colour
How to choose a colour scheme for a room
A practical method for choosing room colours: hue, value and saturation, classic schemes, proportion, light direction, undertones and testing samples.
How do you choose a colour scheme for a room?
Start with what you cannot change, such as flooring or a large sofa, and the direction the room faces. Choose a main colour, a secondary colour and an accent, roughly in a 60-30-10 balance, and check their undertones agree. Then test large painted samples on several walls and view them in morning, afternoon and evening light.
Choosing colours is easier with a little vocabulary and a method. The vocabulary lets you describe why two colours clash or sit well together. The method stops you choosing a paint from a small chip under shop lighting and being surprised when it covers four walls.
Three properties of colour
Every colour can be described by three properties.
- Hue is the colour family: red, yellow, green, blue and the mixes between them.
- Value is how light or dark the colour is. Two different hues of the same value sit calmly together; strong differences in value create contrast and draw the eye.
- Saturation (sometimes called chroma or intensity) is how pure or vivid the colour is. A saturated colour is strong; a desaturated one is greyed or muted.
Most successful interiors vary value more than hue. A room of soft, related hues with a range of lights and darks feels considered. A room of many saturated hues at the same value can feel busy.
Paint makers often publish a light reflectance value (LRV) for each colour, on a scale from 0 (absolute black) to 100 (perfect white). It is a useful way to compare value.
| LRV range | Typical description | What it does in a room |
|---|---|---|
| 80–90+ | Bright whites and very pale tints | Reflects most light; can look stark in cool light |
| 60–80 | Pale colours, off-whites | Light and soft; good all-round wall range |
| 40–60 | Mid-tones | Noticeable colour; room feels more enclosed |
| 20–40 | Deep tones | Strong character; needs good light or works in cosy rooms |
| Below 20 | Very dark colours | Absorbs light; makes edges recede in the right room |
Classic schemes
The colour wheel offers a few reliable relationships.
- Monochromatic. One hue in several values and saturations. Calm and easy to get right; add texture to stop it looking flat.
- Analogous. Two to four neighbouring hues, such as blue, blue-green and green. Harmonious, with more variety than monochrome.
- Complementary. Two hues opposite each other, such as blue and orange. Lively; usually works best when one colour dominates and the other is used sparingly or in muted form.
- Split-complementary. One hue plus the two either side of its complement. Contrast with less tension than a direct complement.
- Triadic. Three hues evenly spaced around the wheel. Energetic; needs careful proportion and usually some muted versions.
- Neutral. Whites, greys, beiges, taupes and browns, with colour coming from wood, textiles, plants and art.
Proportion
The 60-30-10 guideline is a simple way to balance a scheme: about 60 per cent of the visible colour in a dominant shade (usually walls and large floor areas), about 30 per cent in a secondary shade (larger furniture, curtains, a feature wall), and about 10 per cent in an accent (cushions, art, a lamp). It is a guide rather than a rule. Its value is in reminding you that a scheme needs one clear lead colour, not three competing ones.
Remember that floors, wood, metal and fabrics count. An oak floor and a tan leather sofa are already part of your palette before you open a paint tin.
Light direction
Daylight changes colour across the day and depends on which way a room faces. In the northern hemisphere, the guides below apply; in the southern hemisphere, swap north and south.
| Room faces | Character of daylight | Approach that often works |
|---|---|---|
| North | Cool, even, softer; little direct sun | Warm undertones; avoid very cool greys, which can look cold |
| South | Warm and bright for much of the day | Most colours work; cool colours can balance strong sun |
| East | Bright and warm in the morning, cooler later | Consider how the room is used in the afternoon and evening |
| West | Cooler in the morning, warm and golden later | Test in evening light; warm colours can become intense |
Artificial light matters too. Most homes use warm white lamps of about 2700–3000 K, which push colours towards yellow. A blue-grey that looks crisp in daylight may look green or dull under warm lamps at night.
Undertones
Undertone is the subtle bias within a colour: a white that leans yellow, pink, green or blue; a grey that leans warm or cool; a beige with a pink or green cast. Undertones are hard to see on their own and obvious next to each other.
To read an undertone, place the sample against a sheet of plain bright white paper, or beside other samples in the same family. Then check it against the fixed elements in the room: flooring, worktops, tiles and large furniture. A warm white beside a cool grey worktop, or a pink-beige beside a green-tinged stone, often looks wrong without anyone being able to say why.
A method that works
- List the fixed elements. Flooring, tiles, kitchen units, fireplaces and furniture you are keeping. Note their undertones.
- Note the light. Which way the room faces, how much daylight it gets and when it is mostly used.
- Decide the mood. Calm, bright, enclosed and cosy, or lively. This guides value and saturation more than hue.
- Choose a lead colour, then a secondary and an accent that relate to it through one of the schemes above.
- Plan the whole view. Look from one room into the next. Connected spaces read better when their colours share an undertone or a value.
- Shortlist two or three candidates for each surface rather than one.
Testing samples
Small chips mislead. Colour looks lighter and brighter across a large area than on a small card, an effect designers often allow for by choosing a shade slightly more muted than first instinct.
- Paint samples large, at least A4 and ideally larger, using two coats.
- Paint them on card or lining paper so you can move them, rather than straight onto the existing colour, which affects how you see them.
- Place them on more than one wall, including the wall with the window and the wall opposite it.
- Look at them in the morning, afternoon and evening, and under your own lamps, over two or three days.
- Check sheen as well as colour. Matt finishes hide imperfections; eggshell and satin are more washable but show surface flaws and reflect more light.
Trying colours in Arcvelle Studio
The moodboard maker can extract a palette from your photos and arrange it with material chips, which is a quick way to see whether colours belong together. In Arcvelle Studio you can apply any of the 19 paint colours, or a custom colour, to each side of each wall, set floor finishes and ceiling colour per room, and compare the result under the lighting presets for midday, golden hour, overcast and evening. Screens do not reproduce paint exactly, so use this to compare options and proportions, then confirm with real samples. The floors and paint help article explains how.