Working with colour - part 1

Working with Colour - Part 1

Where to Begin

Choosing colour can be daunting, but in the first instance, I recommend following the two-step approach below to guide your initial decisions.

There are many practical considerations to take into account when choosing colour, and this lesson will take you through each step to work out the best palette for your room.

1. Start with the Building

• The room you are decorating will have defining characteristics, such as timber beams or stone floors, and these will have their own colour.
• Take these existing tones as your cue for the rest of your decorating scheme.
• Work with what you can't change, even if you don't like it, and integrate it well so that it ceases to be a defining feature.
• For example, stone floors work beautifully with earthy tones while oak floors work well in blue schemes.

2. Break Down Your Rooms into the Two Basic Types

• One will be the rooms that we progress through, and the other will be rooms that we live in.
• A balanced scheme is more likely to be achieved when there is a nuance in the palette between those two room types.
• The weightier colours will be better kept for rooms that you spend time in, whereas hallways and staircases can take on a more neutral scheme.
• These connecting spaces act as breaks and pauses between the rooms with more interest and life.

Individual Rooms

Most rooms are made up of a combination of different materials.

• Flooring - carpet, stone, wood or tiled.
• Interior trim - eg. skirting boards or chair rails, generally in timber.
• Wall - plastered or dry lined.
• Cornice - usually in either plaster or timber.

Generally speaking, you will require two types of paint to cover the elements typically found in a room.

Water based eggshell paint - Best for timber - Skirting, chair rails and architraves

Water based emulsion paint - Best for plaster - Skirting, chair rails, architraves

Ceiling Paint

In the past, ceilings were painted using a soft distemper as it was cheap and easy to apply. Before the advent of electricity, light was obtained from candles or oil lamps which gave off a lot of smoke that subsequently rose to the ceiling and discoloured it. This meant they had to be repainted frequently and soft distemper was favoured due to its affordability and its ability to be simply washed off and repainted.

Soft distempers would have been based on lime or chalk, giving them a white hue, and the practice of decorating ceilings white has continued - although we now commonly use emulsion paint.

As well as keeping up with tradition, white ceilings are good for a couple of reasons. White paint remains relatively cheap, and white ceilings also reflect a lot of light into a room.

That said, there is no hard and fast rule that says you can't paint your ceiling a different colour. The same considerations of tonality, weight and temperature apply. A heavier colour will bring the ceiling down for an intimate feel, whereas a lighter colour will open it up. Make sure it is also a complementary colour to your walls to avoid an imbalance.

Using the same colour across the walls and the ceilings is another option, and ticks all the boxes.