When it comes to colour, we all have our own personal preferences and aversions. Because it’s such a huge part of design, I’ve decided to dedicate my next three blog posts to all things colour. Believe me, there’s a lot more to it than you might think…
Colour. You know what you like and you know what you don’t like, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you know which colours you’ll be happy with when it comes to your interior. Sea green, for example, could be your most loved colour in the world, but it’s quite likely that your fondness for the colour is conditional on it appearing in small doses. I’ve learned from personal experience that when translated to a large space, even our most favourite colours can end up grating on us.
As a general rule, most people like colours that look good on them. When we wear clothing in colours that flatter our skin tone, we feel good about ourselves, which in turn leads us to develop positive feelings towards the colours themselves. It makes a lot of sense that we like the colours that like us, but unfortunately this sometimes means that couples have completely different colour preferences. When this is the case it can be incredibly difficult to create a colour design that appeals to both partners equally.
Colour is about so much more than just what we do, or do not, like. Colour creates mood. It can enlarge or reduce a space, and it can look different in different areas. When using a single colour throughout a home, you will find that it looks dark on some walls and light on others. This is because the size and position of windows greatly influences the way colours look. Large rooms with big windows often make colours look lighter, while smaller rooms with less light means colours can appear a lot darker than they are. Tinted windows will also affect the way a colour looks, and it is for this reason that we no longer see amber or green glass in a residential buildings. Believe it or not amber glass was once a popular look!
Another factor that is important to consider when it comes to selecting colours, is that the light in our southern part of the hemisphere is extremely strong. So while we can take inspiration from overseas trends and interiors, it is almost inevitable that colours we see in English magazines, for example, just won’t have quite the same impact in our homes in New Zealand. Take a room painted in a lemon tone for instance. While looking charming and warm in England, it could look completely wrong here, especially if the room has large windows. In New Zealand, most of our colour palette tends to look better with a greyed off, or slightly dirty tone.
So how do you figure out which colours will work best in your home? That’s where the services of a good interior designer come in handy. I take all these factors, and then some, into consideration, and can come up with a colour scheme that not only appeals to you, but that will also look and feel just right for your space. If you’d like some help selecting colours then feel free to get in touch with me. Otherwise, come back and visit my blog in another week or two – I still have a lot to say about colour.
Interior Designer, Tauranga
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