Complimentary Color Schemes The process of picking paint colors for your home may appear totally subjective--you simply select the colors you like. That is only partly true. While it makes sense to begin with the colors you prefer, other elements come into play. For instance, do the colors you've picked work well alongside one another? Do they work with furnishing, carpeting, and window treatments already in place? Picking paint colors is actually part artwork and part science. Let's focus on the science part first.
Working with the Color Wheel The color wheel arranges the color spectrum in a circle. It really is a sensible way to see which colors work well together. It includes primary colors (red, blue, and yellow), secondary colors (green, orange, violet), and tertiary colors (red-blue, blue-red, etc). Secondary colors are made by mixing two primaries together, such as blue and yellow to make green. A primary color such as blue and a secondary color such as green can be merged to produce a tertiary color--in this circumstance, turquoise.
Now that you've got a color wheel in front of you, use it to help you envision certain color combinations. An analogous scheme consists of neighboring colors that share an underlying hue.
Complementary colors lie opposite one another on the color wheel and frequently work well in concert. For instance a red and green living room in full intensity might be hard to stomach, but look at a rosy pink room with sage green accents. Exactly the same complements in varying intensities can make attractive, calming combinations. A double complementary color plan involves yet another set of opposites, such as green-blue and red-orange.
Alternatively, you may go with a monochromatic scheme which involves using one color in a variety of intensities. This ensures a harmonious color design. When creating a monochromatic scheme, lean toward several tints or several shades, but avoid too many contrasting values, that is, combinations of tints and shades. This can make your scheme look uneven.
If you want a more complex palette of three or even more colors, go through the triads formed by three equidistant colors, such as red/yellow/blue or green/purple/orange. A split complement comprises three colors- one primary or intermediate and two colors on either side of its opposite side of the wheel. For example, instead of teaming purple with yellow, transfer the mixture to purple with orange-yellow and yellow-green.
Lastly, four colors equally spaced round the wheel, such as yellow/green/purple/red, form a tetrad. If such combinations seem a little like Technicolor, understand that colors intended for interiors are rarely undiluted. Thus yellow might be cream; blue-purple, a dark eggplant; and orange-red, a muted terra-cotta or whisper-pale peach. With less jargon, the color combinations fall into both of these basic camps:
Harmonious or analogous; techniques, derived from neighboring colors on the wheel less than halfway around.
Contrasting or complementary; strategies, derived from colors that are directly opposite on the wheel.
Interior Color Schemes Don't just choose one color; think in terms of deciding on a color design. Survey your furniture, curtains, window treatments, and carpets and rugs, and notice which colors might match them.
Next, take notice of how many colors you think you might be using. Will the baseboards be a different color than the walls? They usually are unless the trim is in bad condition and you don't want to call attention to it. The same will additionally apply to other trim, such as window casings and seat rail.
How about where the walls meet the ceiling? Will you install crown molding or various other kind of cornice treatment there? Or will you be painting the walls and demarcating the ceiling and wall junction with a color change?
In addition to paint colors, you will also need to look for the level of finish or sheen the paint will have. The options range from the most shiny (high gloss and semi-gloss) to the dullest (eggshell and flat). These designations vary with paint suppliers, but they are important because the sheen of paint affects the color. A rule of thumb says that walls usually get flat or eggshell surface finishes whereas ceilings are almost invariably coated with a flat finish. Trim is typically painted with a semi-gloss or high gloss. These coatings are more durable and easier to clean than duller surface finishes.
Think in terms of groups of colors.
Paint manufacturers group like colors together like below:
Interior Color Chips All paint stores provide color chips of the paints they sell. Color chips will provide you with a small scale idea of what the colors will look like once applied. You need to do more than check out color chips to get a true sense of your colors... nevertheless they are a good place to start. Actually, a seasoned sales person at your local paint store can help you select color chips in a scheme. If you choose a buttercup yellow for the walls, the sales rep can suggest color chips that are usually associated with a design that has buttercup yellow as its anchor color.
When you have whittled down your color options, look at the color chips or swatches in several types of light including natural light at differing times of the day and in varying degrees of artificial light. Even then, this color chip process is merely to get a concept of paints that you'll sample in bigger swaths of color. Hardly any professional designers select from chips, even though they may start their color selection from chips. If indeed they do examine chips, they examine them one at a time over a white background.
Color Changes Keep in mind that large surface areas make any paint color look darker than the color chip. The amount of variation is usually up to two shades. In the event that you pick the color chip you want, step "back" two shades darker for a true representation of what the color will look like when dried out. Also, paint always appears darker once it dries. So, when you finally apply the paint, don't stress if the color doesn't look right initially. Hold out until it dries.
When you are zeroing in on your final colors, paint a 2 x 3 ft. poster board or cloth with the anchor color and stick it throughout the house to be able to view it in different light and near different colored carpets and rugs and furniture.
Space and Color Colors make a difference how you perceive the size of a room. Warm colors like reds, yellows, and oranges can make a space appear smaller because they provide a cozy feeling to the space. The so called cool colors like blues and greens may actually recede from you, making an area appear bigger than it truly is. If you really want to make a room seem large choose an old standby like a shade of white (there are dozens) or a neutral color.
Sizing the Room When you get closer to buying paint, determine the square footage of the room you will paint. Multiply the length of each wall by the width. Subtract the space occupied by the doorways, home windows, and other openings. Add all of the measurements together to obtain a total square footage of the area you must paint. If you are applying two layers which is normal for some paint jobs, you will be painting the surface twice.
Sound Quality Painting
824 90th Dr SE suite B
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(425) 512-7400
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