Bedroom Colours

Psychology

Colours have a strong effect on our emotions and colour psychology plays an important part in interior design. Knowing which colours to buy and use for which room is a skill that the best interior designers all possess, be it instinctive or learned. Colour choice can be especially important in the bedroom.

Emotional Response

Colour seems to work strongly at the emotional level. It can calm us down, excite us, stimulate us. Exactly which of these we want when decorating depends on which room we are discussing and how we tend to use it; good colours for one purpose or person might not be so good for another. For this reason it's a good idea to have some flexibility in your bedroom design - for example the strategic use of coloured bed linen can completely change the tone of the bedroom. Similarly posters and other wall hangings can be placed over a neutral all to provide the desired emotional effect.

Exact colour associations vary from person to person however there are certain frequent associations that are relevant when selecting a bedroom colour scheme. It's important to note that these ideas are standard "Western" associatons. Different cultures have very different meanings for colours and require different choices of colour schemes. However in general "warm" colours - reds, oranges, etc - tend to be positive and exciting, "cool" colours - blues and greens - more calming. Black and white can be used as accents or to change the apparent size of parts of the room. Which is best for your bedroom is likely to vary over time!

How To Choose

As with so many interior design decisions, there's no "right" or "wrong" choice of bedroom colours. Go with what works for you but remember that too much of any single colour is likely to be overpowering.

It's important to remember when doing any decorating that you shouldn't base you colour choice entirely on what you see on a printed catalogue or website page. Paint and wallpaper colours don't always reproduce exactly and the ambient lighting of the room will also affect the final result. Wherever practical you should try to obtain a "sampler" of the paint or paper you're considering and test out your colour choice with this first.