Why you shouldn’t be afraid to experiment with colour in the home.
4 minute read
Choosing an impactful colour such as Dulux Emerald Glade can feel daunting, but the resulting look will be both stunning and unique.
Styling by myself, image by Adrian Briscoe for www.dulux.co.uk
If you’re reading this, then there’s a good chance that your home isn’t full of colour, but that it’s something you wish you could be more daring with. There are various reasons why people are reluctant to dip their toes into this world when it comes to their own space. Fear of making a mistake, fear of not liking it, fear of their friends not liking it (definitely not a good reason…it’s your home after all!). But now more than ever there’s no reason not to take the plunge. Painting your walls in a colour apart from white can be totally transformative. It can lift your mood one day, and yet calm you down the next.
This room is full of colour and not a drop of paint in sight…The beauty of this interior comes from the eclectic mix of accessories all sat against a wonderful wood clad wall.
If, for example, your desk is pushed up against a wall (and not looking out of a panoramic window with endless views) then the colour of your wall may well play a part in how productive you are whilst sitting there, and your general state of mind.
I have a deep, dark blue on the wall behind my computer, and I love it as it has a kind of endless infinity feel to it. When I lift my head up from staring at the computer, the wall has a stillness to it that my eyes find very restful, and is a welcome break from my glaringly bright screen.
Particular shades can also act as a brilliant backdrop for your furniture, and sometimes even help to revive the look of a previously tired looking piece. Colour has always been used as a backdrop to enhance how something else looks within the product design industry, and in the home this is no different. Stick an old, slightly battered sofa against a white wall, and it will stick out like the proverbial sore thumb, showing it off in all it’s tired glory. Position that same sofa against a deep , dark shade that’s tonally similar, and it then becomes a thing of beauty. Sinking into the background with both colours working to each other’s advantage, having more of a vintage vibe, as opposed to a knackered one.
If you then fill the wall behind your sofa with art that features your sofa colour, you can then start to build a cohesive look that is both beautiful, yet cosy and inviting at the same time. Accessorise your sofa with cushions in a mix of colours that tone in with those in your pictures, and you will create an effortless stylish and co-ordinated look like in the image below.
Colour throughout the home is also a fantastic way to inject a sense of dynamism within your four walls. A renewed sense of energy as you pass from one area to the next, with new areas of interest that stimulate you both visually and emotionally. Little pops of colour throughout can work wonders to invigorate a room, and you don’t need to invest a lot of money or time to do this. Simply painting the back of an interior door and your skirting boards of a door in the same colour, a window sill or even your table legs in a bolder hue can transform a space. And introducing yourself to playing with colour this way, also feels a lot less scary.
Although the walls have been kept white here, by painting the skirting board and door in the same colour, you instantly add interest to an otherwise plain room.
Image credit: www.dulux.co.uk, styling by myself, photography, Polly Wreford, www.sarahkaye.com
Wall colour may be the obvious way to inject a new shade, but there are a myriad other ways to do this too. Curtains for one. Particularly when drawn at night, curtains can have a massive impact on a space. Choose the wrong shade or pattern, and you can easily overwhelm your room.
Again, the walls may be white but when combined with the intense gold velvet curtains, the wooden floor and the sage chair, the effect is beautifully warm, and full of colour.
And fun…the home doesn’t have to be a pared back gallery space that is fit for the pages of a glossy interiors magazine.
If you find a wallpaper you love, then you can probably find a space within your home to feature it. If it feels too bold to cover a whole room, paper a small one such as a toilet or cloakroom. What a wonderful surprise to walk into an unexpected burst of colour in the smallest room in the house. Or paper an area that you want to zone for a specific purpose, like the wall where your desk sits as in the image below.
This mini home office by Sophie Robinson may
have a busy pattern as it’s backdrop, but the addition
of a warm wooden desk, and a plain pink velvet
chair helps to ground the paper, and make it feel
less overwhelming.
Image credit: www.sophierobinson.co.uk
And if you want to keep your walls more in the background and not the star of the show, then paint them in more receeding darker hues, and bring that pop of colour with your sofa or accessories.
Image credit: www.abigailahern.com
As an interiors’ stylist I have worked in thousands of location houses over the years. And the ones I’ve always loved the most are the real homes. The ones that feel lived in, that feel like real people reside there. People with lots of stuff, and stuff that’s not hidden away in cupboards. Minimal just isn’t real life in my opinion. I think as human beings we are at our happiest when we are building our nests, plumping it up and filling it with gorgeous things that we love. To me that’s what really good home design does. It helps you get the grounding right in your home, set you up with a basic palette, and then hand it over to you to fill in. A bit like a join the dots picture. Home designers create the outline, you fill it in.