How difficult can choosing the right room colour be?

Quite difficult it turns out!

So how have you done it to date?

Do you flick through a magazine, see a room colour on a page and decide that this colour looks so great in their home, it’s just what you need in yours?

Or, do you go somewhere, notice the colour on the walls and think how great it looks - I want that on my walls?

Or, do you walk into the paint shop, look at all the swatches together, decide on your new paint and in a split second leave with your future room walls in your hands?

We’ve all done at least one of these!

You could be lucky and after all the walls have been painted love it and feel just right in your newly spruced space.

But then again, you’re more likely to notice that the colour looks different in your room than it did in that magazine or room you saw. And gradually you could begin to get a feeling that something just isn’t right. Something is off. You just can’t settle, concentrate, feel energised.

The art of selecting the right colour combines the need to understand the physical context of the room with the psychological context.

Physically we need to know which direction the room is facing; how much natural light it has; what time of day it will be used.

These answers are important because the colour we see depends on the light that is reflected from its surface into our eyes. If your room is north facing, it’s going to be darker than the south facing room you saw and project a different colour. If your room has one small window, obviously its not going to have as much natural light as that beautiful Georgian room in the magazine where the colour looks great. If the room is to be used in the morning - any natural light will have a pink tinge to it affecting the reflected colour we see, whereas a room used in an evening will have a blue tinge. So understanding the impact of these things on the colour that your eyes see are important.

Let’s turn to the second context. Now if you read my first blog - you will know I have a natural curiosity about human behaviour, personality types, emotions and psyche. Imagine my joy when during my recent studies I learned that colours, at an unconscious level, affect our psychological state. Even more, that tonal colour harmony exists, born out of nature, and is linked to our personality! Who knew?!?! Perhaps you’re not as excited as I was.

Now please bear with me, I’m not showing off, but I want to share with you an insight into just how long it has taken the world to understand the psychological effect that colour has on us. We’re going to jump right in at around 430BC with philosopher Empedocles who divided matter into the four elements of Fire, Earth, Air and Water and said “life springs from a mixture of these four elements in the same way a painter can create a whole world from just a few colours”. (Are you bored yet? I would be if I was you - why not jump to the next paragraph!) In around 310BC Aristotle then developed the first known theory of colour by associating colour to the four elements and suggesting that all colours come from white and black - or from light or the absence of it. For the next 2000 years the world lived with Aristotle’s linear colour system until in 1666, when Isaac Newton solved the mystery of the rainbow and extracted the 7 colours to create what we know today as the circular colours within the colour wheel. 150 years later in 1810 Goethe, a romantic German Poet and novelist, published that colour is an emotional experience and that each of us experiences it in different ways. In the early 1900’s Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (one of my HR career heroes) made “colour psychology” a thing and published the inner stimuli of 4 human behaviour personality types (fiery red, cool blue, earth green and sunshine yellow). Further discoveries by Bauhaus lecturer Itten in the 1920’s lead to the understanding that each colour affects our energy either positively or negatively, then in the 1970’s colour psychologist Angela Wright discovered, after rigorous testing, that the psychological effects of colour are universal and that our response to colour schemes is influenced at an unconscious level by our personality type. She went on to create the Colour Affects System in 1985, placing tonal colours into four groups, each aligned to a personality type. I can only imagine that before too long, with the recent technological innovations in brain scanning and imaging, all of this will be proven with different parts of the brain lighting up in response consciously and unconsciously to colour triggers.

Why have I told you about all this?

Well, because I fluffing love psychology, but also because you need to know that for thousands of years, legendry philosophers, physicists and psychiatrists have confirmed how we see colour AND that it unconsciously affects how we feel, despite our conscious efforts. You will be physiologically and psychologically, positively and negatively affected by the colour you select for your rooms - and there is nothing the conscious you can do to stop it happening. But with help from me, you can choose colour that will have the emotional reaction you want in your room, for you and your family.

All of my colour consultations, in addition to understanding your rooms physical aspects, involve discovering what you want to use your room for, how you want to behave and feel in your room and enough about your personality (or family common personality traits) to understand which of the four colour palettes is evidentially the right one for you.

So the answer to my opening question - how difficult can choosing the right room colour be?

If you are creating a room to show off to other people rather than for yourself - not difficult at all but you might find it hard to live with.

If you are creating a room to be all that you want it to be, for yourself or your whole family - not difficult at all with the help of a great interior designer.

For more information on my colour consultations visit www.atpinteriordesign.co.uk

Thanks for reading.

Annie x