Connect Rooms with Color

Are the colors in your home complimenting each other? If not maybe there is some information you are lacking.

If all the rooms in your home can be separated by closed doors then you may not see any need to link them with color. However if your rooms are open to one another the color flow may affect the feeling throughout the whole house. Instead of being calm and harmonious it may broken up and disturbing.

Use of colors that are not related makes a home feel like a group of individual spaces. On the other hand colors that compliment and draw your eye from one room to another it creates a nice flow.

A home with an open floor plan and wide open doorways needs colors that will compliment each other. The problem then becomes how to give each room its own look while not interrupting the flow of unity from one room to the next.

You can give each room a separate color identity by using a single underlying color throughout the house. This will create a cohesive feeling.

Choose a Favorite- If you are a colorful person who wants that reflected in the décor you can still have good flow by choosing one color as the anchor. This color will continue throughout the whole house. One common area to use this unifying technique is on the woodwork. Baseboards, door frames and window frames make excellent choices.

You can also use more subtle accents as well, like recurring colors in fabrics, accessories and furniture.

Another way to achieve the feeling of balance and flow is by limiting your colors to two or three. You can use these in different amounts and various applications from room to room. The colors may even be used in different values and hues to create many different effects.

Today new homes are built with kitchens and dining rooms that are linked both physically and visually. Separated possibly by a half wall or low counter. With the partial wall or counter as a division you can paint each room a different color.

In order to bring the two areas together use the same color trim and reinforce it by bringing touches of each rooms color into the other room. If you want to keep the transition smooth choose colors that are close in relation.

When using strong highly contrasted colors you can bring them together by implementing flooring or area rugs that pick up colors of both.

The colors in the wall or rug do not have to be exact matches. They can be slightly darker or lighter and the human eye will still connect them as related colors.

The reason architects use open floor plans in homes, condominiums and apartments is to maximize the feel of lots of space while not increasing the actual square footage. There is nothing that says all the walls must be painted the same color, however.

Keep personality in each room while unifying the look by picking two or three colors that play nice together and then use them in differing amounts from area to area.

Achieving the look and feel you want may take several trips to the paint store. The right shade may allude you at first but don't give up. The intensity on the walls from one adjoining room to another is very important to keep it all balanced visually. However in the accessories the colors can be of all kinds of tones and shades. This will create plenty of variety and interest.

Watch the light, it is a fact that light changes the way a color looks. If you have any doubt take a can of yellow and paint two different rooms with it. One that receives little or no natural light and one full of sunshine, the two rooms will look totally different.

Keeping a feeling of unity but still give each room a little different feeling over exaggerate this. Choose colors that are closely related but apply the lighter on to the area with the most sunlight. It will retain that sunny feel all day long. This is especially helpful in L shaped rooms.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Leon Tuberman is the owner of a furniture store specialzing in American made bedroom, living room, home office and dining room furniture. They carry a large selection of solid wood furniture in various style such as Contemporary, Traditional and Mission style furniture.