Colour

 My daughter recently repainted her flat to put it on the market: she had previously painted it in shades of blue, but for broader market appeal she opted for a more neutral colour scheme of white and mid grey for an accent wall. The transformation was extraordinary! The original colours worked very well with her taste, with the carpets and some of the larger furniture in a bluish-grey, and with many pieces in accent colours of coral, red and other bright colours. With the furniture and decor removed, the flat looked quite small, even though blue is usually used as a receding tone - because the colours were quite saturated, it gave the feeling of compactness, but maybe a bit claustrophobic for some tastes.

Living room with blue wall and blue-grey soft furnishing

The new neutral tones and bright white made the main open-plan space seem very much larger, with the mid-grey adding to this feeling of spaciousness. I have always been a fan of white and shades of grey, but I admire people who are courageous enough to use bold colours. 

Open-plan kitchen with grey accent wall

An architect I know has a passion for sunflower yellow, and always manages to introduce at least one wall of his dwelling with this as an accent. He never uses it for more than one wall in any room, and will select key artworks, objects and pieces of furniture that draw the eye into a harmonious composition with the yellow as the visual centering.

On Instagram and YouTube, I have noticed a fashion for painting all the walls and built-in furniture in one room in a dark or saturated colour. This is very striking, and looks fantastic in the photographs, but will tend to make a room look smaller. This is great in a cold climate, when you want some of your spaces to seem cozy and enveloping, but is maybe not such a great idea in a warm or hot climate. Here neutral or bright colours are more versatile - one can always make a room seem warmer for winter with the addition of soft furnishings such as autumn-coloured curtains, throws and scatter cushions that can be packed away in summer for a more airy and spacious impression. You can also think of doing cushion covers with warm tones on one side and cool on the other - simply flip them around when the weather changes!

Another way to introduce colour in your spaces is with wallpaper: this adds texture as well, and can really enrich a space. Here we need to think about colour and scale, and match the scale of the wallpaper design to the size of the room. 

Small-scale wallpaper design

As with bright and more saturated colours, it is generally best to wallpaper only one wall of each room. Select the wall adjacent to the main source of light for maximum impact. 

A bolder design for a bigger room

Whether you use paint or wallpaper for an accent wall, it is good to understand how this changes the perception of space: if you have a long and narrow space and make the short wall at the end of the space the accent wall, it will make the room seem wider. So the lesson for a narrow space is to paint the long walls in a neutral or muted colour, such as pale sage green or a light grey. Likewise, a dark floor or ceiling will make a room feel less tall - if you have very high ceilings (over 2,7 metres), then you can have a dark carpet or paint the ceiling in a strong colour, but for lower ceilings, this can be quite opressive.

As a last thought on colour: the shade of the colour sample in the hardware store will always seem lighter than it will on the actual wall, so if you are not certain what shade to choose, go for the lighter one. You can  always elevate the colour with decor items and soft furnishing if the room seems too understated, but it is very difficult to work with a room painted in too strong a colour.