1. ZONE SPACES USING COLOR
Zoning a room with wallpaper aside, you could zone or define specific areas in your home using color. Tones can be used as a way to connect rooms – for instance, colors used in the exteriors can be repeated in a bedroom or kitchen, creating a lovely connection between all areas in the home.
2. CONSIDER DARK-PAINTED WALLS TO HIGHLIGHT ART
Purchased a lovely, expensive artwork and want to give it the pride of place? While there are several considerations like how high to hang art above furniture, you also want to ensure the wall you hang it on allows the piece to shine. One way of doing so is by painting the wall a dark tone. Perhaps a color used scantily in the artwork could be used on the wall, in a deeper tone. This will give a gallery-like effect to the home.
3. JUXTAPOSE A PAINTED FIREPLACE WITH WALLPAPER
If you already have painted the fireplace tiles a dark, deep tone, a great way to induce a lovely color block in the room is with painted or wallpapered walls. To open up the space and to make it seem airy, choose a lighter color on the walls, and give the room a cozy yet fresh feel.
4. USE GOLD LEAF TO ADD LUXURY
Gold has been making a big splash in home design, showing homeowners how to decorate with jewel tones. The luxe color adds a classic metallic touch to spaces, marrying it with other on-trend materials like marble and brass for the ultimate chic statement. When it comes to interesting paint techniques for walls, gold leafing is a lovely, modern touch.
5. GO BOLD WITH OUTDOOR PAINT
It's the season for outdoor living, so let's start our journey into paint with a much-overlooked source of decorating joy – outdoor paint. Create a colorful backyard with creative paint ideas. Just ask interior designer Jess Piddock, founder of King Celia Studio, who decided to go bold in her own colorful backyard design.
6. PAINT A ROOM'S ENTRYWAY
Want to embrace color, but not across the whole room? Interior designer Sophie Chapman from the Vawdry House used a clever trick for this kids room paint idea you should try.
7. MAKE A BOLD MOVE WITH YOUR TRIM
When you want to do something bold, your first thought may be to pick a vibrant shade for the walls, but you can make just as much of an impact by using paint ideas to highlight smaller details. How about light walls with dark trim? 'We work with a lot of color and pattern and have learned over the years that people live happily with patterns when the eye has space to rest in the room,' says Emilie Munroe, founder of Studio Munroe. 'When combining a lot of different colors in a space, a more neutral wall can provide relief and help the whole palette hang together better, as in this kitchen-diner design where the wall and door trim is painted in a soft, dusky red.'
8. DESIGN IN A MODERN MURAL
Wall murals can feel like a lot, and when it comes to paint murals vs wallpapers, there's also a lot of work that needs to go into making sure the proportions work well with your space. However, in the best examples, wall murals become a part of the fabric of your space.
9. DON'T FORGET THE CEILING
Painted ceiling ideas have become a hugely popular trend recently. Whether you're opting for something bold, or something that creates a calming effect for your space, painting with plain white overhead is taking a backseat to a more colorful approach.
10. GO BOLD WITH THE COLOR BLOCKING TREND
The modern trend for color blocking focuses around painting abstract shapes on your walls, ceilings and more, creating simple, yet bold murals in varied color palettes. In some instances, they're more effective than others, and in this design by interior design and architecture firm Zero9, this creative space has been designed in conjunction with the placement of furniture to highlight certain aspects and zone the room with color.
11. COMBINE PAINT AND PANELING
Paint and wall paneling have always made easy partners. Paneling makes for an obvious feature wall, for example, while wainscoting lends itself to creating rooms that can be split through the middle with color.
12. SET YOUR SIGHTS ON COLOR DRENCHING
Color drenching refers to a relatively new paint trend where you paint the ceiling and walls the same color. You can also, even, include the trim, doors, crown moldings and more in your one-color scheme, painting the entire space in a single shade. The effect? Not only does it create a pared-back canvas to decorate, lending a modern look even to spaces featuring more traditional architectural details, but it also plays with the dimensions of the rooms by blurring the lines between the ceiling and the walls.
13. TAKE COLOR DRENCHING TO THE NEXT LEVEL
There isn't just one way to do color drenching. For some, it's painting ceiling and walls the same color but some can take it to the next level by drenching the floors and even the smaller elements in the room the same hue.
14. TRANSFORM WITH TWO TONE WALLS
Two-tone walls with the introduction of a dado rail that runs between the colors is one of the most on-trend ways to transform a room. What is dado rail? It is an architectural molding often found in most Georgian, Victorian, and Edwardian houses where period features have been preserved or restored. They are used in modern interiors to provide a break between the lower portion and upper portion of a wall and a fun opportunity to use a variety of wall-coverings or colors within the same room.
15. MATCH YOUR SKIRTING WITH THE WALLPAPER
A really easy way to update your bedroom colors (or colors in any room really) that doesn't require a complete overhaul and most likely an afternoon of relaxing DIY is by painting skirting that is often kept simple in a bright hue.
16. COLOR CONTRAST ADJOINING ROOMS
Choosing contrasting colors in adjacent rooms and considering how room colors look when viewed from one to another is a clever way to create a flow of hues throughout the space. This lovely jade green bedroom has a view through to a candy pink hallway – part of a series of colorful rooms designed by Natalie Tredgett.
17. LAYER A SYMPHONY OF WHITES
Is going all white really a color update when it is is one of the most common color choices when decorating an interior? Far from ordinary and safe this lovely white kitchen belonging to designer Caroline Feiffer layers a symphony of whites in an array of finishes and features highlights of glossy white marble and burnished silver details from kitchen accessories and exposed pipes.
18. MAKE DOOR FRAMES POP
There's nothing like a lick of glossy bold color to energize and instantly modernize a traditional space. This totally stylish small playroom by Summer Thornton Design features paperwhite walls with door trims picked out in brilliant blue gloss.
19. TAKE COLOR TO THE WINDOW FRAMES
Your window frames are the perfect canvas to experiment with paint too. For a feature, you could use an accent color to decorate your windows, or to make your woodwork act more cohesively, try painting it to match other elements in your space, as in this living room paint idea by Studio Munroe.
20. EMBRACE THE TREND FOR GLOSSY FINISHES
Inspiration for paint ideas are everywhere and borrowing from your favorite restaurants and design-led haunts is an exciting way to bring a little bit of that social buzz home. Take this space for instance, drenched in gloss paint that uplifts the vibe of the interior.