Selecting a color palette and design for decorating can be difficult when finding a style that reflects your life. Consumers are bombarded with different ideas, so it can be hard to settle down to find one’s own style. Here are several simple suggestions you can share with your customers to get them started on their own design style and color palette.
Use these tips to create a handout for your customers. Or post them on your website. Rewrite or customize these suggestions to incorporate services or products you offer. But don’t be too promotional or sales oriented. Providing helpful guidance to your customers can make you a valuable resource to them, and one they will turn to when they are ready to purchase items for their decorated spaces.
Know what you want to achieve
You can’t do it on your own or with someone else if you don’t have a clear vision of what you wish to achieve. Begin by writing it down on paper. This will help you complete any details and fine-tune your idea.
Getting it down on paper will clarify if your desired style direction works in your current circumstances. If you love a super modern home, resplendent in soaring glass and steel with concrete floors, but you live in a traditional cottage, you may need to file the designed style on your future wish list. This is not to say you can’t take notions of your desired look from a building style that is not the same as your own – but a fabulous looking home, much like choosing an outfit for a night out, takes many things into account. Your home will look its best if you highlight its best features.
Get it out of your brain and onto paper (or your laptop!)
Pinterest can be used as digital scrapbook for projects and used to create mood-boards. Pinterest is a time saver as you can organize your different ideas on various boards – and maintain all the original sources and links if you want to go back later to get more information on that image when searching and finding a style.
Start with deciphering your STYLE
Your style will influence your color palette. Ask these questions: What is it about your home that makes it yours? What are its best (and worst) features?
What you may consider the negatives of your home could actually be the keys to making your place extraordinary and finding a style that works best. Make a list of your home’s attributes – aspects you consider its best features – and also a list of the parts you dislike or think need some work. These are your building blocks for your new space.
So… what is your mood for your palette?
Natural Timber, stark white, cool and fresh, dark and moody – or a vibrant splash of color? Don’t feel you need to choose just one. You could start with a timber tone base and add splashes of color to keep it from getting tonal, or work with a cool base palette and add in a single dynamic hit of your favorite pop color (this is a great way to keep up with current trends without re-doing the house!).
Look around you
A couple of great places to look for your palette might already be in your home – or outside of it. The first place to start might be what you see outside your window. Water or forest views, a garden with distinctive leaves or flowers or an urban streetscape can all offer a world of possible color palettes. Take a look at the color represented there. Lift your ideas from the colors already around you. Look more closely – don’t just go green for trees and blue for water… What greens do you see in the trees? What tones of blue in the water? Look at things at different times of the day, in different weather. Take photographs and then blur them or blow them up to see the multitudes of colors that already work together. This is a wonderful trick to truly bring the outside in.
A favorite painting is a great place to start
Artwork that you love is a perfect place to start. Pick out tones from the artwork and incorporate them. A single vibrant painting or print can become the basis for a very dramatic interior. If there are multiple tones in the artwork, consider taking only the highlights rather than reproducing the main color, or keep your home almost completely neutral and let the color be your star.
“Steal” your ideas from other homes
We now have so much access to inspiration from Pinterest, Instagram and design and architectural blogs and magazines. Scrapbook ideas – don’t think too much – use your instincts, don’t pigeonhole yourself before you start. After you have collected heaps of things go through them all and you will see a few themes emerging.
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Repainting
Finding a style for a single wall or area, can start with large sample cards. Hold them up on various walls to see the difference in the light – even check different times of the day as the light behaves differently.
Get sample pots to paint a small area and see how you feel – then go for it! For a complete repaint of your home (inside or out) it may be wise to get a professional interior color specialist to help you get started. If you go down this path be sure to make your thoughts on what you want to achieve very clear so that your interior specialist can help you create your dream – you don’t want to live in someone else’s idea of a dream home. No need to start again in one go, work with your current base and begin to grow towards your amazing new look.
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Accessories
Accent accessories from fruit bowls to cushions are the simplest ways to update your space. Whichever direction you take in finding a style, make sure you maintain a personality in your interior, keep things that are meaningful as part of your new home and add fun and personable design elements.
I am a huge believer of the home being a journey – a tapestry of your life – so don’t throw EVERYTHING out and start again when finding a style. You don’t want a home that looks like you went out and bought it from one store.
Magazines and blogs will tempt you down a different path every season. Incorporate small elements of these trends to keep your space fresh, but avoid large whimsical and “trendy” purchases that will be discarded once the novelty has worn off.
To learn more about top3 by design visit, www.top3.com.au.
Include a link to Terri’s Pinterest account: http://www.pinterest.com/terriwinter/
