The colors you choose for the interior of your home have a direct influence on the atmosphere of each room. As part of a new home construction, it is even easier to choose each color to be affixed to the walls of each room. But you still have to choose the “right” color according to its “language” and what it will offer as a feeling. SIC houses, a professional in new home construction for 50 years, gives you some tips for choosing the right color shades for your individual home.
Light or dark colors: what effect on the rooms of your new house?
Before choosing the exact color you want for each room, it is important to define the clarity of each one, depending on the size of your rooms.
Indeed, a color can give a feeling of space to a small room or it can reduce a very large room a little, for a more “cosy” side:
- A light (white, beige, yellow) or pastel (blue, pink, green) tint “distracts” and will thus give you a nice feeling of space in the chosen room.
- A dark tint (petroleum blue, brown, dark grey, burgundy red, fir green) “brings and sucks” and will reduce the volume of a room
Better yet, thn choosing a dark or light shade, you will be able to modify the volumes but also the perspectives :
- A lighter ceiling than the walls will enlarge the room and give the impression of height (especially if the floor is dark).
- By painting a single wall a lighter shade than the other 3, you will “open up” the room.
- Painting one or two walls a deeper color than the other walls creates a cozy and enveloping atmosphere, ideal for a reading corner, for example.
- Do you have a rectangular living room? You can paint the two narrower walls a darker color than the two wider walls to better structure the space and reduce depth.
Choose the color of each room in your house according to its orientation
The choice of your color does not only depend on the size of the room. It will also depend on the windows and the orientation of the room in question.
Indeed, a dark room facing north will be brighter if you choose a warm and light color. And a very sunny, south-facing room will become cooler if you use a dark blue tint.
It is better to avoid painting the wall opposite the windows, especially if it is a dark shade, because this wall reflects natural light and it would darken the room. It is better to paint the wall on which the windows are located or the one on one side or the other. Even if you choose a deep color, this wall will reflect more light outwards.
Painting the wall opposite the exterior openings is a mistake since you would darken the room for sure. Indeed, it is the one that reflects natural light and sends it back to the rest of the room.
What is the “language” of colors?
As explained in this video of Brut, each color has a real influence on our lives.
Each color “tells” something. And this is not new since the Chinese and Egyptian civilizations already used colors for the healing of various ailments. So, to choose the right color, you have to know how to speak its language:
- White: purity, space, innocence, softness, neutrality.
- Black: sophistication, elegance, modernity, inner strength
- Blue: freshness, tranquility, softness, serenity
- Red: passion, warmth, energy, gluttony
- Yellow: optimism, dynamism, well-being, joy, freshness
- Orange: warmth, joy, welcome
- Green: nature, creativity, serenity, rest
- Pink: sweetness, tenderness, positivism
- Violet: calm, appeasement, reverie, spirituality
- Grey: neutrality
- Brown: nature, relaxation, protection, softness
How to associate the colors with each other?
In colorimetry, there are a few rules that should be followed if you want to find the right atmosphere for each room in your home:
- Do not put more than 3 colors in the same room.
- Degrade the same color if you want to give relief to a room.
- Combine warm colors together: red with yellow, orange, for example
- Also marry cold colors together: blue with purple or green
- Combine a dark color with a light color but never with another light color (for blue and green, choose a pastel blue and a fir green for example).
The rules of Feng Shui in choosing the color shades of your detached house
Chinese ancestral art of living allowing you to live in harmony with your environment, Feng Shui allows you to optimize your interior design to achieve fullness.
Much appreciated as part of the decoration of a house, Feng Shui can also help you choose your colors for each room. Feng Shui proposes to associate characteristics of colors with the use that one wants to make of the room.
Do you want dynamism for your office, your kitchen or your children's playroom? Choose bright or even shiny tones (ochre, saffron, carmine red, turquoise blue, purple, etc.) that emit the most yang, positive and dynamic vibration of color.
On the contrary, in a space for reading or resting, we will rather choose light, pale and pastel tones (peach, salmon, light yellow, pastel orange, water green, lavender, etc.) which offer transparency and lightness.
“dark colors (billiard green, navy blue, burgundy red, mustard yellow, rusty orange…) induce the long term in the room, but also caution and moderation” (excerpt from Alexandra Viragh's book, “Feng shui, force of harmony”). In an office that we want to be “serious”, for example, dark blue will help introspection, tranquility and plenitude.
