One of the most difficult parts of decorating your home is choosing a color palette to stretch across your paint, décor, furniture and other accents such as window treatments. Making sure the colors flow from room to room and create a cohesion to tie the entire house together will make your home one you want to spend all your time in.
1.) Look For Color Inspiration
To find the colors that you want to build your home around, look for inspiration in the things that you love. Check out magazines, buildings such as restaurants and hotels you enjoy, websites like Pinterest and Houzz, or even artwork or patterned fabrics that are pleasing to you. Once you find a picture or a pattern that really speaks to you, take it to a paint store and have them color match the particular colors for you.
2.) Isolate The Colors You Want To Use
Once you have an idea of the different colors in your inspiration piece, you can further isolate the specific ones that you think will translate well into your home. You will want to think about what type of furniture you either currently have, or are planning on purchasing, and other items that are must haves for your space – heirlooms, art pieces, or anything else you can’t forgo placing in your home. Choose five to seven colors to build your home around.
3.) Start With The Biggest Space In Your Home
Now that you have the colors of your home chosen, start decorating in the biggest or most open space in your home. Looking at your palette, you will want to choose the wall color or colors if you are planning an accent wall. You can choose one of your more neutral colors to serve as a wall color or use one of your darker or brighter colors. If you already have furniture, you will want to make sure the color accents your furniture. If you have light or neutral furniture a bright, dark color will pop. If your furniture is bright or dark, however, you will want to choose a wall color that does not compete.
4.) Ground A Bright Area With Neutrals
Bright bold colors are a great way to show off your personality and bring a touch of “you” to your home. Whether you choose to add color with large pieces of furniture, bold wall colors, or bright accessories, you will want to ground these bright items with neutrals – whites, grays, tans – to make sure the area isn’t too overwhelming.
5.) Add In Accessories
There is no rule that your accessories must match, but a good rule of thumb is to choose finishes that complement each other. If you have silver or brushed nickel light fixtures, it will help the space be more cohesive if you add the same finish to your curtain rods, picture frames, etc. Mixed metals are on trend, but if you choose to take this route you will want to make sure it looks deliberate. This can be done in several ways, perhaps by mixing oil rubbed bronze and antique bronze, another way would be to add mixed metal accessories to living room built-ins to compliment the different finishes found around the room.
6.) Move On To Other Spaces
Once you complete the largest space in your home, you can look to the finishes and colors in your accessories to move on to the other spaces. You can decide whether you want to continue the wall color onto the walls of the rooms surrounding this one, or choose a complimenting color for the walls. Making sure the furniture flows from one room to the next in terms of colors or styles, and adding in accessories in the same palette as the first room, will bring a consistency to your home.
