Blue is the best colour

Choosing Paint Colours for the Walls in Your Home

23 August 2021 by Jo Ward

It can be hard to figure out what paints work together when choosing wall colours for a home. Obviously, the walls should match with other elements, like flooring and furnishings, so you need an overall plan or colour palette. One approach is to refer to a colour wheel. You can use these in numerous ways, as explained below.

Monochromatic Shades

When decorating your home and picking wall paint, you could opt for a monochromatic colour scheme. For this, choose one hue from the colour wheel. You then use different shades of this hue around the room. For example, you might opt for variations of blue, combining a pale sky blue, a mid-toned azure, and navy. The wall covers a large area of the room, so choose a paint that you can live with, one that isn't too overpowering.

Analogous or Harmonious Colours

Another option is to choose colours that are next to each other on the colour wheel. For example, create a room palette by combining red, orange, and yellow. Remember that you can use muted versions of these colours rather than bright ones. For example, combine dark burgundy walls with a patterned rug that mixes terracotta, sand, and pink hues. Alternatively, look on the other side of the colour wheel and combine purples, blues and blue greens.

Complementary or Contrasting Hues

Complementary colours are found on the opposite sides of the colour wheel. These schemas combine a warm hue on one side with a cool colour on the other. For example, you could paint the walls in a muted yellow hue and combine them with blue furnishings or cabinetry. A popular complementary colour scheme is green and pink. You could harmonise deep eucalyptus green with pale rose pink, for example. Blending light and dark shades so that one hue becomes more dominant stops the effect from being overwhelming.

In general, when picking wall colours, you may prefer muted and pale shades rather than vibrant ones. For example, rather than orange, you could choose a tan, which is orange muted with grey. Or you could opt for a watermelon shade. Rather than a clear blue, you might prefer a subdued green-blue shade. Blue can be dark and moody or pale and light. If one of the colours in your chosen room palette is red, you might opt for a soft lilac pink rather than something more dominant and louder. Ask interior painters for their ideas.

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