Color has the ability to completely alter the atmosphere and
ambience of your home. Using color to enhance a home and make its
occupants feel more content and peaceful is a useful way to
counteract any sense of stress and negativity that you may feel in
your home. It is color therapy for the inhabitants as much as for
the home.
Steps
- Look at your home. What are the predominant colors surrounding
you? On a piece of paper, note how the colors make you feel as you
are viewing them. Note whether they are bright, muted, eclectic,
matching etc. and how these different color effects impact on
you.
- Select your favorite color spectrum. Use the internet to find a
color wheel. A color wheel is divided into primary and secondary
colors, with the warm color spectrum (red, orange and yellow) on
one side and the cool color spectrum (green, blue and violet), on
the other side. Which side attracts your attention and emotions
most? The colors that please you are a good indicator of what will
please you around the home.
Consider what meanings the colors have for your household. The cool
colors are suggestive of water, sky, trees. They equate to a sense
of calm, balance, peace and being soothed. The warm colors, on the
other hand, are suggestive of sun, fire, stars. They equate to a
sense of vibrancy, energy, creativity and action.- Involve the rest of the household. Creating color harmony in
the home should not be the harmony according to one person. Let all
interested family members choose the colors that soothe, energize
or please them. You can see whose ideas match and where compromises
need to be reached. After all, there are plenty of rooms in the
house, so if there are mismatches, compromises can be reached on
coloring the rooms according to those inhabitants who spend the
most time in them.
- Decide on the ways that you will bring the new colors into your
home. Will you paint or will you simply change the soft
furnishings? If you are really serious about ushering in a new era
in your home, it is likely you will aim to do both - paint and
changes to curtains, bedspreads, pillows, rugs etc. See "Tips" for
extra ideas of the ways you can bring color into your home.
Decide which rooms will be the focus of each color spectrum.
- The warm colors are best suited to studying areas and high
traffic areas such as a kitchen, where a lot of love and laughter
is shared.
- The cool colors should be in entrance and exit areas to ensure
that on leaving or returning home, a sense of peace and calm
descends in both directions. Cool colors are also perfect for
bedrooms, movie dens and any area where you would like to encourage
calm and balance.
- Dining areas can be a mixture - cool for ensuring slower eating
and warm for enlivening conversation. A mix can be achieved by
painting in one color and then using curtains, tablecloths,
serviettes, paintings etc. in another hue from the opposite
spectrum but matching.
- Bathrooms are often better on the warmer side as this gives the
impression of warmth from shower to dressing and it also brightens
the room for other activities such as putting on makeup and
shaving.
- Draw up a color theme plan. Whether you are only fixing one
area or room of the house, or the entire house, it is important to
draw up a blueprint so that you have a good idea of what you want.
Most importantly, t
