With hindsight I might not have been the best member of the team to write this post. When it comes to colour my teeny East London flat is pretty much, well, colour-free. Think white walls, wood floors, a white bathroom suite and a white-and-wood kitchen. There’s a bit of an orange accent colour thing going on but other than that it’s pretty much the definition of neutral.
If anyone could persuade me to introduce more colour into my home it’s Will Taylor of Bright Bazaar blog fame. Like any top blogger these days, Will’s got a book coming out, called Bright Bazaar, filled with totally doable advice on filling your home with colour. There are tips on bringing colour into specific areas, colour combinations for you to try, room-by-room guides, page after page of pictures of colourful homes to get you as hooked on hue as Will himself, and a directory of the very best interiors websites in the world so you can shop for brightly coloured goodies for your home.
To get you on the road to embracing colour, here’s Will’s 10 steps to colour confidence.
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Leave your fear at the front door
Decorating with colour will result in a space that speaks directly to your personality. You might make mistakes along with way, but learn from them and embrace the challenge.
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Take it slowly
Don’t feel you need to decide on all your colours at once. Start by taking note of colours you are drawn towards so you can gradually build up an idea of your perfect palette.
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Trust your instincts
Remember that colour is a very personal element of an interior, don’t feel swayed by trends or a neighbour’s home.
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Find a focus
Pick a key piece for your scheme (anything from a vase to a rug) and use it as the reference point for the rest of the palette and room design.
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Pin-point your approach
Once you’ve narrowed down the colours you like, it can help to decide how you plan on using them. Choosing to create a contrasting, tonal or harmonious palette upfront will help you pick the right shades and tones for the room.
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Build on your existing expertise
While you might still be building your confidence with colourful decorating, maybe you can pull upon expertise from elsewhere? Perhaps you can throw together the perfect outfit, or prepare a delicious (looking and tasting) meal without breaking a sweat? Look at how you pull colours together in other areas of your life and apply it to decorating.
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Plan, hunt, gather
Take time to pull together tear sheets, swatches and pictures so that you have a moodboard of ideas and inspirations for your colour palette.
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Section the space
While it’s important to keep in mind the whole room and how your chosen colours will sit within it, it will also help to tackle the space in sections. For example start by layering colourful cushions and throws on your sofa and live with the new hues before introducing colour to other parts of the room.
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Start small
As tempting as it might be to dive headfirst into a new kitchen or living room overhaul, it can help to start with a smaller room while you build your confidence with colour.
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Look for the light
The light of a room has one of the biggest impacts on how your chosen colours will actually look in situ. In simple terms, with a north-facing room you’ll be well placed with warm tones to balance the cooler light. In south-facing spaces lighter shades will make the most of the abundance of light.
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Bright Bazaar is available via Amazon but we also have a copy to give away, to be in with a chance of winning it, just leave a note in the comment section by Friday 18th April about how you incorporate colour into your home.
Moving in to our new home early next month and it sounds a lot like your flat! Lots of ivory and beautiful greys. However, I have my eye on jazzing up the spare rooms!
I am currently trying to persuade the boy that greens would be wonderful with our small inherited brass collection on the shelves! Only time will tell! Haha
The spare rooms sound like a good place to start Charlie – good luck!
I was just commenting to the hubs only yesterday that everything in our living/dining room is brown toned! Wood and tile floors, chocolate sofa, wooden beams & furniture etc etc! Nothing against brown mind you but I am seriously considering a brightly coloured cushion splurge, everyone needs gold velvet and leopard print cushions in their life right?
Well I’m definitely in favour of gold velvet and leopard print cushions!
We moved into a flat with a blue hall leading to the kitchen and a dark red bedroom, it took some time but I love it now. It’s also made me so much braver about decorating with colour in the other rooms which are classic complete white! Colourful photos, cushions and trinkets have transformed the room for me and I loved having a blank canvas to work with.
Photos, cushions and trinkets are definitely the way to go!
Our house is muted coloured – mostly greys. But injected colour via pictures and soft furnishings. That way you can update easily without getting the paintbrush out. We do have a purple sitting room (which is going to be repainted grey)….
And grey looks good with so many bright colours!
oh and a bathroom painted arsenic green with slate tiling – I love that colour the most.
PINK! Lots of pink. But tempered with teal and gold (nowhere near as horrible as it sounds). Cushions are the perfect starting point if you’re feeling apprehensive – I started with pink stripes (thanks to the lovely Lucy at http://www.lavendergrey.com) and it kind of grew from there 🙂
Love pink – such a warm, happy colour!
We bought our first house a year and a half ago and have been trying to make it into a home ever since. My absolute favourite colour is duck egg (I’m lucky because my fiancé likes it too!). It’s such a nice little way to dip your toe into the world of coloured walls; simple, elegant and sophisticated without being too garish! Plus it works well with lots of other colours and can be accented with just about anything
Duck egg blue is one of my favourite colours, although I’m yet to use it at home…
We bought our first house a year and a half ago and have been trying to make it into a home ever since. My absolute favourite colour is duck egg (I’m lucky because my fiancé likes it too!). It’s a great one to use when dipping your toe into the world of coloured walls; elegant, sophisticated and simple without being too garish. Plus it can be accented with just about any colour!
We have a beautiful, nautical-esque house in Greenwich – port hole windows and everything! In the living room we have a framed painting of two tortoises wearing pink party hats – sounds very random but we love it! To add some colour to our neutral space (white, grey and biscuit walls, soft grey rug and wooden floorboards) we are drawing out the greens and pinks of the painting with apple green and pink cushions, bright and bold floral prints, pale pink glass candlesticks and a deep green velvet curtain, complete with gorgeous, swishy tulle netting underneath! As you can see, I completely agree with Will’s advice – find a focus!
Ooh, I love the sound of the apple green and pink cushions, floral prints and pale glass pink candlesticks Sian!
As a renter, any kind of coloured wallpaper or paint, or any permanent changes for that matter, are completely out of the question. I bring colour in to my home using carefully placed accessories and artwork. Brightly coloured cushions are my favourite, and I’ve become a bit of a collector, with covers from the different countries I’ve visited in a variety of different shades which I use throughout the house. My housemates realised I have more cushions than crockery now.. oops!
You can never have too many cushions Kiki!
I’m a real colour fan. Until recently we had a gorgeous berry red in our lounge, which looked much better than it sounds! We painted it neutral before we sold the flat and I miss it. We’re now going through a very slow and stressful house-buying process and the only thing that keeps me going is decorating the new pad in my head. I have a scrapbook full of clippings and I can’t wait to get started. The general vibe will hopefully be modern, fresh and stylish and the main colours will be grey and teal. We also have a new baby so I figure colour is a good way of avoiding handprints on the walls!
I’m loving all the interiors posts on this blog and have been getting all sorts of inspiration from them.
Happy to hear our interiors posts are inspiring you Abs. Fingers-crossed things start moving faster with your house-buying process and you can get started on transforming it with your grey and teal scheme!
My first ever house needs some life so have been looking at jazzy purple tiles to lift the plain kitchen and swooning over paint at farrow and ball bringing home tester pots to see how the paint changes with the light during the day. My grey sofas have had a pop of colour with some purple,teal and yellow cushions and has made a huge difference to the living room! Spare rooms are the next challenge maybe up cycling a chest of drawer have bought the knobs already so fingers crossed it all pulls together but even not an eclectic mix may work just as well.
My main thing as been to not ponder over things and just go with what you like.