choosing bedroom clorour schemes

 

 Your bedroom is the one space that you - or you and your partner - don't have to share, so find out how to get the colour scheme you'd love.

How Colour Affects The Mood Of A Room

Colour can transform the look and feel of a bedroom.

Reds & Pinks
For a fun and even passionate feel, feminine pinks and reds are ideal. They also help warm up cold, north-facing rooms. In rooms where natural daylight is poor, go for lighter shades of pink or violet, or stick to smaller amounts of deeper shades as part of a pattern or in accessories. Keep the room contemporary by matching deep reds with brilliant white.

Greens & Blues
Soft greens and blues - associated with nature, and growth - make a room feel relaxing, ideal for a bedroom. However, they add little energy to a room if they are pastel shades, so if you want to brighten the room, choose turquoise or a yellow-green. Or, if you want to add drama, choose a petrol blue and match it with white, deep red or golds for a sumptuous look.

White
White is soothing, too, but consider also off-whites and creams, which actually have a small amount of colour that can result in a warmer atmosphere. Match these with other neutrals and earthy tones for a warm, welcoming feel that's ideal for a room with poor natural daylight.

Yellow
Yellow can add some zip to your bedroom, and can look great on walls, or as part of the patterned fabrics in the room. However, it's not a relaxing colour, so avoid brighter shades, especially in rooms that get lots of sunlight in the mornings.

Consider The Light

How Will It Look At Night?
You have to take into account how natural daylight will affect your choice of colour - but you should also bear in mind that the majority of your time will be spent in the room with electric light on, so make your choice based on what it will look like when the room's lit at night, too.

Will It Look The Same In Your Room?
The amount of light - whether natural or electric - a room receives has a profound effect on how a colour appears to us. This means you can never assume that a colour you love when you see it in a photograph - or in someone else's room - will look the same in your bedroom.

Put Tester Pots In The Room
Always test using paint sample pots or wallpaper samples, and do the same with flooring. Put them in position, too. Just holding up a carpet sample won't let you understand how it will look on the floor.

Can You Improve The Light?
Always remember that the combination of colour with the light in your bedroom can help you cheat the dimensions. A small bedroom can feel larger with a light, reflective colour on the walls, and a space that feels cavernous rather than cosy can feel more intimate with a dark wall colour that will absorb light and make walls feel closer to you.

Include A Colour That Doesn't Work
Don't discount a colour that you love if it doesn't work well with the light levels in your room. Adding it as part of a wallpaper, bed linen or window fabric pattern, then teaming with a few matching accessories is a great solution.

Reinvent Your Furniture
If the surface is paintable, able to be reupholstered or stained. If pieces are mismatched in terms of style and shape, you can help bring the room together by reinventing it in the same colour - or tones of the same colour. You can mix different woods, within a colour scheme, though, and these will actually look better if they are quite contrasting, as those that are just a little different in tone will look like bad matches.

Renew The Headboard
A new headboard to match another colour in the room will bring a bed that's staying into the scheme. Likewise, changing bed linen to work with another element of your new colour scheme will also work to unify the room.

Include It On Your Moodboard
Don't forget to put what you're keeping on to your mood board, so you can look at the remaining elements of your room alongside it. You can always take your own photos of the pieces you're keeping and build them into your mood board to help you colour scheme successfully.

 

How To Begin

Collate Your Moodboard

Take a look at our bedroom galleries for inspiration. Once you've found a colour scheme you love, make sure you collect samples of everything you're going to use to create the finished look - paint, wallpaper, fabric, flooring and then images of furniture and accessories.
Check It Works
Every element counts, and don't assume that something that looks online or in store like a goes-with-everything neutral will actually look like that when it's in your room. When all your samples - and any options - are gathered - you can make a moodboard to check you still love your colour scheme.

Build The Scheme
Then, start with the bigger areas of the room - paint or paper the walls and lay the carpet or a rug over floorboards. Once this is done, you can begin to layer the scheme bit by bit, painting furniture, adding curtains, blinds, bedlinen, throws, and finally accessories, such as light shades or fixtures, pictures and objets.

Think About The Elements

Creating a new colour scheme for your bedroom doesn't mean you have to follow these steps in order. Use them to ensure you consider all the elements that will mean you love your new-look room. However, for the greatest success, approach the decoration of the room in stages. Don't try to go for a completed look all in one go - add accessories, even bedlinen, later. That way, the room won't look contrived, but accidental... and fabulous.