Although people are naturally surrounded by colour outdoors, when it comes to choosing colour for their homes, they shy away almost resisting the use of it. When you are at the beach or walking in nature, you absorb all the colours surrounding you which if you think about it gives you a feeling of freshness and well being. So why not create that feeling in your home? Once you decide to overcome your fear of colour, understand how the colour wheel works and learn all about possible colour scheme combinations, you will be all set out to choose and experiment with colour in your home.

The colour wheel

The colour wheel is basically composed of;

  1. Primary colours; basis of all pigments that cannot be made by combining others; which are the blue , red and yellow.
  2. Secondary colours that are created by mixing the nearest two primary colours such as green that is created by mixing the blue and yellow primary colours.
  3. Tertiary colours that are created by mixing the primary and secondary colours such as red-ornage that is created by mixing red [primary ]and orange [secondary colour created by mixing red and yellow].

Colour is categorized as being warm or cool; warm being on the reds, oranges and yellows whereas cool is on the blue, purples and greens.

Below is a visual explanation on how to interpret a colour wheel.

 

 

When specifying or choosing  colour the following terms are used; hue, saturation & value.

  1. Hue; Describes a color as being more blue or more red, is referring to the hue.
  2. Saturation; Refers to the strength or purity of the color; how much grey is present in the color. A color at 100 percent grey is desaturated while a color at 0 percent grey is completely saturated.
  3. Value; Refers to how light or dark a color is. This is sometimes referred to as brightness.

When it comes to mixing whites, black and grays we use the terms tint, shade and tone respectively.

So now that you have understood the basics of colour, I have listed a few colour schemes that you might want to apply for your room or home.

1.Monochromatic; The use of a hue with the addition of black, white & grey to create an additional range of tints, shades, pastel tints and pastel shades.

Bold monochromatic interior – Yellow applied on different materials and various tones & shades

2.Complementary; The relationship of 2 complementary colours & the additional range described above. [complimentary colours are opposite each other on the colour wheel such as green and red].

Complimentary colours interior – Blue and orange set-up

3.Split Complementary; A variation of the above.

4.Analogous; This includes 2 or 3 colours that are adjacent on the colour circle and the additional range described.

5.Triad; This combines three colors equally spaced on a colour wheel.

With the information I have provided and by plucking some courage, you should be looking forward to start having fun and mixing your interior’s palette; after all if you don’t like it you can always change it!