can even be painted the same colour as the walls to make
it look bigger.
- If you want a cozy and intimate living
space...
Of course, sometimes lowering the ceiling visually creates a welcome
feeling of enclosure. For example if you have a dining room painted in reds and
white, you can paint the ceiling red instead of the very obvious choice of
white which will make the room seem more cozy and intimate-feeling than it was.
Similarly, in a house that has ceilings just 8 or 9 feet high, painting
a bedroom ceiling a pale robin's egg blue, for instance, would be a way to
create a similar, soothing effect.
Choosing Colours You Can Live With
An interior designer or those of us working as a professional handymen can
always advice you on what colour will make a certain room pop or what would be
the best choice when it comes to painting your living space.
But the thing is, ultimately, it is your
home. You are going to live in that space not us thus whatever might the best
thing we’d tell you about, it would be the best thing in OUR opinion which
might not always match with yours.
- How to choose
the ideal colours for your living space...
If you are still unsure about what to do, you
should not solely rely or our advice or the advice of that interior designer
you have hired. Go back to the basics. There might be a thousand of paint chips
at your local hardware store to confuse you but there are only seven colours in
the paint spectrum.
With that in mind there is also a very good
way with which you can create a colour scheme for your living space very
easily. Start by selecting your favourite objects in your living space. It can
be your favourite scarf or tie, a sofa cushion cover or a dress – anything at
all that reminds you of home or has an emotional significance in your eyes. It
can even be the ribbons you put on your dolls when you were little – and take
that object with you when you go to the store to find a paint colour.
Once there, look through the colour sample
book and choose three sample strips in those colours. These three strips will
lead to an easy array of 15 to 20 colours you can choose from (as every strip
at least contains six colours).
Now amongst these six or eight shades, choose
three of these colours to go onto your walls while the rest will serve well as
furniture covers and curtains. Finally choose one colour (or the fourth colour
if you may) to go on as the “accent” colour in that particular living space.
Finally, add a little splash of that colour
in every room of the house to give the colour used all over your house a
harmonious flow.
- How to get
over the paralyzed feeling you get in a paint store...
Once at the paint store, if you are still
sweating at gills because you are still unsure of what you need to buy, well,
fret not. We have a solution for you.
Take a look at the booklet containing the
sample colours. If you choose, for example, the blue (and its shades) colour
strip from the booklet, have a look the darkest colour i.e. the one at the
bottom.
Can you live with that? Can you see yourself
tolerating that colour on your living room’s wall for the better part of the
next decade? If yes than you can probably live with the colour in the middle as
well as the one of the top.
That sounds like a mighty easy way to start
with.
- Done with the
colour? Now let’s play with it...
Once you have your colours in hand, consider the finish you'll be using. Though
today's flat paints have increased stain resistance, conventional wisdom has
long held that a satin (also called eggshell) finish is best for walls because
it is scrub-able and doesn't draw attention to imperfections.
Semi-gloss and high-gloss finishes, it was
thought, were best left to the trim, where they could accent the curves of a moulding
profile or the panels of a door.
Today, however, finishes are also being used
to create visual effects on the entire wall. Paint one wall in a flat or satin
finish and the adjacent wall in a semi-gloss, both in the same colour. In this
order when the light hits the walls, it creates a corduroy or velvet effect.
Similarly, you can paint the walls flat and
the ceiling semi-gloss to achieve a matte and sheen contrast. (The ceiling will
feel higher the more light-reflective it is.) Keep in mind that the higher the
gloss, the more sheen and the more attention you draw to the surface.
