A colourful makeover

DECOR Treat walls at home as a huge canvas. Colour them according to your personal style statement. All this, to transform, liven up and give a unique makeover to your space, writes Chethana Dinesh


How do you want your home to be? Glamourous, modern, traditional or romantic? Well, just painting your walls right can do the trick. It’s the colour of the walls that can bring a sea change to the look of your house and your mood too. An intelligent selection of colours for the walls, coupled with well-though colour co-ordination can make any home gleam with glamour. Furthermore, colours lend an emotional appeal, impact our moods and work wonders for our well-being.

Tastes and preferences

Dressing up homes in the colours of our choice is no mean task. We are always torn between the choices and preferences of our family members. While the younger ones will want a splash of fresh and lively colours, the older ones might prefer pastel shades to go with their mellowed mood and personality. If there is no clear consensus on the choice of colours, the best option will be to select them according to the space, each person of the family occupies. However, when it comes to the living room, go in for something that represents your personal taste.

Fortunately, we no longer need to be limited to colours like black, white, blue, red or yellow. There are myriad shades including blue-violet, green-yellow, red-orange at our disposal. And, every colour has its own natural shine and individual property. These days, the market is flooded with a multitude of options wherein we can opt for an additive colour style where colours are mixed and matched to come up with an entirely an different shade.

Technology aids the decision making process. To make the procedure more efficient and easier for customers, especially those who find it hard to make a choice, colours are mixed on the computer, which showcases the concluding result. If you are still dogged by an indecisive mind, you can opt for the facility of shade tiles where a tile in the shade of your choice is given to take home and co-ordinate it with your furnishings.

Contrast — latest trend

While colours on walls can actually lend a drastic makeover to your home, the role they play in accentuating the general ambience cannot be discounted. Come to think of it, contrast is the style of the season. It draws immediate attention. Since colours of the same hue are believed to spoil the mood, it is best to have furnishings and the wall colours in contrasting shades.

Having three walls of a room in one colour and the fourth one in an entirely different colour is the latest trend of the season. In such cases, colours have to be chosen in such a manner that one colour stands out prominently while the other one adds a dazzling effect to the other.

While dressing up walls, it pays to give due consideration to the home colour scheme. The right blend of warm and cool colours and some co-ordination and balance between the colour themes of different rooms can transform the look of the house. For instance, if yellow is your choice of colour, then you can check out different shades of yellow for each room. While the living and dining rooms can have a lighter shade of yellow, the bedroom can have a brighter hue while the children’s room can have the brightest shade of all.

Fresh approach

Though there are umpteen theories about the choice of wall colours, always remember that your home is only yours and that your choice matters the most. So, check out some new trendy colours and define your uniqueness.

Always opt a fresh approach. However, if you are an artistic person, then the walls of your house can itself be a huge canvas with which you can create magic. Also, you can go in for white, as white walls give space for ample innovation. Most of all, white coincides and adapts well with all types of furnishings. Another most important advantage of using the colour is the feeling of space it lends.

The ancient Indian science of Vaastu too has a few colour suggestions, based on their individual properties.

According to the science, while red is believed to be a very vibrant and energetic colour and hence not suitable for bedrooms, yellow is believed to represent sunlight, which symbolises power, and hence most suitable for prayer rooms. Vaastu offers clear guidelines on colours based on directions represented by various planets too.

Theories and principles apart, colours have always played an integral part in interiors. Just follow your heart, experiment with different colours and give your home just the perfect unique look you always dreamt of.