Interior paint colors can make or break a space. They can also be a fun and challenging design challenge.
If you’re choosing paint for your home, be sure to research before making a final decision. Then, you’ll be more confident in your choices and can avoid making any significant mistakes.
Color Theory
Color theory is a set of guidelines that helps designers, artists, and others make the right choices in color combinations. Whether designing a website, creating marketing materials, or picking paint colors for your interiors, understanding how color works and incorporating it into your design process is essential.
It’s also a crucial skill to have if you want to make your brand stand out from the crowd and create an impactful and appealing experience for your customers. Understanding the fundamental rules of color harmony will help you create designs that resonate with your audience and drive engagement. However, it is still best to consult with professional interior painters.
The foundation of color theory is the color wheel. It shows how a color’s hue, chroma (how pure it is), and lighting affect its appearance. It is also a tool for arranging colors together to create schemes.
When you look at the color wheel, you’ll see that the basic primary colors are red, yellow, and blue. These three colors can’t be created by mixing other colors but combined to form secondary and tertiary colors.
These are the colors that are most commonly taught in grade school, but there is a second model of color theory that is more modern and used by designers today: RGB or red, green, and blue. This is the color scheme that most digital and computer-based designs use.
Undertones
If you are trying to find the correct paint color for your interiors, it is probably because you have yet to understand the undertones in a paint colorfully. This is vital to designing a home that functions and feels suitable for you and your family.
Undertones are the hidden characteristics of a paint color that can alter its appearance when paired with other colors. Generally, warm and cool undertones are the easiest to match, but some neutrals have very different undertones.
For example, a crisp white will seem fantastic with most things in a room, but it can look entirely off against green paint if the two have contrasting undertones. It’s important to note that lighting and outdoor elements can also affect the undertones in a paint color.
You can check the undertone of the paint color by comparing it to a true white or color with no undertones, like red, yellow or blue. Seeing these colors side by side makes it easier to identify the undertone.
Light and Darkness
The light and darkness in paint color can be important when deciding on the right shade. For instance, if your house gets different levels of natural and artificial light, you might need to choose a different shade for your bedroom walls than you would go for a powder room.
Another factor to consider is the quality of the light reflected from the surfaces in your room. Bright whites, for example, aren’t the best choice for bedrooms or any other rooms that don’t get much natural light.
In addition, the tone of the artificial lights in your home can also affect how a paint color looks. For example, artificial lighting over 3500 K reflects more excellent light than lighting with a lower temperature.
If you want to use darker colors in a room that doesn’t get much natural light, try using a paint color that reflects light to help illuminate the space.
You can also create a dramatic look in a dark room by painting a darker hue on one wall and leaving the other white. This is called an accent wall and is a popular strategy for creating a cozy feel in a small room.
Warmth and Coolness
A paint color’s undertone can make it look warm or cool. Generally, a warm paint color will have an orange, yellow, or red undertone, while a cool one will have a blue, green or purple undertone.
Cool colors tend to be more calming, as opposed to the energizing warmth of warm colors. They often remind people of water, sky, ice, and snow.
These colors can also evoke calm and relaxation, perfect for relaxing spaces where you want to escape from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. They’re instrumental in smaller rooms that you may want to enlarge visually.
Another important consideration is the light in a space. Paint color can cast a different hue when viewed under various lighting conditions, including artificial lights.
You should bring paint swatches home and try them in your living space. Once you find a paint that looks best in the room with your accents and lighting, then go ahead and purchase a sample pot.
Warm colors are traditionally used in large rooms where family members spend time together. Alternatively, cool colors are often used in smaller spaces where you want to make the area feel more intimate.
