The Rural Voice, 1993-05, Page 45Home Decorating
Colour can change whole feel of a room
Colour is the cheapest transformer,
the quickest reviver that any home
decorator, whether amateur or
professional, has at hand. You can
disguise irregularities and change the
whole feeling of space in as short a
time as it takes to paint or cover
walls.
By adding injections of colour you
can pep up a room even if you only
add pillow covers, a new print or a
bouquet of flowers. The choice of
colours that we make for our home
has a bearing on both our own moods
and the moods of those who visit us.
Colour is magic. You can use colour
to establish the mood of a room —
bright or dark, joyful or solemn,
dramatic or casual, nervous or serene.
You can use colour to fool the eye,
making small rooms seem more
spacious and large rooms seem more
cozy and intimate.
Most of us can attest to a real
"crisis of confidence" when it comes
to selecting paint or wall coverings
for our home. There has never been a
better range of paints and papers,
wallcoverings and tiles from which to
make a choice. Most often you can
spend weeks dragging home those
heavy wallpaper books and itty-bitty
paint chips to get it just right! The
most important thing is to get to
know the sort of colours that suit both
you and your rooms. An
understanding of how colour actually
works — what it is composed of,
what colours go well together and
why, which contrast and clash — and
if you know this you will have
confidence to decorate your home
with your own style.
What is colour? Most people
accept colours as a given, in much
the same way as they accept
electricity without bothering too
much about how it works. Colour is
quite a complex and fascinating
subject. Colours change radically
according to the circumstances under
which they are viewed. For example,
if red is put near blue, the red appears
yellower. Placed near yellow, the
same red appears bluer. Next to
green it appears purer and brighter;
and next to gray, brighter still. If a
dark colour is placed beside a lighter
colour, the dark colour appears
deeper and the light colour appears
lighter. This is the result of contrast
of tone. The
tone and the hue
of coloured
objects are
changed by the
quality of light.
Just remember a
colour brilliant
by day will fade
into gray in a
dim light.
There are so
many different
colour terms. I
am sure we all
remember
making a colour
wheel in school a some point in our
life. I'll just explain a few of the
more common terms of colour for
you. This may be new to some and a
refresher for others.
Primaries — red, yellow and blue
Secondaries — orange, green and
violet. They are produced by equal
combination of two adjacent
primaries.
Complementaries — colours falling
opposite to each other on the colour
wheel
Tertiaries — they make up the rest of
the wheel and are produced by an
equal combination of a primary and
its adjacent secondary colour
Cold Colours — blue, violet and
green, or colours with a little of these
added to them
Warm Colours — yellow, orange,
red, light green and the light tones of
cold colours. Orange is the only
secondary colour that cannot become
cold because it is composed of two
warm colours (yellow and red).
When yellow predominates in green,
it is warm, when blue predominates
the green is cold.
Contrast — the result of using
complementary colours. Contrast
colours are often used as accent
colours in room schemes.
Neutral Colours — white and off-
white, most of the browns from beige
to dark brown through camel and
nutmeg; grays from pale silver to
charcoal. Most neutrals will take at
least two accent colours.
Accent Colours — used in a scheme
to add a bit of "sparkle" very often
chosen from the opposite side of the
colour spectrum to the main colour.
It is only used in small areas e.g.
occasional chair covers, pillows,
overcloths for tables, lampshades,
picture frames etc.
Shades — the tones of a colour
produced by the addition of black or
gray or colours that are close together
in the spectrum
Tones — the gradation of a colour
from its weakest intensity to its
greatest, e.g. pale cream to dark
brown, or pale pink to deep red
Tints — the tones of a colour
produced by the addition of white
Non -colours — black and white
Pastels — soft -looking colours to
which white has been added
When we consider the effects of
colours, there are rich colours (terra
cottas, chestnuts, deep red, greens
and blues) that are often associated
with dining rooms. Neutrals (whites,
beiges, creams, grays and the gamut
of browns) arc thought of as both safe
and restful. Pastel colours (pale
pinks, yellows, blues and greens) are
thought good for Tight rooms and
vacation homes. While on the other
side of the scale (reds, pinks, apricots
and yellow) are cheerful light -giving
colours that are generally associated
for north -facing and dark rooms.
Like all rules, they were made to be
broken, and if you have a good
reason and you are happy with the
outcome ... do it!
'Til next month,
Kendra
P.S. For those of you who are
wondering ... no, the "studio" didn't
get completed, but far enough that I
got everything moved into it. We had
company call and say they were
coming for a few days ... the push
was on because we needed the dining
room table!0
Kendra Krauter is a qualified
ulterior decorator who lives near
Ethel, ON.
MAY 1993 41