Complementary Colours

Deciding on a colour scheme for your interior? Here are our top tips for using complementary colours in your home.

Image by Style Ideas Direct

At Studio Arterior, we adore bold and beautiful interiors with confident use of colour. Nothing quite makes our hearts sing as much as smokey green, punchy mustard or electric blue. This week, we’ve been admiring spaces that have been decorated using complementary colours. To put it simply, complementary colour schemes involve choosing colours from opposite sides of a colour wheel, such as blue with orange, and green with red.

Using complementary colours in an interior can inject vibrancy and energy into a room. But before you start painting your apartment red and green…there are a few things to consider:

Think about ratios…

When decorating with complementary colours, it’s best to avoid using both colours in equal measure. Think about what colour you want as your primary colour and then use the complementary colour more sparingly as an accent colour.

Image by De Gournay

Think about saturation…

Almost as important as the ratio of colour, you want to consider how saturated the colours are. If you want a purple and yellow colour scheme, try looking at deep aubergine hues paired with tan for example, or rich plum paired with a muted moss green. This will keep your interior looking more elegant and less Willy Wonka!

Image source Pinterest

Introduce a neutral background…

If going all out with bold colours feels daunting, consider using them as an accent colour against neutral tones such as taupe, cream or even crisp white. This will keep your interior looking fresh and is much easier to switch around should you tire of that colour scheme.

Image by McGee & Co

Hopefully this has given you some food for thought…but most importantly do what feels right for you. Rules are meant to be broken, and some of the most exciting and interesting interiors are ones that break the mould!