January 11th, 2023 by Sarah Miles

Did you know that adding colour to your home can not only brighten it up and make it look appealing but can aid well-being, lift your mood, make rooms appear bigger, smaller, or a different shape, and can even improve motivation or give you more energy?

Using colour sparingly, as accents rather than glaring statements, can have a much greater impact than applying it uniformly everywhere. Also, colour doesn’t just belong on walls, you can use it to great effect through other details in the room too.

Here are several ideas for improving your space through the application of colour.

Paint sections of the walls

Unless you have a very small room, where painting all walls the same colour can help to make it look bigger, you can achieve some lovely interest in a room by just painting selected areas of the walls. The most obvious example of this is a feature wall where you paint just one wall a different colour. This will create a focal point and will usually be the wall you look at the most (for example, behind the TV in the lounge).

Another option is to highlight a feature, such as a chimney breast. Add colour to the chimney breast itself or to the alcoves on either side to create depth. Painting vertical areas from floor to ceiling can elongate the height, so can be good for rooms with low ceilings. Likewise, in a large room with high ceilings, you can make it feel cosier by painting the ceiling a darker colour than the walls or even bringing that colour down further to a picture rail. You can use these optical illusions to change the perception of the room. A long, narrow room can be made to feel more square by painting the smaller walls a darker colour. This brings these walls in a little and minimises the feeling of length.

Use colour in your accessories

You can achieve these splashes of colour through your accessories, which could be in addition to your wall colours or as the main vehicle for colour. Curtains, cushions, throws, lamps, vases, pots etc can bring little pops of colour. Create a uniform look by sticking to a colour theme or mixing different colours for extra vibrancy. Adding fresh flowers in coordinating colours is a nice touch.

‘Dress’ rooms in colour according to the season

By using changeable accessories, such as those mentioned above, you can create a very different mood in rooms just by swapping them out as the seasons change. Think of them in the same way you would Christmas decorations. Your autumn set could be golds, oranges, and reds. Summer could be bright, vibrant colours. Spring pastels, and whites and blues for winter. You can feel like you have a new room without even lifting a paintbrush!

Create something unique

Often, it can be one single object that sets the tone for the whole scheme of a room. A quirky piece of furniture, a funky lamp, and a gorgeous wall hanging. Why not create or adapt this item yourself? Take a class and make a piece of art or wall hanging, upcycle a piece of furniture, or create your own lamp by contrasting the stand with a shade or adding a colourful scarf. Use this item as your inspiration and let that determine the colours of the room.