Complimentary Color Schemes The procedure of picking paint colors for your home may appear totally subjective--you simply select the colors you prefer. That is only partly true. While it makes sense to start out with the colors you like, other elements come into play. For example, do the colors you've selected work well together? Do they work with furnishing, carpeting, and window treatments already in place? Picking paint colors is actually part skill and part science. Let's start with the science part first.
The Color Wheel The color wheel arranges the color spectrum in a circle. It really is a good 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 created 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 mixed to produce a tertiary color--in this circumstance, turquoise.
Now that there is a color wheel before you, use it to help you envision certain color combinations. An analogous design consists of neighboring colors that share an underlying hue.
Complementary colors lie complete opposite one another on the color wheel and frequently work well in concert. For instance a red and green living room in full strength might be hard to stomach, but look at a rosy pink room with sage green accents. Similar complements in varying intensities can make attractive, calming combinations. A dual complementary color plan involves an additional group of opposites, such as green-blue and red-orange.
Alternatively, you could go with a monochromatic scheme that involves using one color in a number of intensities. This ensures a harmonious color design. When creating a monochromatic plan, lean toward several tints or several shades, but avoid way too many contrasting values, that is, combinations of tints and shades. This can make your plan look uneven.
If you need a more technical 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 is composed of three colors- one primary or intermediate and two colors on either part of its opposite side of the wheel. For example, instead of teaming purple with yellow, shift the mix to purple with orange-yellow and yellow-green.
Last but not least, four colors equally spaced about the wheel, such as yellow/green/purple/red, form a tetrad. If such combinations seem a little bit like Technicolor, remember that colors designed for interiors are hardly ever undiluted. Thus yellowish 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 get into both of these basic camps:
Harmonious or analogous; techniques, derived from nearby colors on the wheel less than halfway around.
Contrasting or complementary; plans, derived from colors that are directly opposite on the wheel.
Interior Complementary Colors Don't just choose one color; think in terms of deciding on a color scheme. Review your furniture, curtains, window treatments, and carpets and rugs, and note which colors might match them.
Next, take notice of just how many colors you think you may be using. Will the baseboards be considered a different color than the walls? They usually are unless the trim is in bad shape and you do not want to call attention to it. The same will additionally apply to other trim, such as window casings and couch rail.
How about where the walls meet the ceiling? Do you want to install crown molding or some other type 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 determine the level of surface finish or sheen the paint will have. The choices range from the most shiny (high gloss and semi-gloss) to the dullest (eggshell and flat). These designations vary with paint manufacturers, but they are important because the sheen of paint influences the color. A guideline says that walls usually get flat or eggshell finishes whereas ceilings are almost invariably painted with a flat finish. Trim is normally painted with a semi-gloss or high gloss. These coatings are more durable and simpler to clean than duller finishes.
Think in terms of groups of colors.
Paint manufacturers group like colors together like below:
Interior Color Chips All paint stores can provide color chips of the paints they sell. Color chips will provide you with a small scale idea of what the actual colors will look like once applied. You need to do more than look at color chips to get a true sense of your colors... but they are a good place to start. In fact, a seasoned sales person at your local paint store can help you select color chips in a scheme. In the event that you choose a buttercup yellow for the walls, the sales person can suggest color chips that are typically associated with a design that has buttercup yellow as its anchor color.
When you have whittled down your color selections, go through the color chips or swatches in various types of light including day light at differing times of your day and in varying degrees of artificial light. Even then, this color chip process is merely to get an idea of paints that you will sample in greater swaths of color. Very few professional designers pick 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 on a white background.
Color Changes Keep in mind that large surface areas make any paint color show up darker than the color chip. The amount of variant is usually up to two shades. If you select the color chip you desire, step "back" two shades darker for a true representation of what the color can look like when dry. Also, paint always looks darker once it dries. So, when you finally apply the paint, don't worry if the color doesn't look right initially. Wait until it dries.
If 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 around the house to be able to visualize it in various light and near different colored carpets and furniture.
Color and Room Size Colors make a difference the way you perceive the size of a room. Warm colors like reds, yellows, and oranges will make a space appear smaller because they can 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 larger than it truly is. If you actually want to make a room seem large choose a vintage standby such as a shade of white (there are dozens) or a neutral color.
Sizing the Area As 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, glass windows, and other openings. Add every one of the measurements together to obtain a total square footage of the area you must paint. If you're applying two coats which is normal for most paint jobs, you will be painting the area twice.
Sound Quality Painting
824 90th Dr SE suite B
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(425) 512-7400
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