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De
corating with Color...It reflects your personality! When selecting color for a room, keep in mind that each color has a psychological value.
Red: Red is warm, bold, stirring, and energetic . In it’s pure form it can increase heart rate and raise body temperature. Use red in rooms where activity occurs, like a family room, or where sleeping and resting are not a priority. For a deep, intense setting use other colors sparingly in a red room. The eye is drawn to red, so it also makes an eye-catching accent color.
Yellow and Orange: Yellow and orange are just as exciting as red, but they are more cheerful than bold, more bright that stimulating . Yellow and orange warn and enliven any room where they are used, but work especially well to brighten dark rooms. On large surfaces they are best used in light values.
Blue: Blue, the color of sky and water, creates fresh, cool and restful feelings. Blue walls can make a south or west facing room feel cooler. Because it “recedes” blue also creates the illusion of space and distance, conjuring up emotions of haughtiness, formality, reserve, and sadness. In spite of evoking such contradictory reactions, blue is a favorite because it is easy on the eyes and the nerves, making it an excellent choice for rooms where you want to relax or sleep.
Green: Green is the dominant color in nature. It is a pleasing, organic, fresh, calming and restful color. It is a great color for any room where you want a relaxed and fresh atmosphere.
Purple: Purple is lush, regal and passionate . It is an intense and highly emotional color, partly because it straddles the line between the warm red and cool blue. This makes it a difficult color to use in interior design and it is usually confined to the role of an accent.
Black and White: Black and white are pure contrasts and intensifiers—light and dark, yin and yang, all or nothing. Dramatic and elegant together, they lend sophistication in décor that is stylish and urban.
Color
is good...even in small
spaces!
One of the greatest worries inhibiting people decorating small spaces is the use of color. Color is one of the best ways to anchor a room and to define it.
Connect with color
Dissolve the lines between two rooms by continuing a single color theme through both. While this technique is clearly applicable to rooms that open to each other—a kitchen to a family room, for example—it’s effective for rooms that simply fall in the same line of sight. Living rooms with an arched opening to the dining room, kitchens that flow into dining rooms, bedrooms with a small office attached can all benefit from sharing color schemes. If you’ve got a favorite color combination, consider using it in all the public spaces in a small house to maintain a visual flow throughout.
Solid Colors can add Depth
Add depth using solid colors. A blue living room wall, followed into the kitchen by a red door opening and walls, accentuates the depth of the space. White cabinets and a white refrigerator add lines that keeps the walls visually separated so the room doesn’t look any smaller than it is.
Layers of Color Also add Depth
The painting technique of layering on glazes of color gives a wall depth. Separating the wall into blocks of color is another trick to adding visual depth. It’s an especially useful technique when you’ve got a large wall to cover; a single color—any color—could make the wall look flat and massive. The gentle tones of layered color visually recede so you see the whole room, not just the wall.
Accent for Emphasis
If you’d prefer to keep the wall and upholstery colors neutral, choose an accent color and layer it in the room. Used judiciously even the brightest colors won’t overwhelm quiet neutrals. In most situations, you want to use the chosen color in accents around the room, rather than concentrating it in one place.
Vary Neutral Tones
If you want an all-white room—in a bathroom for example—just add a little variation to neutrals to improve the look. A tone-on-tone stripe is a simple, effective way to add visual interest. The room still has the quietness of a neutral but it’s accented by a change of tone that gives the needed sense of depth without adding a chaotic element.
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