Color Saturation Makes
Rooms Appear Larger
It takes daring to paint bold
colors on the walls. More than
that, though, it takes a steel rod
in your back to completely
saturate a room with a single
color. When it comes to painting
our homes, we’ve been told that
white is the color of choice for
making a room appear larger.
However, that’s not always
true. Sometimes, color – even
bold color – can come to the
rescue in ways you might never
have thought of.
Focus on space
Sometimes the space, or the actual area that a room occupies, is what you want to notice more than what’s in the room. Or, maybe you have a very small room that you want to appear larger. Well, did you know that color is your answer – and it’s not just white? It’s true. When you want a room to appear larger than it is, simply use a monochromatic decorating scheme. That is, saturate the room with a single color.
Color saturation creates a bold statement and makes you notice the space rather than the articles in the room. The nice thing is that it doesn’t matter what color you paint the room, simply using one color will help make a room open up visually. One of the reasons this works is because the edges of the walls, or the confines of the room, go away when the break between the walls and ceiling is no longer there.
Coordinate everything
What’s critical with this decorating technique is that everything must have the same color and the same intensity of color to work. This means that your furniture, ceiling, and walls all need to have the same color in order for the space to seem larger. It’s a great decorating trick if you’re trying to sell your house and want to make it appear more spacious or if you have a small room that seems to close in on you. Don’t be lulled into thinking that painting a room white and having a blue sofa will work. The sofa needs to be white, too.
Be daring
If you’re not sure what color to use, take the dominant color from a piece of furniture or fabric and paint that on the walls rather than trying to coordinate your furniture to your paint, which is a much more expensive proposition. The color you choose must to have intensity. If you have a nice medium shade of red, blue, or green, for example, in your sofa pattern, go with that color and not with the lighter shades in the pattern. You’ll find that the intense color draws you into the room and makes you enjoy the space more.
In one of former my homes, we had to lower the ceiling a foot to accommodate air conditioning ducts. This made the room seem much smaller when the ceiling was white. To make the low ceiling disappear, I wallpapered the entire bathroom and ceiling with a medium brown wallpaper. The funny thing was no one noticed that the ceiling was low, but everyone commented on how they liked this particular room, even though it was a dark color.
Dark colors create intimacy
It’s important to know that deep color doesn’t always equal the confining feeling that most people fear. To the contrary, deep color makes a room feel intimate and very relaxing – which is something many people are looking for in their homes – especially when it’s used monochromatically.
That’s why color saturation works so well for certain rooms, like media rooms and guest bathrooms. When you want to watch films, recreating a movie house feel can be achieved easily with deep, rich color. Guest, or powder, bathrooms are notoriously small, making them a great choice for a deep color that makes the corners of the room go away.
Light colors sell
If you’re trying to sell your house, try using a light color saturation scheme. Do this by painting everything white, light gray, or beige and then purchase inexpensive slipcovers for your furniture in the same color. When your furniture “goes away” visually, showings will go better because potential buyers will be seeing your house and not your belongings.
Regardless of whether you want to sell your home or create a more spacious feeling, try color saturation. You’ll be amazed at the look and feeling of openness -- and your family will be amazed at your daring and great taste!
© 2005 Kathryn Weber, all rights reserved
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Kathryn Weber is the publisher of the Everydayclean.com Cleaning Calender, that calender that puts you in control of your home by ending the power struggle. For more information log on to http://tinyurl.com/d9rh5.
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©2001-2007 Kathryn Weber
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