The color wheel is an important decorating tool. Use it to create a symbiosis between the colors you like and colors that harmonize with them.
Warm reds, yellows, and oranges congregate on one side, while cool lavenders, blues and greens are on the other. Creating a palette within one half of the wheel tends to be more harmonious. But pairing two colors that stand opposite one another adds a dash of invigorating tension. Which do you prefer?
Warm Colors
The color wheel can be divided into half, with warm colors on one side and cool colors on the other. Warm colors like red, yellow and orange tend to heat up a room. These colors are a good choice for kitchens, dining rooms, living rooms, and play rooms. Warm colors tend to advance and therefore close in a room. Use warm colors when you want to “cozy up” a large room.
Cool Colors
Cool colors like blue, green and violet are quiet and tranquil colors. They are best used in rooms that call for relaxation and calm. Use cool colors in bedrooms, bathrooms, dens and nurseries. Use cool colors in sunny rooms where they act as a counter balance to direct sun light. Cool color are recessive; they give the illusion of pushing back walls thereby making a small room look larger.
Color Terms
Although color can definitely speak for itself, there are some words to describe color commonly used in the decorating world.
Paint color can transform and revitalize your home. Color expert Kate Smith from Sensational Color realizes this and uses color to engage and create welcoming home environments. Choosing color based on undertone will make all the difference! Proceed with caution when selecting and keep in mind that ALL colors have an undertone. What seems like a safe neutral undertone can change and pop out under certain changes in lighting. Your perfect neutral beige may transform to peach once painted and lit up. Hirshfield’s advises sampling the actual paint color in the room under various lighting conditions by purchasing a sample pint.
Colorful Illusions
Using color can help to define or alter space
It’s all about creating illusions with color. For example: light, cool colors expand the sense of space; dark, warm colors give the impression of contracting a space. Similiarly, subtle colors make a room seem spacious, while more intense colors have been thought to make a room seem smaller. Other factors including the quality and quantity of the light a room receives can limit these visual effects.
A color’s appearance is also influenced by the colors around it. White may appear warmer when placed next to red or cooler when placed with blue. Complementary colors, colors that appear opposite one another on the color wheel, tend to enhance one another.
Color Harmonies
Color harmony ensures that a room will not only look good but that it will also feel good. When striving for color harmony, take into account your walls and furniture as well as any other accessories in a given room. There are many ways to harmonize colors, and the color wheel is a great tool to assist you. Here are some guidelines to get you started.
Triadic
A scheme using three colors that are equally spaced from each other on the color wheel. Similar color values can be used, such as primary colors for children’s rooms. Colors can also be arranged in varying degrees with one color dominant, another color as secondary and the third color as an accent.