The Monkey Tree - All things bright and beautiful

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All things bright and beautiful

Is there such thing as bad taste? In my personal opinion – the answer has to be ‘no’ as everyone has different tastes. Due to a certain football team I support, I do not have any red in my house; however, it does not mean that I do not appreciate the colour red for clients’ homes. Colours come and go with fashion trends. For example, what we would deem old fashioned colours of the seventies suddenly become retro and with a little adjustment very trendy.

If you are cautious about using colour why not use your child’s bedroom as an experimental area for the rest of the house? Colour should not just be restrained to the walls – include flooring, ceiling, furniture, window dressing, soft furnishings, lighting, storage boxes and above all toys. A rainbow coloured room can be achieved without realising it! You can be bold and paint every wall a different colour or simply mix and match furniture with soft furnishings to achieve a stimulatingcolour palatte.

Take inspiration from their favourite toys or characters and adapt their room to suit their taste. A recent client proposed a ‘Ben 10’ theme for their son’s bedroom. As ‘Ben 10’ is predominately a green coloured character, the walls were painted a mid-tone green and kept the character to just bed linen and a mural above the bed. By leaving the window dressing plain and using spot lights the room resulted in the sleeping area becoming the focal point of the room. It was a cost-effective way to get the complete customised look.

Tip to consider:
The sun’s light changes colour throughout the day and this will affect the colour and scheme of your room.

For north facing rooms, there is limited direct sunlight so the walls tend to remain dark throughout the day so you can be adventurous and adorn the room with bright bold colours.
For east facing rooms, the morning sun produces a white light so colours such as yellows, oranges and reds will bounce the white light and make the room warm and cosy throughout the day.
South facing rooms will have the sun throughout most of the day so you can experiment with different colour combinations such as yellow and blue, red and green or even orange and purple.
By sunset, the sun’s rays produce more yellow tones so west facing rooms that are blue, green or purple will absorb the light and create the calming mood required for relaxing in the evening.

You can use a colour spectrum to help you with hues and tones of one colour and to determine complementary colours. Look at the colours that nature produces. These are the most natural forms of colour combinations that can ever be produced. You can be truly inspired by visiting a nursery or just looking at photos of flowers.
If you are a person who cannot match colour then go with your natural instincts. Use your body to judge the mood the colour gives you rather than just using your eyes. For example, if a bright yellow colour in a south facing room makes you feel rather excitable and jumpy then imagine how hyper-active it might make your child feel. Or a very dull cream in a morning light will tend to make the room feel very cold. A classic example is my daughter’s room. The colour was very drab and dull. I would have disliked to playing and sleeping in that room, let alone my daughter. Consequently, two new coats of a very warm orange were applied and immediately the mood changed into a lovely, cosy room.

My best recommendation, therefore, is to try before you commit. Invest in colour sample pots or tubes as the colour you may think will look wonderful may not be right. If your eye cannot envisage the colour in the whole room then paint the sample on a large piece of paper or card, A4 or bigger, and hang them on each of your walls. You can see the slight changes in colour during the day and what it would be like at night with lights on.
If you are worried about the number of colour sample pots you purchase you can utilise them by applying stripes on walls or create stencils of simple circles or diamonds to add colour to plain walls. Even painting plain, wooden cupboard knobs different colours will make an impact in a plain room. Children’s paintings are the purest form of art so show them off by hanging them on frames or via a string of pegs. Murals also, big or small, will make the room feel very personal and magical to the child. After all, their bedroom should be a place they feel secure and comfortable and are proud to show off to their friends and family. Experiment with colours and make their bedroom a dream come true.