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How To Pick A Color Scheme For Your Room

Posted on 07.9.14

Difficulty: Easy
Time: < 1 Hour
Tools: None

how-to-pick-a-color-scheme

Color. It’s the most important decision you’ll make when decorating your house. Nothing gives you more visual bang for your decorating dollar than a swash of bold color.

But many people are timid when it comes to picking colors for a room. They don’t know what to choose so they opt for something safe, like beige. Below are a few ideas on how to pick a color scheme for a stylish home that reflects your tastes.

Pick an object you love.

Do you have an object that can inspire the palette of a room? Maybe it’s a work of art that hangs over your bed. Maybe it’s a wildly painted ceramic lizard from south of the border. Or maybe it’s a Persian rug.

Go ahead, select a dominant color from your inspirational object as your main color. If you are hanging a picture over a sofa, maybe you can pick up one color as a throw blanket on the sofa and another color as an accent to use on pillows. If all the colors already appear together in a rug, fabric or work of art, they’ll work together as a room palette.

Look at your own wardrobe.

We tend to gravitate colors that we look good in. (Well, unless your favorite color is orange or neon green.) Use the hues of your wardrobe to inspire colors for your décor. If you wear a lot of teal, you might want to use teal as an accent color.

It’s a natural thing.

Another source for room color schemes ideas is to look to Mother Nature for inspiration. Let’s say your living room overlooks your backyard with a grove of eucalyptus trees. Pick up a eucalyptus leaf that has fallen on the ground. Then take a picture of it and then blow up the photo on your computer 1000%. There in the screen of pixels you will find natural palette for all the colors of your room, everything from walls to accents

Take your time.

Remember, you don’t have to commit to an entire color palette all at once. Start small. Maybe try out a bold color as a throw over your sofa before going full force. Or paint several hues of the same color on the wall and just live with them a while to see how a shade looks throughout the day.

Here’s to a more colorful home!