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Paint Brings A Dramatic Decorating Change To Any Room by Bonnie P Carrier
The fastest way to change a rooms appearance is with a new coat of paint. However most interior designers will tell you to determine the paint for your walls after you've established the color scheme in that particular room.
The reason for that advice is simple: Paint is one of the least-expensive decorating elements in a room and can be easily altered and changed as needed.
Re-covering a sofa, on the other hand, can cost hundreds, even thousands, of dollars, as can the purchase of a rug, carpeting, or flooring.
How do your establish what color palette your going to use? Look for the color within a pattern you have already chosen for example, fabric on your sofa, bed linen or window treatments. It could also come from an article of clothing you love like a scarf or sometimes it just comes down to your favorite color.
You may also want to think about the room itself, what it’s used for and what type of mood you’d like to create. Color does affect the atmosphere in a room, which in turn affects your mood.
- Warm Colors: Because we see colors with our hearts -- not our heads -- they have the power to put us in a variety of moods. Read on to learn how your color preference reflects your personality. For some, a warm and cozy red library or fireplace room makes an ideal gathering spot. Others would trade the intensity of red for a blush of rose with the same tonic effect. In dining areas, ambers, peaches, or corals spark appetites and electrify the conversation; lemon, jasmine, and golden yellows unleash creative juices in studios and home offices.
- Pacifying Colors: Pacifying colors -- blue, green, and purple -- stay reservedly in the background, cooling, calming, and reenergizing weary spirits. Put them in rooms for resting and refueling. Pale, serene greens slip quietly into a living room, bedroom, or reading room, hushing it with a whisper. Medium greens connect to nature, grounding and freshening the spirits of a home office, family room, or spa. Deep greens comfort a library, bedroom, or sitting room. But lime and parrot greens tend to waken and activate.
- Blues & Neutrals: Blues and purples work meditative wonders. Pale azure and glacier blues wash a room in coolness and unstructured serenity. Proud, strong blues work responsibility and contentment into the mood. Pale purple-blues prompt reflection and dreaming. Neutralizers are the "non-colors": browns, beiges, grays, and white. Perfect for neutral territories of the house, such as kitchens or baths, these colors bridge together rooms, other colors, and moods. They neither activate nor pacify; they blend, combine, and cooperate. White, another neutral hue, brings out openness, airiness, and an expansive spirit. It generously welcomes other colors into a room, framing them and showing them off to their best advantage.
- Activating Colors: Activating colors, such as yellow, orange, and red, move forward, warming and cheering, and inspiring conversation in varying degrees. Red, the intense one of this group, sparks emotions forcefully. Orange applies less pressure, and yellow merely suggests. If these extroverted colors please you, put them to work in the activity rooms of your house. Ruby, raspberry, or brick reds pack a punch in entries or halls.
Once you have made a color choice, you might like to try your hand at faux painting. Faux painting has become quite popular as it offers an alternative to plain painted walls. No doubt you’ve heard the names and have probably seen several of them demonstrated on various Home Decorating Shows.
Faux Painting Techniques
- Combing This project is best done with two people. One person paints the top coat on while the other person drags the comb through the paint to reveal the base coat underneath.
- Sponging Another multicolor technique which will add texture and color to a wall. Be sure to use a new clean sponge for each new color.
- Ragging As easy as sponging, ragging will add a more subtle look to the wall
- Striping Stripes that look Formal, Tailored or just plain fun. It’s is easily obtained with two colors and low-tack painters tape.
There are several web sites - Better Home & Gardens, Home & Garden TV, just to name a few - that provide instructions on the various techniques. Also, many home improvement store provide classes or you can talk to the people at your local paint store.
Color definitions are another part of the paint process. Below is a list of the more common words you might here and a brief description of each.
- HUE: Hue is another word for color. It is most often used to identify a specific color, such as apple green, grass green, or pine green.
- SHADE: A shade is a color to which black is added, taking that color from, for example, blue to navy.
- TINT: When white is added to a color, the resulting hue is called a tint. Add white to red and you will move to cherry then rose and blush pink -- all tints of red.
- TONE: A color's tone or tonal value refers to its intensity -- its degree of lightness or darkness.
- CHROMA: Chroma is a hue's brightness or dullness. Lemon yellow and butter yellow, for example, can have the same tone (degree of lightness or darkness), but lemon yellow is more intense than butter yellow.
About The Author: Bonnie P. Carrier is the creator of Savvy Home Decorating - The Information Center. She is the mother to two grown daughters and a very spoiled Blue Merle Sheltie named Toby. www.savvy-home-decorating.com
This article is shareware. Give this article away for free on your site, or include it as part of any paid package as long as the entire article and author’s bio. is left intact including this notice. Copyright © 2007 bonnie carrier.
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