How To Add Color to Your Space
In this guest post, Chicago-based writer and stylist Wendy Altschuler shares her tips for effortlessly adding joyful personality into your home.
A playful pop of color, subtle and deliberate, or a powerful pigment splash that immediately catches your eye, will not only cheer up your space, but also, your mood. Decorating with bands of the rainbow can be as simple as a well-placed lamp or as grandiose as an entire multi-hued accent wall. Keep reading to learn how to create a jolt of joy in your home with color.
Take a step away from the neutral palette and start small with accessories. For example, select colorful pillow covers that work with your existing inserts to minimize the commitment (opt for different patterns and shapes, paired with solids, to create some fun).
Other Ideas: Find easily changeable decor like throw blankets, vases, prints, and other thrifted items to brighten your space or if your current light fixtures allow, swap out a shade with a new vibrant one.
For those ready for a substantial color plunge, choose a single piece of furniture in an upbeat hue. If you have a room full of neutrals, just imagine what a cheerfully styled console could do. Whether you pick out a new couch, revive the bedroom with an eye-catching headboard, or introduce an end table with a bit of pizzazz, you’ll be making a statement with joy tossed in for good measure.
Other Ideas: Match the focal point furniture you’ve chosen with fun accent items like lamps, blankets, pillows, or artwork to bring the room together.
With alfresco landscapes in mind, choose objects that have colors reflected in nature (earthy layers, golden shades or cool blue hues). Picture how these colors blend and flow in the open-air and then be creative with how you carry those tones indoors. From olive green planters to vibrant hand-knotted rugs, an abundance of shades exist in wild outdoor spaces.
Other Ideas: Taking a walk throughout your neighborhood, in a park, through the woods, or at your local lake can give you invaluable inspiration for how you might like to liven up your home.
If your space lacks personality, insert hues that play well with what you have already. Perhaps you have an area rug that you love and can’t part with. Pull colors from the pattern in the rug to refresh your space and add a little fun. If your rug has yellow concentric circles in the design, for example, select a yellow clock to match and place it within view.
Other Ideas: Keep in mind, colors don’t have to be perfectly matched to work well. Lean into different shades and slight imperfections while blending everything together.
If you’re ready to make a big change, consider painting an entire wall a different color. This widespread design trend works best in a room when you contrast the wall with the items in the room that are muted in intensity or saturation. Pick the wall that first catches your eye when you enter a room, or the wall that will be the focal point. When choosing a color, consider the 60-30-10 directive—60% of the room should be the dominate hue, 30% should be the secondary, and 10% should be an accent.
Other Ideas: Choose two or three shades and paint a sample section of wall to see how the entire wall will look in that color. Make sure you wait for the paint to dry for the most accurate representation.
Is your kitchen, laundry room, or utilitarian spaces so busy and chaotic, full of items of every shape, size, and shade, that your eye doesn’t know where to settle? Perhaps what you need is a smidgeon of organization in this case to create some balance. Tone it down with some neutral shades by adding a white laundry cart to your mud room, a cream-colored utensil holder for that space next to your stove top, or honey-colored baskets to your entryway and bathroom.
Other Ideas: Consider the significance of giving every item a dedicated home. Minimize the clutter and use helpful organizational tools like baskets, bins, and drawers to beautifully meld form and function into your living space.
Written by Wendy Altschuler