Colour selection for the home

As experienced home builders in Bundaberg and beyond, we’ve seen our fair share of colour scheme horror stories and builders’ regret. Choosing the right colour palette for your home can be the difference between feeling homey or out of place, especially if the colours you’ve chosen for your walls and floors aren’t cutting it.

Here’s our how-to guide on how to select the right colours for your home, with house design expert tips to choose the perfect hues for you. 

Stay away from trends and fads

With the rise of home decorators on Instagram and TikTok, there is no shortage of new home décor trends. While some looks can be modern and sophisticated, you should be cautious of choosing your house colours based solely on the latest fads. If you’ve ever been to a 1960s house with a brown and yellow shag rug and a carpeted bathroom, you’ll know what we’re talking about! 

Trends may seem fashionable at the moment, but what’s in one week can be out the next. Instead of basing your wall and floor choices on what’s trendy, go for something that is classic and timeless. You can always add modern touches with your accessories and fittings that can easily be swapped out later, but you don’t want to be repainting your entire home six months after moving in because your choices are now tacky. 

Neutral colours always work

I once walked through a home newly on the market and had to quickly hide my disdain for their colour choices. In one room, hot pink walls with a striped two-tone pink feature wall. In another, blood-red paint that covered from cornice to skirting board, and even over the light switches and power outlets. Worse still, textured brown paint for the separate toilet – how that was a good idea we’ll never know! 

Pops of colour can be fun in the right amount, but too much colour is overwhelming and incongruous. One of the biggest pieces of advice we give to new home builders is to opt for a neutral colour scheme. This doesn’t mean every room has to be stark white – there are some great choices these days for off-whites, beiges, and various shades of grey. If you do want colour, keep it minimalistic with neutral undertones such as midnight blue or sage green. 

House design experts can help and guide you through the process of choosing the right colours for your home.

Keep it tonal

No matter what colour scheme you use, make sure you keep it tonal. This is mostly about whether you choose warm or cool tones – a warmer beige for example will usually have yellow undertones that will clash with the blue tones of cool greys. Have a look at a colour wheel and see what colours are complementary, and what colours are contrasting. Direct opposites can work in the right setting, but you don’t want too much conflict, or the colours will simply clash. Pair warm beiges with darker greys for depth of colour, or go for bright whites and cool greys for something more modern. 

Remember that you can opt for splashes of colour such as featured tiles in the bathroom, or use décor elements like rugs and cushions to brighten up a room. Even when pairing colours with neutrals, matching tones will help pull the room together. For a moody, darker space choose deep charcoal or grey for your walls paired with jewel tones such as emerald or burgundy. For lighter spaces, white walls with either jewel or bright hues can work well and give an open, ‘fun’ feel to a room.  

Use the 60-30-10 rule, and the rule of 3

One reason that rooms can feel unbalanced is because you have too much of one colour, and not enough of others. Just imagine walking into a room where every wall, floor, seat, and item was one colour – it would surely feel a little unnerving! When balancing colours in a room, try to stick to the rule of 60-30-10. Your dominant colour should be 60% of the room, your furnishings 30%, and your accessories 10% - and you should try to stick to just 3 colours. 

Take a typical living room, for example. Your walls will be your dominant colour, and you may have a few extra items in the same tone. Next, your furnishings should be in a different colour – let’s say you have white walls, so you opt for a dark grey couch and recliner. Finally, include small accents of colour to brighten up the room. This could mean a red throw and some cushions, an industrial brass lamp with a complimentary mirror, or if you desperately want more than 3 colours, you could accessorise with 2 complementary hues – just keep it sparse and don’t go overboard. 

Keep it consistent

Just like our example with the hot pink, blood red, and textured brown rooms, if your colour scheme changes too much from room to room, the whole house will feel inconsistent. This doesn’t necessarily mean you must have the same three colours throughout your entire home, but there should be some consistency. This is especially the case for public areas of the house, such as the living room, entryway, kitchen, and bathroom. Simply picking up the colour from one object in a room and including it in the next will help make your home feel harmonious. 

For example, in an open plan kitchen/living area, you may have black cupboards, so you could include a black cushion or lamp to bring the tone across into the living room. Walking from the living room to the bathroom, you may have a brass-rimmed clock, that then pairs well with the brass taps in the bathroom. Remember, subtlety is sophisticated, so you only need one object in a room to carry the colour scheme throughout the house.    

Are you looking for a home builder in Bundaberg? Contact us today to discuss your dream home and how we can help bring it to life.