Antique Sheet Music Flourishes

Friday 21 January 2011

Creating a Colour Scheme    
How to create a Mood Board


Seek Inspiration
Collect swatches of fabric, paint and floor samples,  look at magazines and catalogues for inspiration and cut out images of furniture and lighting.  These can all be mounted onto a piece of card or paper as a starting point for your decorating scheme.


Inspiration for your scheme may also come from a magazine or book, or a favourite piece of clothing or fabric.  Start a scrapbook of your favourite images to get a feel for your particular taste.  Is there a theme e.g. floral, antique faded...


How are you going to use the room
Consider the use of the room to be decorated e.g. formal drawing room or a family room.  This will determine the type of furniture, seating and storage required.


Take pictures of signature pieces that you intend to keep to add to your mood board.  Consider if there are items of furniture that could be salvaged for another room in the house if they were transformed with paint.


Focal Points
While assembling your mood board consider the furniture layout in the room.  You may also have a large window that could be a focal point with drapes and pelmets or a fireplace.


Feature Walls
The current trend is to have a feature wall with a bold patterned wallpaper or a strong paint colour or a display of framed photographs or prints.


The use of colour in your scheme
To make a room feel bigger use pale colours which reflect light.  Darker shades should be used lower down on panelling or the floor and moving up to a lighter colour at the top of walls and on the ceiling.  For larger rooms try using wallpaper or a colour on the ceiling.  For a cosy feel use richer, darker shades.


Try to carry an accent colour throughout the house from one room to another to make your decor flow.  Use similar coloured flooring downstairs from room to room.  Paint bedrooms in similar colour groups to match them tonally.
Dramatic scheme for a lounge using black, stone and neutral colours
A good way to experiment with paint if you are unsure of colours is to buy tester pots of paint and brush some of the paint onto a piece of lining paper.  Pin the paper to a wall in the room you are decorating and live with it for a week to see how it changes in different light.  Also add some of the chosen colour to your mood board to see if it blends in with your chosen fabrics and wallcoverings.

The most important part of decorating a space is to create a space that you love and to fill it with items that reflect your personality.

Happy decorating                           Aileen

1 comment:

  1. This is wonderful, Aileen. I know it's not a 'paint project' but it's such valuable info that I'd love for you to drop by and link up to Passion for Paint this weekend.

    http://MuralMaker1.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete