Colour recipe – the Toadfool special

Over the last few posts I’ve presented how I do monochromatic, analagous and complementary colour schemes. These are standard schemes you can read about in many places but I hope I have added a little zest by emphasizing that saturation and value are as important as colour.  Today we’ll do a recipe that covers all three – I call it ‘The Toadfool Special’ because I use it all the time and I think it sounds better than “double analogous complement”!

Well, I don’t think I have ever done an office before on mydeco.com…

'Blank canvas office'

I often find it helps to have a particular occupant in mind when designing a room from scratch. This room is for a young, up-and-coming female lawyer living in Notting Hill. She wants a clean, modern-but-warm look but no partner’s desk and leather chair, stodgy carpet or shelves full of dusty books. She loves handmade things.

So I chose some colours on opposite sides of the colour wheel, and “wiggled” sideways to add in a few more.

The colour wheel

Because these colours are quite strong I think the room needed quite a bit of neutral ‘background’ to allow the colours to stand out without being overpowering. It also doesn’t have a lot of pattern, and just a bit of texture. You might even notice that there is less variation in saturation and value – I find the more colour there is the less other variation there has to be.

Room with neutral background and bright accents

Where’s the orange? In the wall colour, again. I am seriously falling in love with orange. Not the loud, brash, in-your-face, full-strength orange but rather all its subtler forms.

Just because I love that colour combo above so much I’ve done another room using the same colours. This time I imagine it’s the crazy crafty aunt that the aforementioned lawyer inherited her flat from. Forget everything I said about not using pattern….!

Colourful, crafty room with Anthropologie rug

To learn from the masters of colour, look up Anthropologie rugs as featured in this room – do it now. I just can’t stop looking at them.

Don’t you love the olive green pouffe? It works perfectly in both rooms. Modern, handmade, classic.

This is one of my favourite colour recipes, it just always works out. There is enough cohesion because every colour has a partner somewhere near it and enough variety because it skips over to the other side of the colour wheel. You don’t have to use a lot of colours, but why the hell not?!

Colourful scheme and corresponding segments of the colour wheel

Turquoise scheme and its colour wheel inspiration

Purple and turquoise scheme with colour wheel segments

Go on, do one for yourself using the 3d planner.