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Color Your World
by Janice Lovelace

Are you stuck in the white-wall dilemma — stark white walls that you are afraid to paint another color? Most of us love color, but don’t have a clue how to use it. We get overwhelmed with choices at the paint store. Will this color work better in the kitchen or the bathroom? What color will brighten a room on the gray days of the Northwest?

Before you lift your paintbrush, here are a few tips about color theory. The color wheel, used by designers, can help you understand how colors work with one another. The three primary colors — red, blue and yellow — are equally spaced on the wheel. Secondary colors — orange, green and purple — are those that you get by mixing two primary colors, and lay halfway between the primaries. Harmonizing colors, those that sit next to or near one another on the color wheel, and contrasting (complementary) colors, those that are opposite one another, have different impacts. If you want something peaceful, use harmonious colors. For a more dramatic effect, go with complementary colors (familiar combinations like purple and yellow or red and green). Each complementary color brings out the richness in the other.

Psychologists and interior designers have long realized that certain colors evoke certain moods. Maybe you want your bedroom peaceful, the kitchen bright and cheery, the family room daring and the bathroom calming. Consider how different colors achieve different effects.

RED is a powerful color. The color of flames, it signals passion, danger and the warmth of fire. But add a little white to make pink and it makes us feel young and playful, although pink is calming as well.

YELLOW, a warm color associated with daffodils and sunshine, is seen as cheerful or happy. Many people use yellow in their kitchens because it adds energy and optimism to the room while at the same time making it feel intimate. A darker gold, on the other hand, makes us think of wealth and luxury.

BLUE represents the sky or ocean, making a room feel peaceful, serene and refreshing. A cool color, it is one of the most popular colors used in the U.S., especially in bedrooms.

GREEN represents new growth and is soothing, calming and restful. It is a way to bring nature inside.

VIOLET PURPLE, which sits between red and blue on the color wheel, is associated with grandeur. Paler shades, like lavender, are meditative and healing.

NEUTRALS are the earth colors. Brown makes us feel secure, relaxed and content.

How do you decide what color is right for your rooms? One solution is to call on a color consultant — someone with expertise to help you choose colors compatible with your home and lifestyle. The consultant talks to you about what is important in your life and how you use your interior spaces, walks through your home to note the natural light as well as the existing furnishings, and devises a color scheme or palette customized to your taste, the way you live, and the style of your home.

Cynthia Chomos incorporates feng shui into her color consultation, noting “Color is energy and it creates a sense of the space.” Her goals are to help clients match their needs to their spaces and bring a sense of harmony and balance to their homes. She uses the Bagua, a feng shui mapping system that outlines nine key areas in one’s life such as career, family, health, prosperity, creativity and children. Each of these areas corresponds to a specific area in the house and has a color associated with it. For example, purple and red represent prosperity. She helps clients incorporate colors in their homes that will attract positive energy to the key areas in their lives.

Julianna Hind approaches color consultation by using the Dewey Color System of color personality analysis. She begins her work with a simple color preference test of her client’s favorite and least favorite primary colors, followed by favorite and least favorite secondary colors, and then favorite and least favorite achromatic colors (black, white, brown). Finally, 15 colors are selected from this process and again ranked from favorite to least favorite. Upon completion of the test, a “color personality” of the client emerges. “This analysis helps discover what color is best for you and your space,” notes Hind. After she and her client discuss the colors and what they mean, Hind prepares a list of color choices consistent with her client’s preferences and “color personality.”

Stacey Riley worked for other designers for years before deciding to strike out on her own in color consulting using Devine Color interior paints, which are created in the Portland area. “The greatest reward is to have clients enjoy color after struggling with what to do with their walls.” Her goal is to leave her clients with long-term liveable color on their walls. Devine provides small test pouches of paint, enough to test paint an 18-square-inch square area of wall (or a board to set up against the wall). After showing her client several large color cards and helping her select from the 128 colors available, Riley creates a master plan of colors and finishes to work from.

Kathy Banak of Authentic Home design services is introducing her own line of 45 paints which complement Devine paints. When she works with clients, she looks at all the existing elements in the home — including flooring, furnishings, surfaces and light sources, and creates a palette for the house that enhances flow between the rooms.

Color completes a room, making it warm and cozy, serene and calming or simply welcoming to guests. Whether it is one room or your entire house, give color a chance — paint those white walls!

Janice Lovelace is a frequent contributor to Seattle Woman.

©2007 Caliope Publishing Company