In this post our kitchen designer Julia shares her helpful tips on choosing colours.
'If we look at the psychology of colour first, it can help make the colour selection easier.
Colour can affect us in so many ways: it can energise us, calm us or relax us and make us feel safe.
If you’re looking for a room that’s cosy and comfy, consider a colour that’s warm and deep rather than bright and invigorating. If you want your room to feel fresh and clean all the time, bright crisp colours help to reflect this.
In order to achieve the desired effect, the science behind it is called the colour palette or colour wheel. It’s made up of three primary colours: red, yellow and blue. These then mix to form secondary colours and so on.
A most important factor is the division of warm and cool colours. There are warm tones and cool tones throughout the palette. Warm colours ‘advance’ whilst cool colours ‘recede’. So, in theory a small room will appear larger if a ‘cool’ colour is selected as these colours expand the space visually and ‘fall backwards’. A larger room will feel warmer and cosier as warm colours ‘jump forward’ and make the space look closer.
Start with some basic colour concepts and it will help you choose the perfect colour for you and your room.
Proportion is also important to make sure the space feels balanced. Before making a start, do some research.
First ask yourself ‘What is the intent of my room? Is it a high intensity room or a calming place?’ Once you have identified this, there are four easy steps that help narrow down the choices.
Step 1: Start looking at images. Use Pinterest, magazines and the internet, all great tools to collect images. Save them to a board 20/30 images and then stand back and have a look. Subconsciously you will start to be drawn to certain ones you like.
Step 2: Choose three to five colours that you like.
Step 3: Buy the paint sample pots, maybe narrow it down to only two to three.
Step 4: Paint the wall! This needs to be left so you can see the paint in different lights i.e. morning, afternoon and evening light, before deciding.
The most important thing is lighting, both natural and artificial. Notice the amount of light coming from the window. If the room is bright enough, a deep dark colour would hold up. Artificial light also has a huge effect, so check when looking a the colour within the room.
The main thing about choosing a paint colour is that its paint, it’s easy to change!!!'
