Do you love every room of your house? If not then why? Do you like the color(s)? What about the lines? And finally do you like the textures?
These are the three main components of your interior decorating scheme and by changing one of them you can totally revamp a room and change it from one that bothers you to one you’d like to spend all day in. Or you can change all three components and come up with an entirely different room.
Color is pretty easy. Has last year’s bright red accent wall worn out its welcome? Or are you sick of the plain white walls you’ve had for the last 20 years? Some color choices are very obvious and easy to remedy. A gallon of paint can go a long way to making a room seem more comforting and inviting.
But sometimes color can go a bit deeper. You may still love your red accent wall but for some reason you feel really anxious when you’re in that room. The red may actually be the culprit. Deep, rich, saturated warm colors can make you overexcited or anxious. Too much of one of these colors can really affect your moods and make you uncomfortable. While crisp, cool tone colors can make you feel so relaxed and calm that you begin to feel a bit depressed. (To learn more about colors and moods please refer to this article. http://interiordecorating.suite101.com/article.cfm/color_your_moods)
To counteract these mood altering color schemes you can tone down the saturation level of the colors you’ve used, limit the amount of the offending color, add contrasting and complimenting colors to break up the affect or change the color entirely.
If color doesn’t seem to be the problem, yet your room still doesn’t feel right, it could be the lines. My previous dining room was striped lime green and white and when I finished painting I immediately realized I had made my first painting mistake in my new home. It was horrendous. Sort of like a green and white circus tent. The stripes were so overwhelming that if you stared at them for a while you’d get a little dizzy and they appeared to waver in front of you. To fix this I did a blended colorwash in celery green over the stripes which camouflaged them so just a hint of a stripe remained. I then enlisted my mom’s help making some romantic curtains with huge red and pink roses and green accent leaves. This soft, rounded pattern in a contrasting color broke up the stripes even more. The room ended up being one of my favorites.
Finally, another room challenge can be texture. (For more on texture please review this article http://interiordecorating.suite101.com/article.cfm/feel_your_insides) Smooth and flat surfaces can create a calming environment that can even seem boring, while too much texture can feel exciting and exhausting. Adding textural contrast can spice up a room and create visual interest. Remember that textural contrast is just that, a variety of different textures that includes both smooth and soft elements and firm and possibly rough, rigid pieces.
By reviewing the three elements of a room, the color, texture and line, you can determine what parts of your rooms work as they are and what need a little bit of attention. Every room in your house should be one that you absolutely love and the key to loving a room is finding out what you don’t like.
