Colours have a major influence on the look of your interior. Yet too much colour or awkward combinations can soon leave your home looking like a bit of a mishmash. Ikea and the like love a mix of styles and colourful interiors, but it’s worth turning to some style luminaries for a few tips when it comes to pattern and colour accents.

Finding the balance between colour accents and too much of a good thing

According to Professor Axel Venn, an expert at the German Colour Centre in Wuppertal, lots of young families take the use of colour too far. They deck out their entire home as a children’s paradise. However, children hate it when their parents’ space looks like their own.

Children need more colour, of course, but they also need a sense of calm. If you want to include colour in your home, choose soft shades.

Strong colours make small rooms shine

Joa Studeholme, author of the book “Stylish Living with Colour”, is a fan of dramatic colours in small spaces. She says that the colour white soon looks boring in the home and only really has a sense of character in large, light-filled rooms.

Other spaces, such as hallways or bathrooms, which tend to have narrow passageways and less light, benefit from strong colours. She knows from her years of experience as a colour expert at Farrow and Ball that colour can transform and upgrade spaces faster than any other method.

Nature provides inspiration for colour combinations

Colour evokes memories, perhaps of holidays or favourite childhood places. Colourful accents are unbeatable when combined with white, whether as furniture, accessories or on the wall. The quality of the light and the surface texture also have a bearing on the colour impact.

Colours not only fulfil a decorative purpose, but also determine the atmosphere exuded by a space, according to interior designer Alice Buckley. In her book Entspannt Wohnen mit den richtigen Farben [Living comfortably with the right colours] she writes about their natural effect, as well as the impact of textures.

Interior décor should reflect our personalities, our hopes and our innermost being. We can achieve this in a whole host of different ways. Light and colour, which both surround us in nature, can fundamentally influence and transform our living space.

These two magic wands allow us to control the energy, atmosphere and cosiness of a space. If we use them properly, light and colour can create a home that satisfies our emotional and practical needs so that we really feel at home.