The most common color schemes for your home

Have you ever wondered how to incorporate color into your home, but felt scared or nervous? It’s a frequent question and concern that I’ve heard in my personal experience. So I decided to make it easier for people to feel comfortable with color by sharing some major color schemes that you can steal. Everyone loves a template right?! In this post you will find six different ways that you can use the color wheel (hello elementary school) to choose colors that will coordinate with each other. You will also find examples of how designers have implemented these schemes in their spaces.

The truth is, you don’t need to be an artist to incorporate color into your home, you just need the basic principles. So let’s jump on the school bus and take a trip back in time. Here is our handy dandy color wheel. It is your friend and you should definitely refer back to this:

Let’s start with monochromatic since it’s fairly simple to understand. A monochromatic scheme uses a singular color with varying shades, tints and tones. But don’t let the use of one color fool you, this color scheme can make a bold statement as you can see from the photos below. Personally, I think a monochromatic color scheme is very versatile because it can be applied to various design styles.

To achieve an analogous color scheme, you choose one main color on the color wheel and work with its neighboring colors. These schemes are great for beginners who are afraid of color but want to try it out. Using an analogous color scheme is a great entry point to using color because it does not include a lot of contrast, so you end up with a softer design. As you can see below, they work great with both cooler color palettes with greens and blues, but also very well with a warmer color palette – think reds, oranges and yellows. While I am a sucker for contrast, I love the soft look of an analogous color scheme.

A complementary color scheme is when you choose a color and then you find its complementary color on the opposite side of the wheel. Examples include teal and orange or red and green.

It’s important to note that a complementary color scheme has the greatest amount of color contrast. To ensure that your space is still pleasing to the eye, remember that not every color should be used equally. Think of each color as having a weight. Choose a primary color that carries more weight and use a complementary color as an accent.

A split complementary color scheme is when you choose a color and two more colors that are adjacent to the first color’s complementary color. Basically…a complementary color scheme is beginner level and this is expert level. What makes a split complementary color harder to achieve? Well, it can be tough to balance the right tone and tint of contrasting colors to get the desired effect. You may have to play with it a bit.

I had a hard time finding examples of split complementary color schemes in homes so I’m including a visual from the color wheel to show you how you can achieve this look.

In theory, a triadic color scheme is composed of three colors that are evenly spaced around the color wheel. However, if you choose colors that are all the same tint/tone/shade or apply the same visual weight to each one, it can become easily overwhelming to the eye. Although I suppose in some commercial situations that may be the goal…but for our purposes we are thinking residentially. So for your home, it is best to choose a primary color and two accent colors or choose two colors that have a softer tint/tone/shade.

A rectangular color scheme is when you choose a color and its complementary color. Then you select a third color two steps away from your 1st color and add its complementary color. Now..if you had to read that three times, you are not alone. But it’s easier than you think. As seen in the example below, sample colors in a rectangular color scheme are red, green, orange and blue. What’s interesting about this color scheme is that you’ll end up with two colors that have high contrast (in this example, it is red and blue), but the other two colors are more muted helping to balance the design (green and orange). You should also note from this example that not all the colors have the same visual weight. One of the bolder colors (red) is used much more sparingly than the blue.

I hope you feel more confident to begin incorporating color into your home and absorbed some inspiration from the design examples. You can follow me on Instagram to see how I choose to bring color into my home or stay tuned for more design tips and tricks here on the blog!

Which of these color schemes was your favorite? Comment below!