Choosing Colour For Your Space

Choosing the right colour for any room starts with understanding certain key factors. We can look at a few points to help you get started on the right track.

However, keep in mind, colour and taste are completely subjective. At the end of the day, you have to like what you see and feel in your space, as you'll primarily be the one experiencing it, day in and day out. So take these suggestions as a starting point.

To give the impression that your room is larger you should try luminous colours. White ensures the best effect and the whiter a colour is, the better the impression of space it will give.

Bright shades reflect light and tend to expand our view. Matt shades outline and accentuate colours. Warm colours tend to make space seem smaller. Cold colours are soothing and on the contrary, tend to make a room seem larger.

Depending on the time of the day, the colour on your room’s walls will not be reflecting the same way. Try out different shades at different hours to make sure you get the results you want.

Shades of different colours will create a special atmosphere. You’ll need to find the right colour combination in this respect.

A coloured frame on a light background makes a wall seem closer. By marking out a white frame in the middle of a dark wall, you’ll get the impression that the wall is further away.

By marking out a lower and small strip of a darker colour than the wall, you’ll get the impression that your room has a higher ceiling. A light base combined with a darker colour on the top part of a wall will reduce reduce the effect of a high ceiling.

You can create some perspectives by playing with wall, floor and ceiling colours. To make your ceiling seem lower, you can paint it the same colour as your walls or with a darker shade.

Colours have a strong impact on our perception of the volume of a room. Of course you won’t push back any walls by painting them white but you’ll give the impression of having more space. White or light walls tend to enlarge the size of a room. Combined with a dark back wall, you’ll increase your field of vision. On the contrary, a light back wall combined with dark side walls give a sense of depth.

Colour is light, and the colour you perceive an object to have will change with the amount and type of light falling on the object. The artificial light you rely on in your home is most likely to be incandescent. This light is yellowish and warm, although a new type of bulb corrects the yellow so colors appear truer and clearer.

If your house is surrounded by trees, the light that enters will have a greenish cast, which can change certain shades of yellow to an unappealing yellow-green in summer. Other colors may not be as affected by the filtering effect, and your eye (and your expectations) will compensate to some extent for any changes.