Decor Faqs

Is there a recommended list of shades for different rooms in a house?

We can enhance the functionality of a room by selecting the right shade of paint for it. We can give a warmer look to a living room and a relaxing feel to a bedroom, while study can be made energetic. Let's first have a look at the relation between colors and the emotions they exhibit.

Can I make my room look bigger, by selecting right shade for the room?

Yes, by the right choice of color, one can visually enhance the space available in a room. Generally light colors recede while bold and dark colors rush in. If you don’t have a very large living room and you want to make it look bigger, use pastel shades. They give a welcoming and elegant look to your living room. If you want a neutral shade use a light grey or green or white.

My room’s ceiling is very low; can right shade visually raise the ceiling to provide depth to the room?

As explained earlier, lighter shades create space. Choose a lighter/ pastel shade to paint the ceiling. Darker shade for the same color used to paint walls and a lighter shade for ceiling gives depth to the room. For e.g. if you are using beige for your room, use a lighter shade of beige for ceiling as compared to that for walls.

My room is very long, it’s a rectangle, how can I make it look square?

Use light shade for long walls of your room and a dark shade for the shorter walls. This will make the longer walls recede and shorter walls advance. This would give a better, less elongated look to your room.

How does lighting affect colors?

Colors change under different lights. Dark colors look brighter in large well-lit rooms, while pastels tend to look insipid under artificial light. You can vary the kind of lighting in a room to highlight some areas and hide the others.

I get lot of sunlight in my living room, while bedroom hardly gets any sunlight, can colors help to the situation?

Colors have to capability to create a desired ambience. If your room gets too much sunlight then you can use cool colors like blue, pink or violet or neutral colors like white, cream, grey to balance the warmth. While you can use bright colors like beige, cream, light yellow in relatively dark rooms to give a warm effect. In rooms where you get evening sunlight which is reddish in tone, you can use cheerful colors like green and bold yellows.

How can I make the room look interesting, without incurring too much of expenses?

Too many pieces of arts, expensive lampshade and wall hangings don’t make your home look interesting if they are not carefully selected and placed. It is very important to decide on a look that you want to give to your room. Accordingly, the room can be decorated with wall hangings and other decorative items to complete the look. If you don’t want to spend much in such decorative items or if your room is too small to accommodate such things try these tips.

• Try to highlight one wall in the room. Using a bold color for one of the walls can do this. This will attract everybody’s attention to that wall. You have to do proper lighting on this wall to highlight one wall hanging (A large modern painting, for a modern look or an antique wall hanging for a traditional look).
• Paint all electrical fittings, pipes, and projections in the same color as that of walls. This will not only hide these things but will also give uncluttered and clean look.
• Avoid dark color on the ceiling if your ceiling is low. Proper lighting is very important to complete a look. Carefully choose spotlights to highlight a particular section in the room. For e.g. use a spotlight highlighting a painting on the dominant wall in the room. If you have used dark colors for walls then it is all the more important to use proper lighting, otherwise the room will look very dark and dull in the night.
• Always decide on a theme and try and use everything related to it in the room. This will create harmony in the room and will give a complete look. For e.g. If you take nature as a theme for your living room, use any shade of green for walls, decorate the main wall with paintings of natural scenes, use actual plants at corners of the room, use wooden furniture, blue linen, curtains and flooring for a cool look and yellow for a warmer look.
• Avoid using too many contrasting colors in a room. Make sure that if one is able to see a section of another room from one room then colors used in both the room should be related.