Colour recipe – analogous colour scheme

Now that we are confident with designing colour schemes based on a single colour (in my previous posts I used red and blue-green), let’s move on to other colour recipes using multiple colours. The simplest way is to use colours which are close to each other on the colour wheel.  These are called analogous colour schemes.

Today I chose colours I’m not really drawn to. Apricot and peach give me the shudders, reminding me of girly rooms from the 70s with dusty dried flowers, floral wallpaper and macrame. Mind you, I think it’s about time macrame came back…

Here’s the room I started with last time. In my opinion the console table from Rowen & Wren (used last time) would work in just about any room. They have lots of other really lovely pieces and you can see their interview with mydeco.com here.

Basic room

Now we know that these colours are near each other on the colour wheel as they are both saturated, light versions of orange and red orange (top right corner of my colour grids).

Saturation and value grid - orange

Saturation and value grid - red/ orange

No matter how hard I try, I just can’t get over my fear of apricot or peach wallpaper, so I tried creating a patterned look with paint instead.

Peach and apricot wall

Extending the analogous scheme all the way round to colours I like better (like the violets) creates a balanced, co-ordinated room without a colour clash.

Analogous colour wheel

Analogous colour room

Don’t think I go straight from idea to colour wheel to completed design quite as easily as shown above!  Here’s a step along the way where I have thrown on any promising looking items, before editing them back to something I like.

Reading about colour schemes and creating colour schemes are very different – if you fancy it you have the perfect tool to use: the 3d planner. Now, why don’t you give it a go?