Finding Your Statement Colour

Whether your style is cool and subtle or bold and bright, each of us has a colour that makes us feel like, well… us — so make sure your home really does feel personal to you by using your signature shades throughout.

Identifying Your Statement Colour

It sounds simple — choose your favourite colour, then surround yourself with it. But how many of us can actually identify specific colours that we want to live with (and won’t change our minds about next week)? And then there is the small matter of choosing several colours that sit happily together as opposed to clashing horribly.

Unless you have a very firm idea of the colour, or colours, that you most want to use within your home, there are several ways in which to choose your perfect colour scheme.

Begin by thinking about colours or shades that conjure up happy memories for you — a holiday perhaps, or a favourite moment from your childhood, or maybe the surrounding countryside. Pick just one or two shades that evoke happy feelings then build on them. The key to choosing your statement colour is all about how you want the room to make you feel — warm colours, such as red, orange and ochre feel sociable and outgoing, whilst cooler shades such as sage greens and powdery blues add an element of calm and serenity.

Of course there are times when it makes sense to base your colour on an existing feature within your home. Perhaps you have already chosen an olive green retro side table — base the rest of your scheme around colours that will compliment and draw attention to it.

Introducing Colour

It is one thing to choose the colours you are going to use, but it is quite another to know how to use them. Covering every single wall in a room with just one single colour is rarely a good way to go.

Instead, combine several of your chosen colours using furniture, accessories, fabrics, rugs and pieces of art — or even a painted or wallpapered statement wall.

Colour attracts the eye in an otherwise neutral space, so using furniture to inject a colour hit to a room is the perfect way to impart a little bit of your personality, as well as turn the piece of furniture in question into an eye-catching focal point.

A funky retro side table in your chosen shade is a good way to go – position it next to a more neutral sofa to give your interiors a colour boost. Likewise, a narrow side table chosen in a shade specifically to bring out a colour within the curtain fabric you painstakingly chose, for example, will transform a plain armchair into a cosy spot to curl up with a good book — and ensure your curtains don’t get overlooked…

Colour Combining

It helps to look to nature when choosing colours that sit together nicely. A retro coffee table in baby blue, for example, will go hand in hand with crisp cloud white on the walls, sunny yellow scatter cushions and meadow green glass vases. Likewise, those wanting an earthier, wholesome feel might consider a narrow side table with a nutty brown wood finish combined with a forest green interior and sunset orange curtain fabric. Those colours which occur together in nature tend to be very easy on the eye.

Going for bespoke furniture is a fantastic option when creating a colour scheme — rather than having to make do with what the manufacturers have dreamt up, you get to effectively design your own furniture in shades and finishes will suit your interiors — try Zespoke’s online customiser.

The Colour Wheel

When researching your colour scheme, it is likely you will come across something known as ‘the colour wheel’.

This is basically a tool that takes the guesswork out of choosing colours that will go well together. It is split into warm and cool shades and choosing one specifically for interior design allows you to view lots of different shades, all based on primary colours, together to see which work nicely together and which don’t.