Weird and wonderful ways to use colour
Recently, I was asked to take a look at one of my favourite subjects in interiors: colour!
A podcast listener got in touch with me to ask about how to bring colour into their home in more interesting and creative ways. i.e. beyond just painting walls. They wanted ideas for using colour in their home that were fun and different. What great question!
I’m not going to cover colour basics, I am going to focus on the more unusual, weird, and wonderful uses of colour and where it has the most impact when you're using colour as well.
Colour is Powerful
Colour can completely change the feel of a room. Whether used in a big or a small way, it can hugely affect our mood. There are all kinds of significant cultural implications about colours. Like, for example, red being the sign for danger and blue connecting us with nature. Use of colour can even affect our blood pressure levels, how amazing is that?
I love that colour is a relatively inexpensive way of transforming a room as well. If you cannot afford fancy fabrics, papers and furniture, you can still make a huge design impact in your room using colour.
Colour is quite instinctual for me. I do find it quite easy to pick and choose what works together. I remember the basics from art at school, and then I topped up my knowledge on my design diploma as well.
But once I started working with Siobhan Doherty from Studio Homestead, I realised there was so much I had yet to learn. Siobhan runs masterclasses in the Fresh Nest e-course and currently, every student who books onto the Fresh Nest e-course gets a 1:1 with her too!
So when it comes to colour, I'm going to just start with some things to avoid because there are some things that absolutely do my head in!
What to avoid with colour:
Not having a whole home colour palette. Having a whole home colour palette helps to make the whole of your home feel cohesive and so that there is a sense of connectedness and flow through your home. It doesn't mean that everywhere looks the same at all. It basically means that you have a family of colours that you pick and choose from. It makes decision making so much easier because if you need to make a decision about colour, you just go to your palette and it's done. It also means that sight lines are really lovely as well so when you're standing in one room looking out into a hallway, perhaps into another room, all the colours flow and look good together.
Not testing colours properly. Nothing bothers me more than when I see someone trying to figure out paint colours by painting 17 five centimetre square patches on the wall next to each other. This will tell you nothing! You need a large area of colour that you can assess throughout the day. And it needs to be alone, because when you put colours next to each other, they interact with each other and literally change how the colours all look and feel. The best way to test your colours is to paint onto a piece of lining paper. You can get it super cheap from any hardware or decorating shop or online. Paint a big area, even up to half a metre. Do two coats, and then fold over the edges or cut off the edges so that you're left with a bit of solid colour. Pin that up on the wall or tape it on the wall at different points around the room; near the window, opposite the window, in the darkest corner. Look at it in the morning, afternoon, and nighttime, and see how the colour changes.
Leaving woodwork and ceilings bright white. My third bugbear is when people paint the walls but leaves the woodwork and the ceilings a bright trade white. It chops the space up and really draws the eye. Trade white is a very cold colour as well. Don't forget your radiators and your woodwork when you are painting your room! Even if you liker white ceilings, choose a White that works with your other colours.
Not considering light levels. Like I explained above, it really impacts how colour looks. So my tip for you, if you need to figure out the direction of light in your room, is to get the compass app on your phone. It comes as standard in most smart phones. And just point your phone at the biggest window. That is the light direction in your room and that will affect the colour. If you have a north-facing room, it tends to get very little light and feel quite dark and it will make a pale pink, for example, look purple. Remember that all colours on the spectrum have a cool and a dark version. So look at what base colours are in your paint colour. There's obviously more on this in the Fresh Nest e course, but speaking to the paint companies in the DIY shop where you're browsing is the best way to figure that out.
Now that we’ve talked about what to avoid, let’s move onto some cool and creative ways to use colour in your home. I have been researching and thinking about some of the more weird and wonderful ways that we can use colour that I wish more people would be bold enough to try!
Creative uses of colour in the home
Colour drenching. This is when you drench the room all in one colour or a very similar colour. So you might have slightly different shades of it, but basically it's all, for example, pink or all blue, and that includes the ceiling, the door and window frames. It creates a really rich immersive experience. It's super impactful and it can actually make a room look bigger even when you use darker or richer shades of paint. Colour drenching can look fantastic, even with off whites and oatmeal colours, my neutral babes.
Painting woodwork. Siobhan Doherty taught me about the impact of painting your woodwork. One shade lighter than the wall or one shade darker can look great either way. And she includes all of the woodwork in a room. So that's doors and door frames and window frames and any built in shelving, and it can just really elevate the room and make it look so elegant. I say woodwork, but if you have plastic UPVC windows and doors, yes, you can paint them! You just need to use a really amazing primer. My personal favourite is Zinsser, which turns any surface into a paintable surface. So please paint them. It's a great way of adding colour.
Paint a staircase or a bannister. This can look fantastic. So imagine a hallway that's off white, or taupe, for example, paired with a bannister painted in bright red or blue. Such an amazing way of just bringing in a pop of colour to a room without it being really overwhelming.
Don’t forget about your ceilings! Ceilings are the fifth wall. They can have such an incredible impact in your home. Siobhan taught me that, like woodwork, painting the ceiling one shade lighter than the walls looks really elegant, and it can make the ceilings seem higher. If you've got super, super high ceilings and it feels a bit cavernous, you can turn that on its head and do the opposite and paint the ceiling a darker shade to make the ceiling sort of come toward you and feel cosier. It also looks really good if you tray the ceiling colour which means bringing the ceiling colour down onto the walls by six inches or so.
Think about furniture. For folk who feel more comfortable with neutral colours on the walls and ceilings, this tip is a good one. A plain space can be completely uplifted with the use of a painted piece of furniture. And if you love colour, but you like a more minimal finish in a room, you can still create an overall colourful room by painting things like a wardrobe, a pantry cupboard, a set of built-in shelves, kitchen chairs in an accent colour.
Go bold in transition spaces: I credit Africa Daley-Clarke for the tip I'm about to share. She ran a master class for Fresh Nest students about being confident in your style. She uses really bold colour and pattern in her hallways because they are transition spaces, i.e. spaces that you don’t spend a ton of time in. These are spaces that can just really take a bold pattern and a colour, and push yourself a little bit out of your comfort zone because you're literally just walking through it! These can be spaces like hallways and downstairs loos.
Let’s hear it for the weird spaces! I recently came across a furniture brand called Tylko, who do bespoke modular furniture. And they have the option of doing the inside of the storage in a bright colour, and I absolutely loved it! Paint the inside of your cupboards, for an occasional pop of colour. Consider also:
Door handles
Door frames
Pipes and boilers
Fridges and freezers - don’t leave them bright white!
Add colour in the finishing styling layer of a room. You can have so much fun with the colour in your accessories. For example, in a room that's all blues and beiges, adding something like a trio of bright orange vases on the shelf adds such a wow factor.. So let's picture a cobalt blue lampshade in a room of pale pinks or a deep red picture frame in a room of off whites. Don't be afraid to kind of f*ck things up a little bit and add a bit of unexpected contrast! Let’s not forget the power of art and a good rug here, too. A print or an original art piece in a neutral room can add so much character and joy, especially if it's large. Wallpaper is a fantastic way to introduce some colour to a room. Fabric is one of my personal faves; things like decorative accents, like pillows, but also things like rugs and curtains. It can look fantastic when the only real kind of colour and pattern in a room comes in the form of the upholstery. It really, really makes it stand out.
So they are some of my more weird and wacky ways of loving and appreciating colour in a home. And I'm going to turn this over to you. Where could you add some colour to your home? Could you swap out a lamp shade for something a bit jazzier? Could you put in a new rug with some colour or just a beautiful pattern in it?
Styling is so important, the details really do make the scheme. If you're renting or if you don't have the budget to do major decoration work, you can add so much colour and joy in your accessories and styling. Or are you thinking about drenching a whole room? What about painting a ceiling?
Could you paint the ceiling in your downstairs loo or utility room? The inside of a cupboard? It'll probably take you about 2 hours and will be so impactful.
I hope this blog has given you some ideas of wonderful ways to have fun with colour in your space.
