Choosing a Color Scheme

When I was "auditioning" for schools as a kindergartener, there was a school I didn't get into because I couldn't name my colors. (If you ask my parents, it was because I didn't say a word during the entire interview-quiz. Maybe the nuns scared me.) I did, eventually, learn my colors and became very confident in my ability to name them.

Until now.

In trying to create a color scheme for my space, I've learned that the hardest part isn't figuring out what colors I should add, it's figuring out what colors are already there. Take, for example, my couch. What color is it? I don't know. I mean, it's brown. But I can't point it out on a color wheel. And if I don't know where it is on the color wheel, how can I know what's directly across from it? Or the two colors equidistant from it?

I want to figure this out because I'm not starting from scratch. I'm not going to buy a new sofa. I'm not going to buy a new dining table. I could buy new sheets, but I probably won't. I have to consciously think about color moving forward, and I want to be precise.

If you can eyeball your stuff and estimate the right color, more power to you. But if you're a perfectionist and need a precise palette, here's a way to do it:

Step 1: Take a photo of the largest "thing" in your room. I'm going to make a color scheme for my living room, and everything is going to be centered around my sofa.

Step 2: Upload the photo here. This website will tell you the specific RGB/hex # of any image you upload. (There're apps on your phone that can do this, too, but I haven't found one that'll give you the hex #) Here's my couch-swatch:

Step 3: Copy the Hex # and paste it here. It'll give you all the popular color schemes--and if you hover over the other colors, you can find their info as well.

For my living room, I came up with this palette:

And now, the actually difficult part. Finding things in these colors...

Orange-Ginger Juice

I never want to juice an apple again, and I don't have to. I wanted to make orange-ginger juice, but got a little carried away. What I ended up with blew my mind: 

I'm really sensitive to the taste of ginger (most ginger-y drinks are really strong for me) so just added a pinch, and it was the perfect aftertaste. For me. Everybody else who had a sip said, word for word, "oh you can't taste the ginger at all!" 

So, you know, use your own proportions. Here are the specifics of what's in my blender:

• 2 oranges
• 15ish cherries, de-pitted
• 1/3 of a pineapple
• handful of cilantro
• pinch of ginger

Blend, strain, and you're good to go! As always, you don't need any sugar or water--the cherries are sweet enough to balance the tartness of the pineapple.

The Color Wheel

I'm determined to make my space a place I enjoy, so I decided to learn about interior design. When I decide to learn about something, I go 100%. I looked up textbooks from various interior design courses, found some free online courses, and started taking notes.

Literally.

Every book suggested I have a solid understanding of colors before moving forward, so I spent about four hours reading everything I could find about color theory. I've never taken an art class before (save for "elementary school paper mache madness" a.k.a. 5th grade) so I was at a "Colors for Dummies" starting point. But I feel much more confident making decisions about color for my apartment now. 

TigerColor is a great resource for learning about color schemes, because it not only explains how to group colors together, but also how to keep them from looking ugly. Apartment Therapy also explains color schemes really well! 

Choosing colors off a palette is more than knowing how far apart they are on the color wheel--you've gotta figure out how dark, how light, what undertones, where to use them, etc. etc. Look at photos of rooms you like and see what patterns you notice! (I'm drawn to analogous schemes, but I'm going to see if I can pull off the triad instead.)

Some other tips on using colors:

• If you don't know where to start, use the 60-30-10 rule: 60% of your room should include a dominant color (in low saturation), 30% of a secondary color, and 10% of an accent (in high saturation, if you want)
• Include black pieces like picture frames, throw pillows, or lampshades to make the other colors in your room more vibrant.
• Go dark-to-light vertically--the darkest pieces should be closest to the floor, and the lightest closest to the ceiling. 

Fun fact: Artists decided on blue, yellow, and red as primary colors because you can mix them to make all the other colors, but modern color theorists argue that magenta, cyan, and yellow are actually better primary colors because they give you the widest range of colors. (That's why we use them for printer ink.)

Cyan + Magenta = Blue

Magenta + Yellow = Red

(Nothing combines to make yellow.)