A simple guide to renewing your room by Duangtawan Nilayon

Colors affect our lives. We all know that. Green is easy on the eye, red is associated with passion, white goes with everything, and blue makes you want to go swimming…or something like that. But did you know that color influences your mood, too? A colorful piece of fruit or clothing can really impact your day. Imagine how you can affect your everyday life by changing the color of your room or workplace.

Choosing the right color tone can make your room looklarger or brighter by creating the illusion of spaciousness. This week, we offer advice based on basic color theories to help you select the perfect colors for your indoor environment.

Color Wheel

Things you learned in kindergarten can sometimes be useful. Before picking up your paintbrush, you need to understand the color wheel first. Mixing the three primary colors (red, yellow and blue), you can create secondary colors (green, orange, violet). By combining two or more colors together, you will get a color scheme.

Color Characters

Colors are generally divided into two types—warm and cool. Warm colors (red, orange and yellow tones) can brighten up your room and encourage a refreshing mood. Cool colors (green, blue, and  violet), are soothing, calm and tranquil. Let’s take a closer at these two chromatic families.

Make it Hot

Red is associated with intimacy, passion and sexuality. It generates energy and stimulates the appetite, so it’s a good choice for your dining room and bedroom. Orange can create a warm, intimate feeling in the room, but the color is not as strong or dramatic as red. It’s more welcoming than seductive, so its character may better suit your living room or child’s bedroom. Yellow is good for drawing people’s attention; we use it for warning signs, traffic
lights, etc. Overly saturated yellows are not good for interior, but a mellow yellow can add freshness and cheer to your bathroom or bedroom.

Cool as Ice

Green gets major play in nature and is the most popular color in hospitals, schools and workplaces. Your use of the color green should not be limited only to use on your walls or ceilings. A small herb garden in your kitchen or a few plants in your bedroom can help relieve stress. Blue suits a bedroom well, both for adults and children. Light blue is good for relaxing; dark blue may effect a more somber mood. Violet is connected to romance, so it’s another color that might suit your bedroom.

Dreaming and Scheming

There are four basic ways to match colors to create color schemes: complimentary, split complimentary, related and monochromatic. Complimentary colors are colors on opposite sides of the color wheel—for example red and green, yellow and violet, or blue and orange.
When you use this combination, one color should dominate the other. If you paint a wall in dark violet, your couch should be light yellow. You might want to choose other furniture in a light tone to assure an even balance.
 Split complimentary colors are variations of standard complimentary ones. The scheme is composed of three colors: one main color and two colors from each side of its compliment. This scheme creates high contrast and is mostly used to create a rough-edged, faux finished décor.
 Related colors are two colors located next to each other on the color wheel. For example, blue and blue/green or yellow and yellow/orange. This combination is less discordant than complimentary color schemes. You can use it to control the tone of your room. For example, match a light blue wall with blue/green furnishing to create a calm, relaxing feeling, like sitting by the sea.
 A monochromatic scheme involves one color and a range of related tones. If you pick blue, the scheme may range from light to cobalt to indigo blue. Try a soft, light color as a background (white, light blue, old rose or beige) with darker tone furniture. This will make the room look wider than it actually is.
 Mix and match to your heart’s content.
It’s your room, so take these tips and paint
your world rainbow-licious! ■