Colors, Colors Everywhere!

by Nicole Lindquist

We're back again this week to give you a little more inspiration and advice on revamping your home after this way-too-long winter. With spring officially here, it's the perfect time to embrace an "out with the old, in with the new attitude" and bring your living room to life with a fresh new color scheme. But with so many color options to choose from to begin your room redesign it's easy to get a little overwhelmed. So how do you narrow down the nearly limitless options and figure out what will work for you?

Understanding a little bit about color theory (don't worry it's not as boring as it sounds!) can make the decision-making process much, much easier. Knowing what complementary and analogous colors are and the difference between warm and cool tones will help you sort through all those options in no time and create a beautiful space.

The color wheel is divided into warm and cool tones. There is some disagreement on the borders between these two tones, but there is general agreement that blue-toned hues are cool, while red and yellow tones are warm. Warm tones are said to be stimulating while cool tones are calming and relaxing. Thus, you can narrow down your color options fairly rapidly by simply deciding what kind of mood you wish to evoke within a room. Depending on your preference, all you need to do is select a cool or warm tone that appeals to you as your primary color within the space.

Complementary Colors

Complementary colors are those that lie directly across from one another on the color wheel. When these colors are combined in a space they reinforce one another and have a strong visual impact. If you want to create a bold color scheme in your redesigned room, choosing complementary colors can be a fantastic option. Be warned though, it is all too easy to get carried away, ending up with a room that is less chic and more scary. An easy way to keep your room stylish with a complementary color scheme is to use a bolder shade in just one of the colors while using a more muted tone for the other.

Analogous colors are those that are adjacent to one another on the color wheel. Using analogous colors, in either cool or warm tones, in a redesigned room will allow you to create a chic monochromatic look. Mixing cool and warm tones may end up creating a somewhat muddled and confusing visual effect, whereas choosing one or the other allows you to create a more cohesive space. This is a great option for those of you out there who are big fans of one particular color and want to incorporate it into your home's decor.

Understanding these basic elements of color theory is certainly helpful for making our color scheme options more manageable, keep in mind though that the objective here is to have fun, get creative, and design a space that YOU want to spend time in. There are no hard and fast rules, only guidelines, so don't be afraid to play around with color.

We've created a navy, peach and gold mood board featuring our Audrey lumbar and Marilyn pillows, to get you inspired.

Audrey Lumbar Pillow

Marilyn Pillow

1) Zatista Original Oil Painting - Swell on Design Public
2) Lights Up! Devo Round Lamp on Design Public
3) Context Furniture William and Mary Small Round Table on Design Public
4) Dash and Albert Diamond Denim-White Indoor/Outdoor Rug
5) Arteriors Bates Cocktail Table
6) Gus Modern Harbord Sofa on Design Public
7) Allem Studio Audrey Lumbar Pillow
8) Allem Studio Marilyn Pillow


Navy and peach are complementary colors that give a bold look to this space and keep it fun and fresh for the spring season. Gold and peach and gold and navy are both classic color pairings; using gold accents really ties all the pieces together and brings some more warmth into the space.