You look at hundreds of paint samples, but don'tCan you decide and choose just one color? Do you spend hours choosing between shades of “egg yellow” and “sunny yellow”? Making a mistake with the color is scary, so we have collected advice from professionals, real stories and made a list of the five most common mistakes when choosing a color. And how to avoid them, read in this article Choosing a color for the interior is not an easy task. No matter how carefully you try to use burgundy or deep blue, on the wall it may turn out to be completely different from the sample, and you will have to either repaint the room or put up with an unsuitable color. To save you from a color disaster, we talked to a professional designer and asked ordinary people what problems they faced when choosing a color for the interior. In this article, we tell you what you should pay attention to, what you should never do, and what, on the contrary, can and even should be done.
Error 1.Overdoing it with color Imagine this: after a long and arduous search, you’ve found your perfect color. It looks great on a sample and looks just as good on the wall in your home. You’ve fallen in love. In the store, you’re unconsciously drawn to the bedspread that’s the exact same shade as the walls in your bedroom. It seems like that chair would perfectly complement your new favorite color. Stop! This is where the trick lies: once you’ve found the perfect color, it’s all too easy to get carried away and overdo it.
How to fix it: know when to stop.No matter how much you love a color, you don’t have to fill your room with it from head to toe. Study ready-made color schemes and find it in them - as well as the colors it goes well with. Also, if your new favorite color is rich and active, be sure to dilute it with neutrals of gray, white, beige or any pastel color.
Error 2.Stay in your comfort zone You absolutely love lime green, but you're afraid to paint all your walls in it. You wanted to buy a bright blue couch, but in the end you chose beige because it's more practical. A red kitchen set? You've been dreaming about it for a long time, but you'll hardly ever decide to do it. And there are a million examples like this. Of course, using only a neutral palette and safe color schemes will help you avoid serious mistakes, but sometimes a boring interior is the biggest mistake.
How to fix: don't be afraid.Of course, loud eclectic interiors are not for everyone, so start small. Use bright accessories (textiles are especially good in this case) or a single piece of furniture. Dreaming of a purple chair? Buy it and boldly place it in the center of a neutral interior! Indulge your desires, and to avoid getting too carried away, see point 1.
Our opinion:— If you don’t know what color to use to dilute a too bland neutral interior, we recommend reading about . Also, don’t be shy about using cheat sheets: for example, in the article you will find win-win color schemes for the living room, or you can read about what warm colors to choose for the bedroom and look at ready-made palettes. Mistake 3. Not giving your eyes a rest No matter how much you love experiments and how much you want to color up your gray everyday life, even the brightest room should have an area that will allow your eyes to rest from the abundance of colors. Undoubtedly, a living room filled with juicy tropical flowers will warm you even in winter and will certainly impress your guests, but you will get tired of this diversity much faster than you think.
How to fix: maintain balance.Bright colors are great, but be sure to leave some space in the room for a break from them. This could be a neutral wall, a calm rug, a beige sofa, soft pastel textiles or natural finishes. Basically, anything in a calm palette.
Error 4.Ignore the finish It's surprising how much difference the finish actually makes. The color on the sample and the color on the wall can be completely different, and all because in reality additional factors are at work. Material, texture, relief, shine or lack thereof - all this gives the color new shades and makes it play in a completely different way. And, unfortunately, ignoring the finish can very often result in effects that are far from what was intended.
How to fix: test paint.Once you buy a jar, don't rush to paint all the walls in the room. Try it on different types of finishes, matte and glossy, etc. Also, be sure to check how the paint looks on a certain material and in a certain light - this also plays a big role.
Error 5.Using the same color scheme for every room There's nothing wrong with filling your home with your favorite colors, but using the same combination throughout your entire apartment is usually not the best idea. With rare exceptions, apartments with the same palette throughout look too boring and sterile, as if you were given a standard finish and didn't want to add anything of your own.
How to fix: add variety.You should never go overboard and use a new color scheme for each room, but playing with two or three in different variations is a good idea. And to tie the entire interior together, use a different color link in each room: for example, the color of the kitchen walls can be repeated in the textiles in the bedroom, and the tiles in the bathroom should be the same shade as the sofa in the living room.
Our opinion:— Another good way to tie together the interiors of different rooms is to use decor from the same series or furniture in the same style. For example, you can match elegant antique dining chairs with a Victorian armchair in the living room or a sophisticated trellis in the bedroom. And here are the mistakes that real people — forum visitors — have encountered from their own experience: We made a big mistake when choosing the color for our last bedroom; we painted all four walls a very beautiful and very rich brown-red color with a glossy sheen. As a result, it looked absolutely not how we wanted it to! The piece of art turned into something disgusting, the room began to look like a dark box... I don’t know for sure, but I think it would have been better if we had used a matte finish. mimilady The importance of lighting and the choice of light bulbs have already been discussed, but what about rooms that do not have natural light? I painted my bathroom a pale blue that I liked in the sample, but there are no windows and the colour looks completely different. It irritates me so much I have to repaint the room. I don’t know what colour would even work in a room with only artificial light. UKLynn Light is so important! I painted my living room with natural light a bright coral and my friend loved it. She borrowed a jar from me and painted her kitchen the same colour, which is entirely lit by recessed lighting and gets almost no natural light. The colour came out horribly bright in that artificial light. ZoeMcC Luckily I only managed to paint the bathroom before I learned a big lesson. The sample was exactly how I wanted it, but the more area I painted, the uglier the colour became. So it’s important to see how a colour will look on all the walls once it starts to reflect itself. MaryHS We also spoke with a professional designer and decorator Yulia Dudareva and received three valuable tips from her on choosing a color for the interior:
- do not forget about the rules for combining colors;
- when choosing a color, rely not only onpersonal preferences, but also take into account the influence of color on the psycho-emotional state of a person as a whole - knowing these features, you can support one or another mood;
- Do sample stains directly on the wall or on a piece of cardboard / gypsum board.
Yulia Dudareva, designer:— The sample size should be no less than 0.7 x 0.7 m. This will give you the opportunity to understand in reality how exactly the colors you have chosen will look, whether you are comfortable with them, and how much the color from the palette differs from the real one. In general, it is better to always look at all selected finishing materials — be it wallpaper, paint, flooring material or fabric — in samples on the site and as a whole, taking into account the lighting of your home. facebook.com/julia.dudareva.10
