Recently I sent out a survey to my followers and email list friends, and asked a few questions about what they wanted to hear from me. A resounding number of people needed help with picking colors! I totally get it, it’s something I’ve struggled with throughout my career too, and is a part of my design personality that I’m exploring. But as I’ve continued to grow into this career, I have learned quite a few tips along the way so I wanted to share them with you today! Keep reading to learn how to create a cohesive color palette for your home.
What Needs to Stay?
Unless you’re like a recent client of mine who moved to the midwest from Hawaii, you probably have some things that need to stick around. Whether you love or hate them, there’s a good chance you have some items that will be around for a while. First you should take stock of these pieces, and define what colors can/will be a part of your palette based off of these items. There is no sense in ignoring them, otherwise they will stick out like a sore thumb.
Gather Inspiration
Whenever I’m working on creating a new color palette for the digital shop, I always start with Pinterest. This is super helpful if you have a completely blank slate, but you can definitely head here too if you have any pieces that need to stick around. Let’s say you have a green entertainment center that you plan to keep, I would search for maybe “Green Boho Aesthetic” on Pinterest and see what sort of color inspiration you can find with that.
Another place to draw inspiration from is to look to what was on your “need/want to keep” list. We’ve already discussed the things you need to keep, but sometimes there’s a piece you absolutely adore that you’ll want to pull colors from too! Whether it’s a painting, photo, piece of furniture, rug, or even accent pillows, take stock of what other colors are in any of these items, and pull ones you love as options for the rest of your color palette.
60-30-10 Rule
It’s best to choose three colors to run with, although you can pick multiple shades within a certain color family because you’ll drive yourself into a tizzy if you try to pick the exact shade in every single piece of furniture & decor. First you’ll need pick your base/dominate color and this will account for 60% of your space, the secondary color is typically a complementary neutral to your base, and you’ll use this for about 30% of your pieces. Lastly is the accent color which will be sprinkled into about 10% of your decor and accessories. A good use for the accent color would be in small decor pieces, hints of the color in artwork, or even use as dining chairs, accent pillows, faux flowers or plants, or even dinnerware.
If you’re building a palette for an entire home and not just an open living space, you should use one consistent color in every room in your home. This is key to creating a cohesive color palette, even if the accent color or even base color changes from one room to another keeping one of the 3 main colors in your palette the same between rooms will make it look like you worked with an interior designer! 😉
Designer tip: keep things interesting and do not use the base color as your consistent choice from room to room. Don’t get me wrong, if you’re designing an open kitchen – dining – living room, you should use it as the base in all of those areas, but if you have a very closed off home where you are walking through a doorway from one room to the next, I challenge you to use your secondary or accent color as your intertwining color. This will create a more interesting design as you travel and live within the space.
Play with Color
And lastly, I want to say don’t be afraid of color! I love adding strong pops of color into designs, and when it comes down to it… it’s only paint. If you absolutely hate it the beauty of it all is that it can change!
Are you still struggling on where to even start? Are you looking at your existing pieces and thinking “But Katy… I hate all of the colors in the things I already own!” Don’t worry friend, I get it. I have this great digital shop filled with color palettes and I highly recommend heading there to see if any of my palettes have any overlapping colors with your decor, and I hope they can help you find the beauty in your own home and furnishings too!
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