How to put together a colour scheme
Ever fallen in love with a piece of fabric or a picture on a wall and felt it would shape the perfect decor? Here's how you can find the right colours to create the ideal palette for your room.
Years ago Dulux sent me a little gizmo that I could press against any colour and it would scan it and tell me what to buy from their range that would match it. A clever concept, but it fell down massively because Dulux is a global company and uses different names for its colours in different countries. Once we had got over the fact that such a scanning device was even possible (this happens to Gen X a lot – we don’t know what we don’t know), it ended up in a drawer and by the time I remembered to take it out again the batteries had died. I see they still have one, but now it comes with a smartphone app, and is I imagine a million times better.
But that still only tells you one colour. And to be honest you can take a pretty good picture with your phone and go home and look at paint charts to find what looks like a good match. But the problem you will then have is building a scheme from a single shade.
At her paint launch last month Beata Heuman bemoaned the regularity with which people ask her on Instagram what colour she has used because, she said, walls are only part of the story. You need the whole palette. And that brings me to the point of this post (which, incidentally I started writing before she said this and summed it up so perfectly).
Because what I want is a way of putting together a whole colour scheme. What I want is to find out what colours are in that rather gorgeous dress I just saw in Anthropologie – which I will never, ever buy (much less wear) because, well, dresses and me are not friends. But just because I won’t buy it doesn’t mean I don’t love the way the colours have been put together. And actually if it had been a shirt I might have... Then again it’s a floral design, and me and flowers… Basically what you need is a way of taking a gorgeous fabric full of colours you love and turning it into a room. Yes? Read on.
The point about that gorgeous print you saw in the store is that it was created by a professional designer. Someone whose eye has been trained to put together a pattern with tones and shades of different colours that go together and enhance each other. They understand which red-based white should go with which pink (not a blue-based magenta) or which green would work really well with them all. And they can work out the scale – how much of each colour to use to create beauty and balance and not a kindergarten clash.
They take a collection of colours and draw them into flowers or abstracts or geometric designs that are then printed and cut into a piece of clothing. But what if we want to dress our house in the same way?
I wrote last month about Boura & White, the new sofa company that has just six sofa shapes which its creator owners liken to pieces from the perfect wardrobe - the white shirt, the great jean, a brilliant white t-shirt. The point being that we want decorating our houses to be like getting dressed. That’s a concept we understand. And technically, as I have written before (did I mention my book was on its 10th reprint?) our houses don’t have fat days or hungover days or biscuit and trackie days. So this whole decorating business ought to be a lot easier than it is, frankly.
It all starts with choosing the colours. And I think you can – if you aren’t sure where to start – begin very well with your wardrobe. After all, if you are comfortable wearing it you clearly like it, so you will be comfortable seeing it on your walls.
To read the rest of this post and learn how to put together a room scheme once you have chosen your colours, you can upgrade at the link: