Walls: Are You Afraid Of Color? Here's The FixDecor Girl

Color is part of what makes an interior beautiful. The right wall color can make a room as easily as the wrong color can sink it. Fear of color is an issue which faces people daily when decorating their homes. If you are afraid of using color on your walls here is what you need to know to break through.

Common Arguments Against Using Color:

“That color is beautiful, I can’t do that.”
“My (husband, wife, child, dog, bird, mother-in-law) doesn’t like bright colors.”
“I’m afraid I won’t like it in five years.”
“Oh that, is too much color for me.” Often said while wearing brilliantly colored clothing or jewelry.

None of these arguments are valid, its just the fear talking, let’s move on and take control.

What Did Color Ever Do To You? In most cases the answer is nothing. What often happens is people are unhappy with their color choices, say you’ve painted a wall or room your favorite color and ended up hating it. Is it the color? Maybe, more likely it is how the color is used and what is going on around it. Don’t throw out the glorious world of color because of one mistake. Turn the page and start over.

As an interior designer who is known for color, believe it or not I can sympathize. The first thing I counsel client’s on is getting everyone else out of one’s head, sorry but the mother-in-laws opinion is only relevant in her home. As for the kids, they don’t know enough yet to have a relevant opinion.

People love color, strong colors, but fear leaves them in a jail of blah walls.

How To Use Color On Walls: The Wall Color Recipe For Success

Decide what is the most important feature of the room. Hint: 99% of the time it isn’t the walls. Furnishings, artwork, cabinetry, a view, architecture are the features in a room. But not all have equal importance.
What color is this feature? If you love white furniture, bold colored walls are great. If you like colored furniture, tone down the walls.
Wall color needs to support the feature.

This is the wall color recipe for success, we use over and over. Support means to make the feature look its best.

In this room, the cabinets are the feature and become the walls so a bold color for both makes a dramatic statement. This also makes the edges of the room disappear, like in this next photo. The wall color enhances the cabinetry of the room, yet makes it disappear. What then becomes the feature is the bounty of food one puts on the countertop. The wall color further serves as a sense of focus.

A wall color can not compete with the feature or features of a room. The purpose of a dynamic color is it makes the other parts of the room look better, it shouldn’t look better than the other parts of the room. Selecting the wall color first is a BIG MISTAKE. I love blue and white as much as anyone, but in this room one see’s nothing, maybe those little pink paintings, if they are worth a gazillion dollars, okay, if not the blue walls are a fail. The white molding is not a feature, the floor might be, but the walls are detracting from it.

There is one designer who gets color and how to use it to make a home beautiful and this is Anthony Baratta, his page is worth checking out for examples of how to do wall color well.

The whole fix for getting wall color right is understanding what is important in a room, what do you want to feature? If you love your red sofa, red walls aren’t going to make you love your sofa. Bold and saturated wall colors work, if they serve to make the parts and pieces of the rest of the room look better.