Selecting the colours for your home interior can be both exciting as well as overwhelming. Where should you begin? What colour palette should you use? Should there be uniformity throughout your house or should your home be themed? The reality is, when it  comes to selecting colours  for your home (without sounding too cliche-ish) your home is your home and it should be a reflection of you (and/or your family’s) taste and style. If, however you’re stuck for ideas, here’s some simple tips to get you started…

Where to start

One of the hardest parts of any interior design project is where to start and whilst it’s not quite as simple as Lewis Carroll’s famous quote, a good place to begin is with the biggest and most central room of your house. Likely to be the kitchen, loungeroom or living room, picking the colour palette for this central hub will give you a really good foundation for the colour palette for the rest of your house.

Think high, middle and low

Styling your home interior isn’t just about selecting wall paint. It’s thinking about floor to ceiling and everything in between. Your selection of type, colour and texture of floors and floor furnishings will have a huge impact on the colours you choose throughout your house. Generally speaking think dark to light from bottom to top. A bit of a rule of thumb (if you ever follow rules) is to look for a darker floor colour, medium colours on the walls and lighter ceilings. The theory is that this is a flow on from the environment where we are used to dark earth, medium tones around us and lighter skies.

Ceilings

Whilst it’s not necessarily a hard and fast rule, the most common, popular and functional colour for ceiling paint is flat white. A matte finish is far better than a gloss finish because gloss paint tends to show up even the smallest imperfections.

Which colours do what?

To make a room seem warm and cosy use warmer colours like tints of red, warmer browns etc whilst tints of blues, greens and violets will generally make a room feel cooler. Lighter colours on the ceilings and walls will make a small space look bigger and larger spaces look fresh, crisp and clean. Take into consideration the natural light in each of the rooms when selecting colours also. Selecting lighter colours like varying shades of whites and creams in an already bright room can create reflection and glare.

Warm colour scheme creating a cosy feel. Image via: realsimple.com

Feature walls

Creating a feature wall in your home can add energy and interest to a room as well as creating a focal point. When selecting a wall to become a feature, select a wall your eye is naturally drawn to, one you’d be happy to highlight and preferably a wall with no windows or doors (otherwise that can detract from the feature). The below is an example of a feature wall created with Renaza reclaimed timber tiles.

This gorgeous feature wall is created using Renaza timber tiles made from 100 year old recycled timber.

Don’t forget about furnishings,  fixtures and fittings

One thing sometimes overlooked in selecting colour schemes throughout a home is the colour accents gained through the use of furniture, fixtures and fittings. A selection of neutral tones throughout your home gives you more flexibility to adjust colours and moods throughout the year through the use of rugs, cushions, wall furnishings and other home decor.

Image via: Meadow of the linden tree

Selecting colours for your home interior doesn’t have to be stressful or overwhelming, in fact it can be an exciting time in your home building or renovation project. Keep an open mind, think about the mood you’re trying to achieve for each room as well as your house as a whole and don’t forget about the colours your furniture, fixtures and fittings will bring to a room.

Good luck and have fun.