Colour Bravery

What’s your favourite colour? Red, Green, Yellow? Each colour we hold dear could be said to represent something key about our personalities, Purple; Spiritual, Green; Balance, Red; Strength.

If you were asked the question; what’s your favourite colour regarding your interior? Would you be so forthcoming and daring?  Would White, Magnolia or Beige be the ‘safe choice’ amongst us? maybe so, but it can definitely be said that the times they are a changing.

It was just 10 odd years ago when the TV show ‘Changing Rooms’ rocked the nation when Anna Ryder Richardson painted a room red and the homeowner hated it.  Red, yes red, we muttered amongst ourselves on our coffee breaks.  To Anna’s defence it was the home-owners favourite colour but lifting that brush and painting that wall was just one envelope push too far.  So 10 years on, what has happened, are we more open, has the influx of interior and DIY programmes, magazines and all round acceptance of things just that little bit different made us slightly more cool as an nation or dare we say it more cosmopolitan in our mind-set?

Now for the science bit, it has been said that in design, colour is the most subjective area in decoration and no amount of research will predict how two different people will respond to the same shade. At the same time, almost any generalization you can make about a particular colour can be overturned in practice. However, one truism holds true for everyone, all of us are instinctively drawn to specific families of colours which repeatedly pop up in clothes, treasured pictures or possessions, and of course on the reverse, there are colours which we will absolutely detest.

Knowing personally what we like, now is the time to embrace and apply colour to our interiors, the once trickling filter from high-end designer to high-street has gathered momentum, we have a wealth of colour to choose from.  Just have a peek at a Dulux or Crown paint chart and feast at the choices they present us.  Have a meandering stroll around Next or M&S and indulge in the key colour accessories they have. Curtain fabrics, cushions, flooring, tiles, colour is everywhere and with web tutorials, interior magazines and stylist blogs to help us along the way, we can now make educated choices and tap into our own interior makeovers.

Bland beige should be banished, the colour revolution is now.  Add mood, zest and personality to your interior.  Colour should not scare but rather be embraced.

Now armed with this knowledge, bravely go forth and add COLOUR to your life.