Designing colour schemes and combinations for your room

Last month we sent out details of the new Dulux colour visualiser, a useful tool for seeing how your room will look in different colours.

But if you want to try something new in the use of colours it can be hard to know where to start – in particular which colours will complement or contrast well.

This is an interior designer’s job, but if you want to experiment a little yourself you may well come up with something a little out of the ordinary and individual.

Our web designer suggested a tool which shows combinations of shades and colours and enables fast comparisons. It is primarily a web designer’s tool, so it won’t give the codes for ordering paint, but it may help to spark some ideas.

As an internet version of the old colour wheel, it can suggest options like harmonies, complementary colours, ‘triads’ of colours, as well as different shades. Very usefully, it can show a colour looks against the background of another colour. It’s a free website which can be found here:

The history of colour wheels is actually a fascinating study.

Amongst others, the famous German playwright Goethe devoted a lot of work to colour theory. The picture below is a colour wheel dating from 1776, designed by British entomologist Moses Harris in an attempt to explain the color interplay he saw in the bodies of flies.

As decorators we don’t like to do the interior designer’s job, but we can certainly offer sensible advice and the benefit of our experience when you are coming up to redecorating.

For all of your decorating – whatever the colours – please call us now on 020 8994 4455.
With best wishes for the new year
Marlon Bulger
Production Director
Bulger Wicks