Taking the Complement

Let's say you're considering this sofa...

Now that you know about complementary colors (see yesterday's post, people!), you can conjure up the magic color wheel in your mind to figure out the opposite color for this sofa...

How to translate that to your sofa? If you held the color wheel up to the sofa fabric, you'd see that it's reddish violet (at least on my monitor-but don't get me started on that)- more of a reddish purple than a bluish purple.

[caption id="attachment_4495" align="aligncenter" width="182" caption="From top to bottom, these purples are; red-violet, violet, blue-violet"][/caption]

The fabric color is very dusty and muted, so even though the color might be described as dove gray, dark taupe, dusty plum... but you'll see that the true essence of the color is red-violet. Got it?

Now, look directly across from red-violet to see yellow-green. The muted versions of that color are chartruese, citrine, citron, mustard green, green-gold, lime, green brass...

For a dynamic room, choose a complementary paint color to your sofa, like this...

Remember, here's your sofa. A quieter, more neutral effect for your room would be to choose similar paint colors to the fabric for the walls...

Lastly, consider the patterns and accents that'll bring it all together. You don't need a perfectly matching room, but looking to variations on these two colors (red-violet and yellow-green) with plenty of white, gray, black, or chocolate thrown in will give your room that designer look. Here are some amazing fabric ideas to get you started. Look to them for window treatments, pillows, an ottoman... see how it becomes fun to think of the possibilities?

You're turn, pick an item you'd like to decorate around in your house. Grab your color wheel and see what happens! Have fun!