Close your eyes. Imagine for a moment your world sans colour! It's difficult to even think of colourless surroundings. Colour is one of the most important tools in an interior designer's toolbox. The colour a room wears reflects the theme of the room and even affects the mood of its occupants to a large extent.

Living Room And Study Colours

Green - olive, lemon or emerald - is always a harmonious colour that's easy on the eye. Good for decorating studies and home offices, green creates an atmosphere that is contemplative, steady and conducive to concentration. With a yellow base, it gives an uplifting quality and offers a soft, unrestrained feeling.

Blue is therapeutic and calming. Cool blue is best for creating a lounge atmosphere. One of the more formal colours on the wheel, blue might not appear welcoming. However, feel free to sing the blues away since it harmoniously complements most colour schemes and moods.

Orange, a warm mixture of red and yellow, combines passion with flair. But, remember this colour makes the space appear too intense and perhaps even over stimulating! It is however, good in living rooms for young busy families.

Orange combines well with most colours to successfully create both contemporary and traditional settings.

Brown, in its various avatars, spells richness and abundance. This earthy colour provides a great sense of security and comfort and gels well with all natural colour schemes. Areas coloured brown also invoke a sense of safety and studiousness. However, it would be wise to offset brown with an exciting accent colour, to avoid a sense of despondency that comes with this shade!

Black and white make a striking combination. Rooms decorated with these polar opposites are very powerful. Thus, they might appear uncomfortable and heavy; so one must be cautious. However, it is great for creating a strong impression and lending a neo-contemporary look. Use black to highlight or define features, shapes or spaces within a room.

Bedroom Colours

Pink is relaxing. Sweet and sexy, this fleshy colour is good for couple bedrooms, but do balance its drowsy shade with blue or green to add some zest. Watch out, as an excessive use of pink can get nauseatingly feminine.

Purple and violet denote spirituality and divinity. The deeper shades of violet can be intense and should be used sparingly in a room; however, lighter tints such as lavender are soothing, fresh and give the space a crisp new feeling. Team purple with a metallic shade or white to create a stylish look.

Yellow is a glowing warm colour. From sunshine yellow to mustard and ochre, the variations of this sunny burst influence mood, style and even ambience. Generally lending an airy and spacious feel to a space, yellow is easy to live with and good for rooms with less natural light. Often used with a range of natural colours and terracotta to give a rustic effect, yellow enhances most decorative colour schemes with its diverse moods.

Other bedroom colours - Blue, green, orange, brown and neutral colours.

Bathrooms And Kitchen Colours

These colours should be in line with the architectural structure, as well as soothing and stimulating. In general, yellows, blues, pinks, greens and neutral colours work well.

Accent Your Furnishings

Red is a symbol of aristocracy, passion and love. An extremely potent colour when used in décor, it extends warmth and hospitality. Red is a good choice to spruce up a neutral colour scheme and for patterned home furnishings.

Neutral colour schemes such as combinations of beige, white, black and brown slant towards the contemporary trend of minimalism, as well as give a rich and stately look. They could be used in jute, cane and wood, to work well for furniture, cupboards, panels and walls. Exploit the influence of black and white, as white is a good reflector of light and makes the place look more spacious; while black absorbs light to make the room look smaller.

Accent Colours are introduced to highlight a feature and add visual interest to a colour scheme. For example, a green panel in a white living room would not only add life to the room, but also break the monotony of a single colour.

Warm and cool colours are ideal soft furnishing complements for a house dominated by a neutral colour scheme. Warm colours like red, yellow and orange make the room appear closer and cosier, and lend a sense of wellbeing to the space. Cool colours like blue, purple and green, create a formal look and give a lounge feel to the place, making it look bigger. A clever use of warm and cool colours can visually alter the appearance of a disproportionate room.

Tonal variations of a single colour are also effective in deceiving the eye by visually manipulating the proportions of the room. As a thumb-rule remember - lighter tones are more reflective and offer a wider feel, than the darker shades.

Expert Speak

Sonal Merchant: Colours can be used in association with other aspects of design to enhance features. However, colour should never be thought of in isolation.

Amrita Saraf: It's the most exciting, versatile and undoubtedly the most elevating component of design. Rich, dark colours add a feeling of comfort and intimacy to a room while colours like greens and blues are cool and calming. The most commonly used colour, white, gives a feeling of openness and adds a sense of space especially to small spaces. Allow yourself to be inspired by Nature when searching for colour combinations.

Bina Shah and Sheetal Sanghvi: Colour is a strong design element, especially for medium-budget houses. It can totally change the look of the room and give it life. We visualise the space as a whole, using accent colours on the walls, on the ceilings and also in accessories and soft furnishings, to highlight the colour scheme and bring visual interest to the room. However, be careful with the choice of colour since it is often permanent and it's you who has to live with it!