Are you worried about your room color? It could be you've decided on a certain style of decoration. Or you feel your home calls for a particular style to be used. But you're not sure the color you want to use will fit the style of decoration.
Room Color and Styles
This is a familiar concern in interior design. For example, the late Victorian style used dark greens, reds and plums. If your home is Victorian, you may want to use these colors exactly as you find them in descriptions and illustrations of Victorian fabrics. But you can also change them, and bring them up to date. Many textile companies who hold the original fabrics and printing blocks often change the colors. You'll also find that many companies will bring out new colorways of old chintz designs, which are often hundreds of years old.
So, yes, be sympathetic to your home, but not to the extent you're worried about 'breaking' style 'rules'. The only rule you should keep to is - if you like it, do it!
Balancing your Room Color Schemes
Suppose you have a good idea of the color scheme you'd like. You know it's going to be one based on hue harmony, and you've selected the colors. Which color should go on the walls? Or the floor? And what about the couch? To sum up, how do you make sure your room has balance?
One way is to keep all the main areas in one color (perhaps one of the pale colors) - walls, carpet or rugs, ceiling, drapes, couches - and then use accent colors with items such as pictures, furniture, scatter pillows, vases and lamp bases. Or bring in changes by using various tones and textures.
If your color scheme has a number of colors - hues close together, for example - then use one for the walls, another for the floor, and so on. If you are unsure which one to use where, work from the darkest upwards. So use the darkest one on the floor, the next darkest on the walls, and the lightest on the ceiling. This will give your room a natural balance, because we naturally associate heavy with down, and light with up.
Don't forget to vary surfaces and textures in your room. This can be done by using wallpaper instead of paint, or having a special plaster effect. You'll also have great scope when selecting fabrics for your couches, sofas, cutains and drapes.
Use a design you already have!
Another way of balancing your room color if you're planing your scheme around a rug or fabric, is to take your cue from the design. Suppose you have a rug, and 60% of it is a pale yellow background, 30% is brown, and 10% a cheerful red. Use the pale yellow for your walls, perhaps a slightly deeper yellow for the floor, the brown for sofas and chairs, and bring in the red in a few scatter pillows, vases and so on.
If ever you're worried about your ceiling, paint it white, or a very pale off white. You can't really go wrong by keeping to white.
Here the colors in the rug have been used to select colors to use for the sofa and lamp. They are also used in the drapes. You can often use a rug or fabric to give you a start with your room color.
