Home Decorating with Color

Choose the Right Colors for YOU

Home decorating with color is by far the quickest way you can change a room’s look and feel dramatically and inexpensively.

We talked about your color choices in the Ideas and Tips section and explored the colors you most like and gravitate towards, the colors you feel most comfortable with, or feel most energized by, and considered the colors of the clothing you like wearing, things you like collecting, amongst other things. You may want to revisit that page briefly now – go here

If you’re starting from scratch, wall color paint is the quickest way you can establish your canvas, make a statement and get the home decorating ball rolling.

If you’re wanting to achieve a makeover or a refresh update, changing the paint color of the rooms in your home is the most impactful and fastest way to change, and bring your room, your home to life - and also the most inexpensive. It’s like buying a fabulous new outfit, or using make up to transform your look.

Here are some guideline pointers – decide which you feel most comfortable following:

• If you’re just starting out, you may want to work with just one paint color on the walls throughout your home. You can always build on that later. Better to take it gradually, than to feel that you’ve overstepped the mark and don’t like it, can’t live with it, and have to redo it.

• Ideally, colors are best flowing through your home – tones of the same or similar or complementary shades work best. Or graduations in varying intensities of the same color palette throughout your home also work well.

• If you’re painting your home in stages, make sure you find colors that blend together in your overall long-term plan. Try not to use more than 2 or 3 different colors throughout your home. If you like variation, use different shades of each color, but make sure they all blend together in your overall plan!

• It’s best that you keep your walls subtle. It’s tasteful, understated and classical. These can be creams, pale yellows and greens, pale melon, or other pastels.

• Be sure you go for an off-white or cream and definitely avoid extreme stark bleached white (unless you want the antiseptic feel of medical rooms or a hospital).

• Be careful using colors that are too dark, or too strong – you should tread carefully with dark browns, dark reds and dark greens – they can overpower a room and make it seem daunting, uncomfortable, unrelaxing and even claustrophobic.

• For dramatic impact, you can experiment with one wall as a ‘feature wall’ and make a theatrical, spectacular statement! This way you can also see whether you like and feel comfortable with incorporating a bit of dramatic ‘look at me’ impact into a room, and how you feel about the intensity of the color. It's better to start with a lighter version of the color – you can always darken the intensity. That’s easier than the other way around.

You may even want to try faux painting, mural walls, or trompe Liouel ('trick-of-the-eye') -

You can do this with both interior walls in any room in the house - a feature wall in a living room, bedroom or bathroom. You can also apply this technique wonderfully exterior garden walls around a courtyard or to make a feature of an otherwise rather bland garage wall.


If you’d like to explore color and your preferences further you can take some color personality quizzes or learn more in this next section here -

Color is Magical and Transformative!

Your color preferences reveal a great deal about you and your attitude towards life as well as your emotional states at any given time.

• Color is a great atmosphere and mood creator – it has a significant influence on the atmosphere you create in your home and your mood and of those around you ...

• Your color preferences say something about your personality and style and who you are ...

• Color can be used creatively and wonderfully to express who you are ...

Let’s explore each one in turn –

1. Color as the Great Atmosphere and Mood Creator in Home Decorating

2. What Do Your Home Decorating Color Choices Say About You?


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