13 EASY TIPS HOW TO MATCH COLORS THAT LOOK GOOD TOGETHER IN YOUR HOME!
Looking for a basic and easy guideline to match colors that look good together in your home to find the right color palette? Here are 13 easy tips for you to follow to help match colors that look good together in your home.
One of the biggest issues we all face when decorating our home is trying to find the right colors and how to match colors that look good together. We all see the beautiful pictures on Pinterest, magazines, or images on the internet of beautiful homes and rooms with beautifully matched colors that capture exactly how we want our home to look, but how do we do that in our own home?
You then ask how do I now find the right colors in my home with my current furniture, walls, and floor? Or how do I find the right colors that work for a new look with the furniture and paint I already have?
When you start to look up how to match colors, there is a lot of information out there about color palettes and color theory and the color wheel (which I will briefly touch on). Which is all fascinating and intriguing, especially if you love color like me. But how do you translate that to your home and your project? Especially if you are short on time or energy, and you need something easy and basic to apply to your current room.
Well, that is what I set out to do to, to create a basic color decorating guideline of tips to help you decorate with colors that look good together for whatever room you choose, including working with your current layout. There is a bullet point list for the guide below with more detail for each point following. Let’s get started to help you match colors for your home so you can make it look the way you want!
13 Easy Tips Guide to Help Match Colors that Look Good Together in Your Home!
- Color Basics
- Lighting
- Temperature
- Color of floors
- Color of walls and ceiling
- Dominant Color Rule (60-30-10 Rule)
- Color Apps and Websites
- Primary Piece of Art or Furniture
- Balance
- Level of intensity
- Criss-cross balance
- Avoid overmatching
- Look to Colors in Nature
1. Color Basics
Without going into a lot of detail about color theory, there are still some simple basics to know when working with colors and trying to mix and match them.
Monochromatic colors: A color scheme using a single color(hue) with multiple variations of that same color.
Complementary colors: when two colors are on exact opposite sides of the color wheel.
Analogous colors: 3 colors right next to each other on the color wheel.
Triadic colors: 3 colors evenly spaced out from each other on the color wheel (making a triangle when you connect them).
Tetradic colors: 2 sets of complementary colors on the color wheel usually creating a square when connecting them.
2. Lighting
One of the most critical elements that can affect colors and any color combination in any room is the lighting. You may find a beautiful color combination of matching colors, but the vibe and appearance of your colors can change depending on the lighting of your room. It’s important to look at the type of lighting you have in your home and the types of lightbulbs, the windows or lack of, along with which direction the room faces (meaning does it get a lot of sunlight or not).
If you have a room that doesn’t have much light or windows, depending on if you want a more light-colored look or a darker or cooler look, the lack of lighting will impact the appearance and vibe of the colors you choose.
If you have a room that receives a lot of sunlight or has a lot of windows, that can also change the impression of the colors you chose.
3. Temperature
As a general rule, but there are always exceptions! :), you will usually want your colors to be of the same temperature, whether cool or warm, in your room.
As a guide, most warm colors have an undertone of orange, red, or yellow. Most cool colors have an undertone of blue, green or purple.
So, what do I mean by undertone? When there is a color that is created by two different colors, there will be what is called a primary or mass tone color and then an undertone. Here’s an example to illustrate this point.
So, with the color teal below for example, which is created by mixing blue and green, the primary or mass tone may be green, but the undertone is blue.
The reverse can also happen where the teal looks more blue, but the undertone will be green.
4. Color of floors
The color of your floors impact the color choices and temperature of your rooms. Every color as mentioned earlier has either a warm or cool undertone and the color of your floors are no different and how they impact walls and furniture etc.
For example, if you have a cooler toned floor, such as a cooler brown or gray, the rest of your choices will adapt to a cooler tone for the room. You can use your floor as your guide (that is, if you are not wanting to change your current flooring) for choosing your color palette for that room. I would like to note here tho, depending on where you are at in your decorating or re-decorating, you do not have to let your floors dictate your color choices. I want to emphasize the impact that the color of your flooring can have on your rooms.
If you have a warmer toned floor, try to have the rest of the pieces follow the tone of being warmer.
For example, in our current home before we bought it, the entire interior of our home was a dusty rose pink! The cabinets were a warm mahogany brown, and the floors of the kitchen and breakfast nook were a dusty rose with beige accents. On top of that, the walls were a dusty rose pink!
In order to tone down the pink in the tiles, (until we change them), and we chose to stick with the color of the cabinets, we knew we had to go with a neutral wall color to pull out the neutral beige in the tiles to tone down the pink. The floors impacted the color choice of our wall paint. This also impacted furniture, rugs and wood color choices.
So why didn’t we change the color of the cabinets, even tho we liked the color, to a white?, the white would have actually highlighted the pink more than the beige in the tiles which was the whole issue we were trying to avoid. We could have gone with a more antique white or cream, a warm neutral like the walls, but we loved the color of the wood. Possibly changing the tile colors have been added to the list of home updates and redecorating!
5. Color of Walls and Ceiling
As mentioned earlier regarding the colors of floors, the color of your walls and ceilings can also impact and help determine the colors you choose to use in your room.
Just like with your floors, the colors of your walls and ceilings can also have different undertones and temperatures which will affect the colors you choose to decorate with in each room.
Back in reference to our current home, we had dusty rose-pink walls with ceilings that were a neutral white with a warmer yellow undertone. The entire vibe was offputting since we had cooler toned pink walls with a warm toned neutral white which looked more yellow next to the pink.
We went with a neutral warmer beige white color by Sherwin Williams called Natural Linen that had a yellow/orange undertone for our walls which worked extremely well with the ceilings. This also brought a warmer tone to the house which impacted our choices of furniture and decor.
6. Dominant Color (60-30-10 Rule)
To help match colors to find your color palette for your room, an extremely helpful tip is to use what is called the 60-30-10 rule to find and use a dominant color.
When using the 60-30-10 rule, your focus is on using a dominant color (60%) of your room, a secondary color (30%) of your room, and an accent color (10%) of your room. It’s not an exact percentage breakdown, but it’s a basic guideline to help achieve balance. So, what do you do with that?
Well, when looking at your room, 60% of the color will be your dominant color which will most likely be coming from the walls and floor (as mentioned earlier), and any large pieces of furniture such as a sofa, wall unit, and rugs. 30% will be the secondary color such as an accent wall, drapes, accent chairs and smaller pieces of furniture. The last 10% will be the accent color coming from accent pillows, throws, decor pieces, lamps, and floral arrangements etc.
So how do you find and match a secondary and accent color with your primary colors? Besides going to a paint store, I love the folks at Sherwin Williams, try out using color apps and color websites, which I touch on below!
7. Color Apps and Websites
I absolutely love all of the different apps and websites I have found along the way to help me in finding the right colors to decorate our current and last home.
Color apps and color websites, including professional paint websites, have been such a huge lifesaver and extremely helpful for me in not only finding colors that go together but also in finding palettes to use for current and future projects.
There is also the color wheel, which is very helpful, but if it’s a color wheel of just the primary colors (red, green, blue etc.), that makes it more of a challenge to find your additional colors to match let’s say, a neutral beige. So current day color apps, such as the Canva Color Wheel, are amazing and convenient!
Below are just a few of the wonderful sites and apps that are out there, but as I mentioned earlier, the ones I have used the most are below. I have had success as well with Sherwin Williams and their staff has always been friendly! I also learned about the Sherwin Williams Color Snap application as well!
This leads to the next helpful idea for matching colors that look good together-use a central, primary piece as your focus.
8. Primary piece of art or furniture
You may have a favorite picture, piece of furniture, or a piece of art that has a pattern, color or design that you love and would love to have in your room or define your room. Since it is already something that you are drawn to that reflects you and a color scheme that you like, you can use this as your basis to select your matching colors for your room!
And what is even better, to define these colors and find its complementary and accent colors, you can upload a picture or image of this favorite piece to one of the websites mentioned earlier, such as Color Palette from Image which is what I have used quite a bit. Here is an example below.
9. Balance
Another way to help in matching colors in your home, is to find balance. Balance comes from where you have pieces and colors placed in a room that bring a sense of calm, order and peace when you enter your room. In other words, things do not seem out of whack.
It is stepping back, or leaving the room and coming back, and looking at your room as a whole unit, and not looking at colors or pieces in isolation from each other but as a whole. Balance also includes the temperature of the colors in your room.
Symmetry also creates balance, but you do not have to have symmetry to have balance! That has been a big game changer for me. I always focused on have symmetry, which there is nothing wrong with using symmetry which I still use, but being able to find balance without using exact matching items is another step up in your decorating. And when that happens, it makes me feel so giddy!!! Sometimes it is easy to see balance in a room and sometimes it isn’t, and sometimes it just takes time to see and/or learn. Below you will see how items are basically almost symmetrical on each side of the fireplace.
For example, finding balance in terms of temperature can be a personal preference. In the below photo, a cool temperature balance was achieved with a few pops of cooler toned pillows or furniture!
10. Level of Intensity
Sticking to the same level of intensity of your colors is critical in finding a balance in matching colors in your home.
If you have colors that are deeper and richer in their tones, you will want to stick with other colors that have rich tones.
If you have colors that are lighter intensity, for example in a French country theme, you will want to stick with lower intensity colors.
11. Cross Matching
This ties in to when you are trying to find balance when viewing your room as a whole.
For example, let’s say you have a sofa and pillows that do not match, but the pillows match the wall color. When you step back, you will see how the pillows and wall tie with each other, they cross match! This situation is an example of using complementary colors.
There are multiple ideas in how to cross match such as in cross matching pillows or a throw blanket with a chair, or a table with a wall, or any other piece of furniture or accent piece.
12. Avoid overmatching
Another tip to more effectively match colors in your home, is to try and avoid too much matchy match! (Unless of course if that is your jam 🙂 )
It can be unsettling for the eye and the over matching can actually dominate the room and may make things look too busy.
As mentioned earlier, an easier way to try and match your colors is to work on focusing on your dominant color and then having your additional 2 colors as a secondary and accent color. In the picture below, the teal green is the dominant color in the sofas and they are using the coffee table and the rug with oranges and browns with a more neutral greige painted walls.
13. Look to Nature
I feel sometimes one of the best resources that can get overlooked or we forget about, are the many examples in nature of the combinations of colors in plants and flowers etc.
You can look to the types of greens that work well together along with browns and pinks and reds etc. and so many other colors, you name it and you will have a great example of some basic colors that work well together.
As mentioned in the color apps section earlier, you can take a picture of a beautiful setting outside and then use one of the color apps or websites listed above or one of the many others available to find the actual name of a color or its hex code!
Conclusion
Hopefully these 13 easy tips of how to match colors that look good together when decorating your home will help when you are working on your home. The main goal is to try and not make it too complicated. Using some or all of these basics can be so fulfilling when you look at your room and say, “Yes this works!”.
At the end of the day, please do not be too hard on yourself if it doesn’t happen right away, or you just can’t find the right combination! To me the process of decorating including finding the right color combinations is a process where you can make continual tweaks or changes along the way. There are days I just have to stop since my brain says no more lol, and I come back the next day with a fresh outlook and sometimes it is like, boom! Now I see it!
And that makes it worth to enjoy being in a home you love being in! Color on friends!
