Colour recipe – complementary colour schemes

Today we move on to another colour recipe based on the colour wheel: the complementary colour scheme. Complimentary colours sit opposite each other on the colour wheel and can be combined to great effect.

I haven’t done many dining rooms, my response would usually be “What?! Where do I put the cushions?” but here goes.

Dining room, a blank template

Starting with a blank, white template I then chose blue and orange – which we can see are perfectly opposite each other.

As soon as you’re aware of such combinations they will pop out at you everywhere, like this cushion by Chloe Croft (interviewed here by Mydeco). See how the red-ish orange looks great against the cool, blue background.

Hound cushion by Chloe Croft

Used full strength, orange and blue would be too much for most people to live with, but mixing up the saturation and value can make a really nice room.  As we can see below there are some lovely cocoas and taupes, plus a variety of navy, sky blue and blue-grey blues contained within each colour.

Orange colour grid

Blue colour grid

My first design features bright orange chairs, but keeps the blues quiet.

Blue and orange dining room - Version 1

Flipping the scheme around gives quite a different vibe.  I love how the Spyder table easily transitions from modern to rustic.

Blue and orange dining room - Version 2

But where’s the orange? It’s the wall paint! I simply selected an orange in the 3d planner‘s paint tab, then chose the darkest version of it.  The paint colours are arrange by colour across, then saturation (most saturated first), then value (dark to light).  It’s so easy.

3D planner paint chart

Attentive readers might be thinking “That’s not really orange, more like a red-orange”. You’re so right, but that doesn’t really matter, and I’ll tell you why next time.

So what do you think would happen if we combined this and the previous complementary and analogous colour schemes?  Just a warning, you can expect fireworks next time…!