Fabric, General Home, Other

Love Is All Around Us – Using Red Within Your Home

Red is one of the most powerful and effective colours within the colour wheel.  The colour of love, heat, danger and passion red will without a doubt add some energy and wow factor in to your home designs.  Similarly, however, if used to excess red can also create an overpowering, dark and opressive room.  Consequently, this article explains the best ways to stylishly and effectively introduce red in to your colour schemes.

On The Wall

As with most colour schemes the most straight forward way to create a red room is by decorating a feature wall in either red paint of a patterned wallpaper.  Choose the wall within the room that receives the most light or that sits at the centre of the space such as a chimney breast or alcoves.  Introducing colour this way maintains the size of the room yet is as effective as painting the entire space.  To maintain the colour scheme elsewhere keep the other walls and furniture light and accessorise with bold and deep reds.  Be sure to keep your ceilings and floors light and simple to maintain the central and prestigious position of your feature wall.  Simiarly, as touched upon, if your room is dark or small choose a patterned red and white wallpaper to avoid the wall and colour becoming oppressive.  Add to this plenty of light. whether it be artificial or natural, to create an atmospheric and spacious feel.

Off The Wall

Alternatively, if you would prefer to keep your walls lighter it can still be effective to use red for statement accents within the room instead.  For example, if your walls are beige or pale green choose two deep red bedside table lamps, long tab top curtains, a baroque style red mirror or simply red cushions to sharpen the overall finish.  Consider using fabrics and accessories that introduce or replicate patterns elsewhere within the room.  As with all design, maintain the sense of balance and ensure that the colour is dispersed equally throughout the space.  Furthermore, consider the combination of tones and shades within the colour scheme.  A pale green and pastel pink will create a soft and tranquil finish whereas a pale green and ruby red combination will be more striking.

Break It Up

Finally, regardless of your approach to where and how you put implement your injections of colour it is important to explain the importance of white within this colour scheme.  Whether a simple red and white or more complex red and purple colour scheme white helps to create depth, clean lines, space and texture within the room.  Whether white be used as a backdrop to your red couch or as candle sticks and picture frames on your red feature wall it is this colour which inevitably distinguishes and promotes the vivid and powerful effect of red.  Furthermore, team with splashes of grey, black or silver for a truly striking, eastern inspired and sophisticated finish appropriate for the most contemporary or traditional of homes.