How do I start picking a color combination for decorating?
One of the most valuable tools in your decorating arsenal is a color wheel. They’re available at local crafts and fabric stores for about $6. That little device can show, at a glance, the different shades and tints of a color, plus which combinations of colors that can go well together.
A basic color wheel has 12 parts. It starts with the three primary colors, red, yellow and blue, the three that cannot be from a combination of any other color. In between each primary color is a secondary color, which is made by mixing equal parts of two primary colors. Between red and blue is violet. Between blue and yellow, green. And between yellow and red, orange. The remaining six colors are technically called tertiary. They’re the colors between a primary and secondary color, such red-violet between violet and red.
As to decorating, the color wheel is a good starting point to finessing a color scheme.
One possible color scheme would be the use of complementary colors, a color plus the color directly opposite it on the wheel. For blue, the color opposite it is orange. For yellow, it’s purple. For red, it’s green. The tints and shades of each are also shown on the color wheel. In this combination, the colors don’t compete with one another, as each one helps to show off the other.
In addition to complementary colors, you can develop a decorating scheme based on other color combinations such as monochromatic, the different shades and tints of one color.
Use the color wheel as a starting point and begin experimenting with combinations.
