When shopping for paint, remember to bring your cushions, fabric, wall or floor covering samples with you. While you're in your local Diamond Vogel Paint Store, use the take home chips in the ColorEssentials display to locate your accessory colors as well. Assemble a collection of paint chips that best represents the colors found in your decor. Create your own mini-fandeck comprised of your personal color pallette and take it with you every time you shop for your home decorating needs.
Monochromatic Schemes
Mono – it means one. Monochromatic schemes utilize color from the same family on the wheel. This will include all the light tints, dark shades as well as the clean and muted versions of that color family.
Hint: Use variations of the same color in accent pieces - fabrics or carpet in other rooms - to tie everything together.
Triadic Schemes
Triadic schemes use three colors that are equally spaced from each other on the color wheel. Similar color values can be used, such as primary colors for children's rooms. Colors can also be arranged in varying degrees with one color dominant, another color as secondary and the third color as an accent.
Hint: A bit of black in a room will enhance all of the other colors in a space.
Split Complementary Schemes
Split Complementary color schemes combine the two colors on either side of a color's complement. This combination of colors adds variety to a room in a pleasant but active way.
Hint: To enliven the space, try adding a tint of the wall color's complement to ceiling or trim.
Complementary Schemes
Complementary color schemes use colors opposite each other on the color wheel. Used together, this combination of warm and cool colors creates excitement and energizes any decor. Opposite colors are perfect as accent colors in a neutral decor.
Hint: Consider using a single color on your walls and then add pizzazz with accessories like cushions, flowers, vases and lamps. In complementary colors of course!
Analogous Schemes
Analogous schemes use colors of the same temperature near each other on the wheel. These schemes evoke a specific mood, such as calm and tranquil or warm and inviting.
Hint: The floor is the fifth wall of your house and probably the most costly area to modify. Take fixed surfaces such as floors, fireplaces and fixtures into account when decorating. Color can enhance or down play a fixed feature in a room.
Double Complementary Schemes
Double Complementary color schemes are created by using colors that are next to each other and then finding their opposites on the color wheel.