Apartment design is a creative, interesting and educational process. When decorating rooms, you need not only to choose the right building and finishing materials in terms of quality, but also pay attention to aesthetic characteristics. When equipping a room, it is necessary to choose the right color scheme depending on the size, function of the room, the proportions of the walls, ceiling, and personal preferences.
All colors are conventionally divided by temperature. The correct selection of colors, their combinations allows you to achieve amazing optical effects - to enlarge, reduce the room, raise or lower the ceiling, make the climate of the room warmer, more comfortable, or vice versa more ascetic. How to correctly combine warm and cold colors, a table for combining shades, basic rules for arrangement and optical tricks are discussed in this article.
What is a color chart?
A color chart is a traditional diagram showing the relationship of colors and shades to each other. Thanks to her, even a non-professional in the use of colors can easily recognize the principles of color combination, choosing the ideal shades, contrasting colors. The table is an indispensable tool for mixing paints, coordinating the correct pigments, selecting tones and includes:
- primary and composite colors;
- chromatic (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, blue, violet, their shades) and achromatic (white, black, shades of gray).
The color wheel includes three primary colors: 
- yellow,
- Red,
- blue.
Additional colors have been added to the main colors:
- Orange,
- purple,
- green.
What are cold and warm colors? Warm tones are on the left side of the color wheel, cool tones are on the right.
Matching colors correctly in relation to each other (according to the descriptions posted on the wheel) will answer key questions: how to get the perfect color, how to combine shades, which colors match each other and what contrast is best?
Understanding the principles of colorimetry has a huge impact on professional design and color reproduction.
What the table gives:
- understanding the nature of flowers;
- acquaintance with the principles of combining shades;
- how to distinguish between warm and cold colors, basic and composite;
- training in the use of shades.
Cold and warm color chart
Warm colors
The color scheme influences the mood. Before decorating the interior, it is worth examining the effect of colors on a person.
Why are warm colors popular? Warm colors in the interior make visitors want to stay. Surrounded by warm colors, it is comfortable to relax, it is pleasant to spend evenings with loved ones, to eat, to create. Interior temperatures can range from mild, delicate beige, brown tones to hot orange-red geysers.
Warm colors have the following effects:
- stimulate;
- make the room more comfortable;
- add optimism;
- poisonous tones are sometimes considered aggressive.
Which palette to choose? How to choose a combination of warm colors? Below is our mini guide to the "warm side" of color.
Cozy ecru
Ecru is a combination of white with shades of yellow and gray. It is a natural shade of linen, cotton, sand, beige, cream and creamy white. Ecru reflects light softly but effectively. Thanks to the neutral tone, it is easy to find a combination of beige with other colors. Surrounded by ecru tones, it is difficult to ignite the senses, they are relaxing.
Ecru excels in:
- living room,
- bedroom,
- bathroom,
- kitchen.
Earth colors
The palette of earth colors includes:
- Brown,
- beige,
- olive,
- Gray,
- yellowish green.
They are tinted, unobtrusive, elegant, natural, and exude a pleasant, safe warmth. Such an environment will help you relax, escape from everyday worries.
- living room,
- bedroom,
- bathroom,
- kitchen.
It is also quite easy to match brown with other colors. Brown resembles natural wood, due to which it harmoniously combines with most colors, it is included in many combinations.
Sunny interior
Yellow color will give the interior a dose of positive energy. There are many different shades of yellow:
- citric,
- honey,
- mustard,
- pineapple,
- oil,
- linen,
- amber,
- gold.
The combination of yellow shades forms an interesting composition. It is perfectly complemented by white ecru with warm tones and delicate gray color.
The effect of yellow is positive:
- stimulates creativity;
- encourages action;
- creates coziness;
- adds optimism;
- solves problems with lack of motivation.
Orange stimulates fun, symbolizes fire. Fire is a home symbol of hearth, warmth, comfort. The combination of orange, brick terracotta and rust works in rooms where they spend leisure time with family and loved ones.
Orange is especially suitable for:
Dark red, scarlet, ruby, burgundy - juicy shades of love, passion. Red is the hottest of all colors.
The effect of red is as follows:
- increases blood pressure;
- heats the atmosphere, ignites the fire;
- used to decorate romantic meetings;
- stimulates appetite, recommended for eating;
- adds zest to the atmosphere.
Warm colors will help create a cozy atmosphere and feel comfortable. Shades, far from the hottest reds, are safe, bring calming, relaxation and rest. The closer to the opposite end of the scale, the hotter the shades, the more stimulating they are. Therefore, using yellow, orange, red, it is worth combining them with cold tones, observing moderation. The right combination of cold and warm colors will help to avoid cacophony, temperature congestion in rooms. An interior that is too hot starts to annoy, and an interior that is too cold will bring sadness and despondency.
It is worth remembering that some warm shades become cold if the following impurities of cold tones are present in them:
- green,
- purple,
- blue,
- Gray.
Cool colors
Cool tones on the color wheel start with shades of green (mint, emerald green) as well as shades of blue and purple. Why is the cool shade often used?
Cool colors affect as follows:
- soothe;
- relax;
- make the room visually larger, optically expand the space of small rooms;
- help to concentrate, recommended for study rooms, classrooms;
- those wishing to lose weight should remember that the blue color suppresses appetite (it is not used in restaurants, cafes, canteens).
Cool shades are used in all rooms.
How to decorate a cold interior? Below are some interesting ideas on how to choose the right, harmonious combination of cool tones.
Purple living room
Purple walls, furniture, living room decorations will help you relax after a busy day. Purple looks especially beautiful paired with gray. The violet-gray combination is beautiful, relaxing, elegant.
Using silver accessories with a touch of black will make the room look glamorous. The use of architectural concrete will create a loft-style atmosphere, give the room a modern gloss, a touch of minimalism.
Blue bedroom
The bedroom, decorated with blue and its shades, is suitable for people who have difficulty falling asleep, relaxing after a hard day at work, stressful situations. You can bet on the following combinations:
- pastel blues paired with crisp grays and whites;
- dark blue and white;
- dark blue and light blue.
The blue bedroom will be a place where it is good to rest, to gain strength in the process of healthy, restorative sleep. Just do not use a computer, tablet, smartphone in the bedroom, which interferes with the relaxation process. The blue light emitted from electronic devices interferes with the production of melatonin, the sleep hormone. It is advisable to leave the work in the office.
Cool green - for a teenager's room, office
Cool green is recommended for people working on a computer - it will help the eyes to rest. Green is ideal where work is stressful. The cool green colors in the palette below are shown on the left.
In the children's room, mint, pastel green shades come in handy. They look harmonious in the company:
- bleached blue (boy version),
- cool pink, purple (girls version).
Look great on a green background:
- white furniture,
- turquoise accessories,
- gray furniture, accessories,
- pastels.
In a green room, it is easier for a child to relax, fall asleep. Optimistic green helps children to create, learn, develop, and stimulates mental activity. Depending on the size of the rooms, choose a shade of green, using light colors to decorate small rooms.
Marine climate in the bathroom
The blue bathroom design gives a fresh feeling. Blue looks especially harmonious in the bathrooms in a nautical style, retro style, shabby chic. Stylish furniture looks beautiful with blue walls and white fixtures.
Adding elements related to coastal climate, beach, sea, will make the room look like a seaside. The modern interior will be made warmer by wooden elements, houseplants.
The correct use of colors will help to achieve interesting effects, will have a positive effect on mood, activity, help to rest, relax or, on the contrary, recharge.
Warm and cold purple is distinguished by its blue subtone content. Although it is the spectral color that has the shortest wavelength, its relative purple is the result of both the longest (violet) and the shortest (red) hitting the retina.
True violet is a dark, deep, cold tone, however, such a pure color in nature is a rare occurrence, most often we are dealing with complex colors. The main impurities of this tone are: red, which tends to the warm side and blue - leading to the cold scale. In addition to this, there are also gray, black and white tones, which significantly affect the feeling of color. And since they are cold, it would be logical to suggest that the cold scale should prevail over the warm ones, but this is not the case. The derivatives of purple and red-violet are much more widely represented, and even if they contain black, white or gray, they still do not cross the threshold of winter tones.
With a decrease in brightness, cool violet colors do not lose their properties, but warm ones become cooler, but they are not equal to the first.
The darker ones are colder than the light ones. This applies to both cool and warm tones.
From violet to purple, there is a whole gradient of bright hues built on a change in the pure spectrum from 100% violet to 100% + 100% (violet + red) = magenta. In fact, these are two different colors, but their line has become so blurred in our view that they began to represent one color class for us.
Cool purple and its shades
Cold violet is not only a deep cosmic tone, but also light, medium shades, formed both from the main one and with an admixture of blue, gray, black and white. This range contains the darkest colors, lilac and the lion's share of gray-violet tones.
Cool purple color photo
Deep purple (1), blue-violet (2), dark purple (3), black-violet (4), bright lilac (5), blue-lilac (6), light lilac (7), pale -lilac (8), blue-violet (9), light gray-violet (10), charoite color (11), dark gray-violet (12).
Warm purple and its shades
Warm violet shades originate from the derivatives of lilac, which, next to rich violet-purple tones, look pink, but, in fact, are already out of this series.
They are followed by the amethyst range: light, bright and muted shades - close relatives of purple.
Purple is rich and rich. By its temperament, it can be put in a row with red, crimson, burgundy. And, therefore, its darker shades, such as plum, eggplant, will take a "warm position".
The red-violet range occupies an almost intermediate value between warm and cold, but loses out to dark violet and blue-violet.
Warm purple color photo
Glycine (1), lilac purple (2), thistle (3), amethyst (4), orchid (5), blackberry (6), purple (7), red purple (8), brownish purple (9) , grape (10), plum (11), eggplant (12).
Cool purple blends
Cool medium violets tend to enter into temperature contrast, although averages are best. So pleasant will be couples with light green, herbal, peach, brown, sunset pink, dark red, etc. Cold combinations with turquoise, gray-green are also possible, but they leave a feeling of incompleteness. Dark violet tones are combined according to the principle of black: high light contrast or according to the principle of color spot.
Warm purple blends
To create a warm-cold contrast, such shades of violet will need warmer colors: orange, yellow, gold, but at the same time we will not see a sharp resonance: a rich, cheerful color will open before us.
Cool purple and warm blend
Yet more often than not, warm and cool purple tones come together to create a deep scale that is the center of attention. In this case, the warm-cold contrast fades into the background, leaving the viewer completely immersed in the mysterious, mesmerizing world of violet-purple.
Color can directly affect a person. Research in this area has proven the possibility of the effect of surrounding paints on the central nervous and endocrine systems. Colors can calm or excite, speed up or slow down metabolic processes. The colors in the environment have an impact on the formation of the character of children and can change the mood of any person. In psychology, there are diagnostic tests of color perception to recognize deviations and get a picture of the personality. In addition, psychology actively uses and develops the method of color therapy, art therapy in the treatment of certain diseases. Therefore, what colors to surround yourself with in the house, where you sleep, eat, relax and communicate with your family is extremely important.
When choosing a color palette, you need to rely on your own preferences, color features, and the purpose of the room. For example, a palette of shades for a bedroom should contribute to relaxation and good rest; colors that accelerate metabolic processes are well suited for the kitchen.
Determination of warm and cold colors
In nature, there are three colors called the primary or pure colors of the spectrum (yellow, blue, red). When mixed, many chromatic shades come out of them.
Characteristic properties of chromatic colors:
- temperature (warm, cold);
- activity (muffled, bright);
- intensity (diluted or saturated).
In terms of color temperatures, yellow and red are the colors of fire and sun, warm. The tone of the oceans and seas is blue and is cold. One color can have a different temperature, depending on which temperature range the base color belongs to (semitone or subtone), as part of the shade. With a predominance of red or yellow undertones, the color is warm, if the predominance of blue undertones, it is cold. The figure shows a color wheel that clearly shows the temperature of various shades.
Image
Natural harmony and balance is provided by the combination of tones from the range of the same temperature. In design, harmony can be achieved in the same way, warm (or cold) tones are harmoniously combined with each other in the interior. But in design, this is not an axiom, the arrangement of shades contrasting in temperature is capable of solving many design problems.
Warm color table
Warm colors bring home coziness, warmth to the interior, and create an elevated mood. Warm shades add light and warmth to rooms with a north or east orientation, "warm" the room.
Cold color table
The use of cold shades is especially appropriate in bedrooms, since such tones are serene, energetically inactive, help prepare for sleep, tune in to a calm mood, and relax. The tonal solution of rooms in a cold range will help to muffle too bright sunlight in rooms with windows facing south and west.
Color and temperature
The tables illustrate well the conventionality of the concept of color temperature. The mixture of subtones and the peculiarities of the perception of an individual individual, give a different visual perception of colors (colder / warmer).
You can determine the color temperature by decomposing it into its components. To change the temperature - add uniquely warm or cold undertones.
Recognition of shades by the human eye depends on the wavelength of the spectrum, as follows:
- long waves increase the heartbeat, blood rushes to the limbs, warmth is felt - the color is regarded as warm;
- a short wave makes you feel relaxation, processes in the body slow down, a feeling of coolness appears - the color is perceived as cold.
The relativity in the temperature difference in shades is associated with little experience in observing absolutely pure spectral colors by most people (in nature, pure color is a rarity).
Neighboring colors mutually influence the temperature. So, burgundy in tandem with sepia will give a feeling of warm, with caramel - cold color. Understanding this phenomenon must be applied in interior solutions, this will allow you to bring harmony to any space.
How to balance color
Merging colors with achromatic (black, gray, white), gives a gradation of temperatures of the final color, changes shades, tones and adds shadows. So in photography there is the concept of "white balance", which affects the illumination and the final quality of the picture.
Neutral white can dilute cold or warm colors. If we add white to the orange, we get a slightly colder orange. At the same time, white does not have the magic that can make a cold color out of warm, it only brings it closer to neutral. By the same principle, the color gradation takes place, which loses its temperature saturation when black is added.
In interiors it is almost impossible to see pure spectral colors, they are "muted" with gray, shaded with black or lightened with white. And of course, they use multicomponent mixtures of chromatic colors.
Combination
In interior design, combining warm and cool colors is extremely important. To achieve harmony in the room, you need to choose the dominant scale (warm or cold) and add accents to the opposite.
You can competently combine shades of different temperatures using other techniques:
- Balancing. The principle of balancing one color at the expense of another, revealed to the world the popular combination of cold turquoise, warm brown and beige;
- Gain. An interesting option for combining colors of different temperatures is deliberate mutual reinforcement. So cold emerald with warm marsala makes both tones deeper and more noble.
- Muting, decreasing saturation. The effect is achieved by using neutral colors for tinting large areas, as background colors for bright colors.
Warm tones visually reduce the space, as they are perceived closer, cold tones can add depth, visually expand the room.
Shades of different temperatures can visually give a room the correct shape. In a narrow room, long walls are tinted with cold tones, short ones with warm tones, so visually long walls move apart, and short ones approach. By painting the ceiling with cold shades, you can create the illusion of high ceilings.
In the living room
The living room is the central room in the dwelling where families gather, relax and have fun. In large halls of houses, you can choose warm colors as the predominant range, and with cold colors, you can paint accessories or choose a cold range for textiles. In typical apartments, the living room area is usually small, you want to expand the space, here you can make a palette of cold shades dominant. Often, when decorating a living room, neutral colors are made as the main color so that the room is not boring, saturated colors will come to the rescue (cold or warm, depending on the preferences of the owners).
Options for non-trivial color combinations for decorating living rooms:
- Gray, emerald, yellow. In general, gray is a good base color for living rooms, in this palette it can also become a base color. A few accent walls, painted with warm yellow, will fill the room with an atmosphere of joy, warmth and comfort. A sofa with emerald upholstery will balance the yellow walls. Emerald and gray decorative elements will help harmoniously arrange interior details.
- White, brown, red. Combining only warm or cold shades, it's hard to make mistakes. The use of white will help muffle the active red, which in this tandem can be used for textile elements. Brown will complement the wood furniture in the room.
- Gray, blue, beige. Blue will contribute to relaxation, it is a deep and noble color, its characteristics will enhance gray. A warm shade of beige will add home comfort to the room.
These are just a few design options for the halls, you should focus on your own preferences, temperament, size and position of the room, expectations from spending time in the living room.
In the bedroom
The bedroom is a place to rest, reboot the whole organism, which will be facilitated by muted, pastel inactive, neutral tones.
If you have trouble sleeping, the base color of the bedroom can be pastel blue, which is good for soothing and will give the owners a calm, restorative sleep. By combining cool blue with beige shades, you can get a harmonious and stylish room.
For the purpose of relaxation, you can decorate the bedroom with ecru paints. This is a natural color, which includes yellow, beige, cream, but this shade does not imply the creation of a romantic setting, so it should be diluted with decorative elements in active colors (burgundy, red in a daring combination with blue).
Choosing shades of brown for decorating a bedroom is difficult to miscalculate, you can use brown from a warm and colder palette. If you do not add other colors, bright accents to the design, it is worth diversifying the room with textures and different materials so that the room does not become too conservative.
In the kitchen
If there is a dining area in the kitchen, the tones for it should help whet the appetite (warm honey, tangerine, carrot, light green tones will perfectly cope with this task).
Thanks to technology, kitchen facades are no longer made only of wood. Painted MDF, the use of multi-colored films removed all sorts of restrictions in the colors of kitchen furniture. Having chosen bright facades, it is better to paint the walls in neutral shades. In the kitchen, details are of great importance, to give comfort, you can arrange contrasting textiles, dishes made in shades of a different temperature than the set.
Any of the three primary colors, red, yellow, and blue, can be warm, neutral, or cool. The names of all of them are unlikely to come in handy in life, unless you are an artist. But knowledge of the main ones will definitely help in choosing clothes and creating an image.
Cool colors and shades
Cool shades of colors always have a noticeable proportion of blue or gray in their composition. They are suitable for girls of “summer” and “winter” color types. In this case, "summer" girls are better off choosing smoky, pastel, muted shades, and "winter" - bright colors and shades of the cold spectrum.
The coldest color is turquoise. Regardless of the shade, it cannot be warm.
Cold shades of red - scarlet, alizarin, magenta; yellow - lemon; green - turquoise; blue - azure; purple - indigo; brown - taupe; gray - the color of wet asphalt; pink - ultra pink, ash pink.
Warm shades of color
Warm shades contain a yellow or red tone. For red, carrot, tangerine will be a warm shade; for yellow - honey, saffron; green - light green; blue - heavenly; purple - orchid, lilac; brown - sand; gray - quartz; pink - pomegranate, mauve, salmon.
Warm shades of colors are suitable for color types "" and "". The beauty of "spring" will be emphasized by light and soft shades, and for "autumn" girls the best choice will be bright, saturated shades.
The warmest color in the spectrum is orange. He is never cold.
It is best to combine colors and shades from the same temperature range. Mixing warm and cold shades in one look negates the advantages of each of them, introducing imbalance and slovenliness.
This summer, stylists propose to diversify monochrome bows, choosing clothes and accessories not tone-on-tone, but different shades of the same color. Such images look very stylish and at the same time elegant.
Contrast is another popular way of mixing shades. For this, one or two color spots of a contrasting color are added to the main shade. Use the color wheel to determine the brightest and purest contrast. Just draw a straight line from the selected shade through the center. The color that the line on the second side of the circle will fall into will be the opposite of the one selected.
The correct combination of shades of color is a real art, which, however, is quite possible to learn.
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Red refers to warm colors, but the line of its shades is divided into equal halves of tones, which can be opposed to each other in color temperature. Why is this needed?
As a bright color, red - narrows the space, but expands the form; increases heart rate and breathing rate; warms and activates, and sometimes causes aggression. All these properties belong to a bright warm tone, however, when its temperature decreases, all these qualities are softened and disciplined, smoothly turning into a cold one. Therefore, even among the red scale, you can find a shade that will be emotional, rich, but restrained and noble.
Separation of shades of red into cold and warm is necessary when choosing colors for certain colors and types of appearance. Everyone knows that red is suitable for "spring" and "winter", but there are a number of colors that are quite suitable for "summer" and "autumn". So for "summer" the cold tone of this palette is suitable, and for "autumn" - warm, but not very bright.
However, it can be obtained. As a result, we get a medium red.
If these proportions are changed, then we will get a shade of red, either going into pink or orange, respectively, here the division into cold (with a pink undertone) and warm (with an orange undertone) begins.
Most of the bright colors in this range are in the warm segment, as close to the pure spectrum. If you try to create a bright cool tone, it will turn out to be more pink than red. However, there are more saturated dark reds in the range of cold tones. This is because darkening with a touch of blue is more effective than using black alone. In the first case, we get a purple subtone, which, at the slightest change in the lightness or proportion of red-blue, changes its appearance and color. The second case is more boring, since only the lightness changes, and its insignificant fluctuations are not noticeable to the eye.
So, to summarize: how the warmth of red changes.
- the brightest red is found in medium lightness and is warm;
- the lightest, brightest and warmest red is scarlet;
- lighter tones of red with a deviation in pink will be colder and less bright relative to the original;
- the darker the tone, the colder it is: any admixture of black, brown, gray sharply reduces the temperature and properties of a bright color;
- colder, darker shades will be considered colors with an admixture of blue.
Warm red and its shades
Shades of red can be divided into the following categories:
- bright, pure tones close to spectral color: medium red, bright red, scarlet, Chinese, garnet, Falun, etc.
- moderately saturated or dark red: dark red, coral red, terracotta red, cardinal, tomato ...
- pale shades of warm red: alizarin, chicory red.
- burgundy: mahogany, earth, port ...
(1) Medium red, (2) deep red, (3) mahogany, (4) bright red, (5) red orange, (6) scarlet, (7) Chinese red, (8) coral red, (9) terracotta red, (10) garnet, (11) rust, (12) falun red, (13) earth red, (14) alizarin, (15) chicory red, (16) cardinal, (17) tomato, (18) scarlet, (19) port, (20) red and burgundy.
Cold red and its shades
The cool tone of red can be distinguished from the following subgroups:
- light red-pink: light red, red-coral, red rose, watermelon, light red-coral ...
- cold, pale tone: cinnabar, cherry, marsala, pink-burgundy ...
- richer ruby: ruby, bismarck furioso, bogry, coral-burgundy, ruby-burgundy ...
- dark purple-burgundy: burgundy, wine, maroon ...
(1) Ruby, (2) Cinnabar, (3) Light red (4) Cherry, (5) Coral red, (6) Burgundy, (7) Wine, (8) Carmine, (9) Bismarck furioso, ( 10) red rose color, (11) watermelon, (12) bogry, (13) marsala, (14) light red corral, (15) crimson coral, (16) pink-burgundy, (17) coral-burgundy, ( 18) bright burgundy, (19) ruby burgundy, (20) maroon.
The warm red color often plays a solo part in the combination: the contrast of the color spot. Like a bright flash over colder and more restrained tones, it fills the palette with living fire. Giving it movement, striving, purpose.
Contrasts of warm-cold and additional colors with the participation of green and a combination with neutral shades are juicy. The darker the tone, the less inconspicuous it is and smoothly fits into the overall scale.
See what is the difference with the opposite colors of this range:
Cold red, even if it occupies the central part of the composition, does not evoke violent emotions, unlike its opposite. It blends softly into palettes and usually has a set of lighter or darker related shades that create natural volume. Contrasts with them are smooth, unobtrusive, natural.
Warm and cold red combined
To deepen and diversify a red background or element, mix both directions. The resulting version is versatile, and the combination with such a gradient is even more juicy and lively. By themselves, these shades reinforce each other, and in the presence of other colors, they expand the scope of impressions.
