How to Use Color to Create Balance in Your Home (Copy)

PHOTO CREDIT: PAULA INTERIORS

PHOTO CREDIT: PAULA INTERIORS

One of the most important tools in transforming a space, color has the ability to shape the aesthetics and bring personality to your room. It has can energize you and put you in a positive mood, or it can make you feel relaxed and at ease. Whether you prefer a bold and bright look or a minimal balance of black and white, there is no denying the power of color.

Our Chicago interior designers have compiled this guide of living room color ides to help you decide which colors and what quantities you’ll need to make your home feel balanced.

Consult the Color Wheel

PHOTO CREDIT: PAULA INTERIORS

To master the following living room color ideas, we recommend having a color wheel handy. The color wheel is an indispensable visual tool that displays colors in relation to one another. The foundation for the wheel are the three primary colors, red, blue, and yellow, which are equidistant from one another. All of the colors in between these three can be created by combining them.

Triadic Scheme

If you love lots of color and aren’t afraid of making a powerful statement with your decor, then a triadic color scheme is perfect. It involves using three colors that are evenly spaced on the color wheel, ensuring that no one color overpowers the other two. Triadic color schemes should be bright and eye-catching without being overwhelming. For example, we recently designed a beautiful and artistic garden-themed bedroom with a pink, turquoise and yellow motif. By incorporating these three hues into the artwork, bedspread, and wallpaper, this triadic color scheme brought the feminine room to life.  

Analogous Scheme

More soothing than a triadic color scheme, an analogous scheme uses colors that are next to each other on the color wheel. For example, we recently designed a nursery using light peach, orange, and gold. These analogous colors create a soft contrast that is calming to the eye, which is perfect for a newborn’s room. 

Monochromatic Scheme

Monochromatic may refer to one color, but it’s not as simple as that in an interior design scheme. Instead, a monochromatic scheme refers to using a combination of many different shades, tints and tones of one color. There are various ways you can use this scheme, from creating a cocoon-like bedroom of whites and creams to a jewel-like powder room with shades of green. Just remember that when sticking to a monochromatic palette, you’ll need to incorporate unique textures and layers to add dimension to your room and make it feel exciting.

Follow the 60-30-10 Rule

Now that you’ve chosen the two or three colors you’d like to use, it’s time to decide which you’d like to be your main color and which two will support. The 60-30-10 rule is commonly used in interior design to make sure your room isn’t overwhelming with too much of every color. The numbers correspond to the percentages of each color that you should use – 60% for the main paint color for living room, 30% for the next and 10% for your accent color. You don’t always have to follow this rule, but it is a good jumping off point if you aren’t sure how much of each color to use.

Don’t Forget Your Lighting!

Finally, don’t forget that lighting plays an important part in the appearance of color. You should look at color samples in both natural and artificial light sources at different times of the day to fully get the sense of what your room will look like. 

Here at our Chicago interior design firm, we believe in color’s ability to bring a room to life. Whether you’re switching up artwork, reupholstering furniture or starting a design from square one, these ideas for room colors will help you achieve a balanced color palette. Be sure to browse our most recent projects to get a better look at how we have used color recently.

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Talk to you soon,

Paula