How to use online colour palettes (part two)

Last week I threw out a challenge – design a room based on this colour palette by Design Seeds.

Berry Hues by Design Seeds

Here’s what the Mydecorati submitted, what I found on the interweb, and what I learned -

1. Whatever palette you can dream up, someone will already have done it. Hunny and Sudasal pulled out designs they did ages ago.

Teal n plum by hunny

Fashion inspired ii by Sudasal

2. Add the colours as accessories to a neutral room.  The hard part here is choosing the right neutral.  For this palette, the soft white just brings everything together for me.

by Toadfool

I think this designer would agree…

House Beautiful colour scheme

3. Use the palette as a jumping off point – you don’t have to slavishly use every colour. ChloeDaniella used just the blue-violet and red-violet to design a very popular teenage girl’s bedroom.

Teenage dream girl's bedroom by ChloeDaniella

A very different mood comes from using other colours from the palette -

Dining room design from thelenoxx

Living room design from Sorellina

Or you could add new colours – there’s something about those red curtains that takes this palette in a completely different direction.

Bedroom design from Coco and Kelley

4. Lighten or darken, or use a more or less saturated version of your colours. As always, it helps to be able to name the colours (green, blue-green, blue-violet, blue-violet, red-violet) then consider the variations, using a cheat sheet like my Pinterest board. Personally, I gravitate to lighter and less saturated colours (the pink suitcase and wall are lighter versions of the red-violet) -

Stacked suitcases from Cupcakes and Cashmere

But then someone turns up the saturation to 11 on the dial – and it works so well.

Living room from From the Right Bank

Dash of purple by ChloeDaniella

5. Blocks, panels and (dare I say it) feature walls are a great way to introduce strong colours.

Blue lime ado by Calu13

6. Use the Mydeco colour tools to find what you want – either use the colour search (conveniently arranged in colour wheel order)…

The mydeco colour selection tool

… Or search by words for the colours (eg “fuschia cushion”).

Mydeco keyword search

Here you have to break my rule of naming the colours according to the colour wheel and use the “designer” colours instead – eg “aqua” instead of “light saturated blue-green”, “berry” or “fuschia” instead of “saturated red-violet” etc. The day we see cushions labelled “light saturated blue-green” instead of “aqua” will be a happy day for me indeed!

7. This is my number one tip (I learnt this myself while writing this post) – keep the palette open in a window beside the 3d planner.  You don’t have to try to “match” the colours perfectly – just throw things on that please the eye and harmonize with the palette. It’s amazing how items will pop out that work perfectly in the scheme.

Palette in the 3D planner

8. Use art to introduce colours from the palette – the pale blue-green and blue-violet are in the art, the red-violet in the bed-cover. And here’s an interesting “neutral” on the walls – a very pale blue-violet.

Art wall from Habitually Chic

9.  The colours don’t just have to to be in the fabric or paint. Stuff – like leaves, wood, metal, glass and stone – could respresent one or more of the colours in a palette. The green glass jars here illustrate this principle perfectly.

Accessories from Casa Tres Chic

10. Choose a fabric or wallpaper with all/most of the colours.  I was scanning cushions when this one just popped out as being in perfect harmony with the palette even though the colours don’t even exactly match.

Flower power cushion

My favourite?  This one. Everything is neutral except the sofa (exactly the same colour as my sofa!), cushion and leaves. But what a punch it packs.

Neutral room from From the Left Bank

Do you think I’ve milked that palette for all that it’s worth?  I have even more pics here. Now I’ve started on another Design Seeds palette….