7 Tricks When Choosing Home Decor Color Schemes

Unless you’re an interior designer, it can be tricky deciding on the right colors during any home renovation.

You’ve got to weigh up the thousands of different paint and fabric choices on offer and decide which colors will fit, depending on each room.

But how can you pick out a color scheme that fits with current paint color trends?

Don’t worry – here are 7 tricks of the trade to help you pick out the right home decor color schemes for your household:

Be Wary of Bold Colors

When you’re looking to create the right color schemes for a house, it can be tempting to go for bold colors. After all, who wants their house to look boring?

Bold colors are a great way to do that. They attract attention, and they can add a focal point for a room, but you should be wary of overusing them. Bold colors have their place in paint color schemes, so pick carefully.

One great way to use bold colors in a room is as part of a feature wall. As we’ve already mentioned, this can attract the eye to a specific part of the room, like a painting or a feature fireplace.

If you do decide to go bold, make sure it compliments – rather than challenges – any other surrounding colors. That can easily make your room seem uncomfortable rather than cozy.

Connect Each Room

Each room in your house plays a specific role, and we’re not advocating using one set color for entire home color schemes. What we do recommend, however, is that you think about how you can make your colors flow from one room to the next.

Think about how you can compliment and connect with nearby rooms and corridors. Use similar colors with different shades to offer variety while still allowing for a pleasing consistency between different areas of the house.

The aim is to avoid a stop-start feel that looks poorly designed while allowing you to gradually change the mood or feel of each room.

Use a Color Wheel

Of course, it’s pretty difficult to find colors that allow you to seamlessly connect each room of your home if you don’t know which colors go well together. This is where color theory comes in.

Color theory is the art of finding colors that mix well. The primary colors – red, blue and green – mix together to create various other colors. Using a color wheel, we can pick out different – but complimentary – secondary colors like green or purple.

We can then mix these together to make even more colors, giving you a wide palette that can give you plenty of variety in your home.

Don’t have a color wheel spare? If you have a good color printer, download one of these printable color wheels to get you started.

Bring the Outside, Inside

A color scheme that often works well is one that aims to bring outside colors into the home. We’re talking about decorating with color schemes seen in the wild.

If you like nature, why not go green? This could work well backing out into a garden, and you can mix it with different variations like khaki or olive. If you’re not too keen on green, however, there are other options.

Prefer a sea or sky theme instead? Why not try and build your color scheme around blue. It’s a calming color, with various shades available like royal blue, turquoise or navy that can all work well, both in fabric and paint.

Use Fabric Swatches

It can be difficult to find inspiration for colors, so why not take yourself down to a local craft store and take a look at some fabric swatches?

Remember, color schemes for a house aren’t just about the paint on the walls. You need to think about the color of rugs, furniture, and cushions to prevent any color mismatches or conflict.

Fabric swatches can help you decide which colors will work best in a room. See how the colors look against walls, on furniture, and in different lighting during the day or night.

If you find yourself liking a shade, you can then use those fabric swatches to find the right color paint for your walls, building your color scheme as you go. You can also use your fabric swatches to help you find the right fabric for reupholstering furniture and cushions to match your new color scheme.

Build a Mood Board

You don’t need to rely on just fabric swatches, either. You can build up a mood board to help you decide on specific colors.

Research is all part and parcel of interior design, so you should be building your mood board at every opportunity. Inspiration is everywhere, so build up a board using cuttings from interior design magazines, as well as print offs from sites like Pinterest and Instagram.

You can even use online mood boards. For extra tips, check out this guide to creating a mood board for interior design.

Sample Any Color You Like

If you’ve finished your research, built up a mood board and you’ve got some paint colors in mind, the only thing left to do is to try them out.

Grab a few paint samples for your chosen rooms, and find an ideal space to try the colors out. A color might look great in the store, but it might be a different scenario once it’s on a wall, with your lighting and your furniture surrounding it.

Our advice is to pick out a few shades you like. Don’t make it too difficult for yourself, so only take a couple of samples home with you. When you’re ready, find a spot and trial your colors side by side.

See how they look throughout the day. Does it work well in the light and the dark? Do this throughout your home for all the colors you’re looking to use, and see how they pair up with any fabric swatches you’ve chosen, too.

Choose the Right Home Decor Color Schemes

As we’ve shown you, it doesn’t have to be difficult to choose the right home decor color schemes for homes like yours.

Using a color wheel, fabric swatches, and a mood board to get you started, you can build up a shortlist of colors that fit your tastes. If you’re only looking to paint one or two rooms, make sure they fit into an overall color scheme for your home.

Don’t fancy doing the work yourself? You don’t have to. If you’re based in Calgary, take a look at the residential painting services we could offer you.