Add extra visual interest to a room by painting one wall in a contrasting color. This act of creation can be exciting but you can avoid losing control, and ending up with a Frankenstein mess, by following some basic guidelines about color theory in home décor.
How Color Theory Works
Familiarize yourself with color wheel theory. This theory outlines universal principles about relationships between colors and how they affect us. Natural light is broken into three primary colors--red, blue and yellow. These three colors combine with each other to form secondary colors--violet, green, orange. A third group of tertiary colors includes further combinations of secondary and primary colors. Blue-green, yellow-orange and red-violet are examples of tertiary colors. When arranged on a wheel, with each color assigned to a spoke in the wheel, four basic color relationships emerge.
Complimentary Colors
Remember that opposites attract. Blue is opposite orange on the color wheel, just as red is opposite green and yellow is opposite violet. Using color theory, when you paint one wall blue and another wall orange, you are not just celebrating the Chicago Bears, you are creating a complimentary color scheme. Complimentary colors "go together" but because they are so different from each other, the two colors fight each other. The result is a very exciting color scheme.
Analogous Colors
Gather colors together. Another color relationship involves three colors found side by side on the color wheel such as blue, green and yellow. These three siblings form an analogous color scheme that is also exciting but not quite as dramatic as a complimentary scheme.
Split Complimentary Schemes
Split a complimentary scheme. Blue is opposite orange, but you can split off to the left and right of orange on the wheel and instead combine blue with orange's tertiary friends--yellow-orange and red-orange. Split complimentary schemes are very interesting but in a more subtle way.
Monochromatic Colors
Focus on one color. A monochromatic color scheme takes primary blue, for example, and shades it with a drop of black to form midnight blue. Alternatively, tint blue with a drop of white to form light blue. If you combine primary blue with its cousins, midnight blue and light blue, the relationship is very pleasing to the eye.
Applying Theory with a Brush
Count the odd man in. Any 3-and-1 wall color scheme is allowed and will succeed if the colors you choose are related in one of these four ways. Remember that the oddball wall will hog all the attention. Intentionally draw attention to something special on the odd wall, such as a fireplace or built-in cabinetry. Do not draw attention to a boring or ugly wall. You also can shorten an overly long room by painting three walls in a light color and the fourth wall in a dark color: the eye will tend to draw the dark wall in closer. Or lengthen a short room by painting three walls in one dark color and then the fourth wall in a lighter color: the eye will push that wall away.
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