Origin’s Guide to Colour in the Home

• How to add colour to your home without repainting the walls
• Choosing the right colours to suit the purpose of each room
• Room by room guide to the best colour choices

No matter the size, shape or layout of your home, there’s one thing that it has in common with every other home out there… Potential. The problem is, all too often, we simply exist within the four walls of our homes; ‘putting up’ with furnishings and décor which are just OK, not even contemplating the fact that a quick lick of paint or some carefully chosen accessories could transform the space.

Move over magnolia

Introducing a splash of bold colour into your home is the best way to inject a bit of personality. Whilst neutrals are very pleasing to the eye, they can leave a home feeling a little bland and lacklustre. Colour can work wonders at determining the mood flow throughout your space, bringing calm to bedrooms and living rooms, cheering up kitchens and adding a creative atmosphere to offices and play rooms. If you treat your home like a blank canvas, you can quickly bring each individual room to life.

Think beyond the walls

When it comes to giving a room a colour makeover, the first area that we think of tackling is the walls. However, a new colour scheme can be introduced in many different ways, whether through simple changes of accessories for a temporary spruce up, or through more permanent changes. Alternative ways to add a splash of colour include:

• Mix up your soft furnishings. Replacing cushions, curtains, tablecloths and sofa covers can make a surprisingly big difference to the feel of a room. This is a great way of refreshing a room to fit with the seasons. Use fresh, cool colours for the warmer months and richer colours for a cosier atmosphere in the colder months. Add in coloured throws and blankets for added texture.
• Invest in some bold accessories. Eye-catching vases, striking floral displays and vivid pictures can inject a burst of colour to the most neutral room.
• Accentuate doors and windows. Accentuate your colour-scheme by coordinating the door and window frames. Origin have introduced a whole range of coloured bi-fold doors, which will complement any colour palette. Made to measure blinds are also available to be installed onto doors or blinds, and can add that extra bit of colour into a surrounding.

Turning your house into a home

It is all very well talking about colour, but when you’re standing front of a Dulux colour wall with every colour of the rainbow spread out in front of you, where do you even begin?

Questions to ask yourself when you are choosing a colour scheme:

1. How will you use the room?
   A good place to start is to think about the use of the room, will it be for:
   • Relaxing?
   • Working?
   • Socialising?
   • Cooking?
2. Will the room have different uses throughout the day?
   These days, many people have larger kitchens, which will be used for functional reasons during the day, but will then be used for dining in the evening. The colour scheme will need to be sympathetic to both purposes.
3. Will the room have a lot of ‘traffic’?
   Staircases, hallways and children’s bedrooms/playrooms will naturally have a lot of wear and tear and will need to be decorated to accommodate this. It is worth considering easy clean paint or wallpaper in these areas. Whilst darker colours won’t show up the dirt as easily, they aren’t so great when it comes to greasy fingerprints and any chips will be more obvious.

A colour to suit every mood

When you have determined how the room will be used, it is then worth thinking about the mood that you would like the room to evoke. Is it a busy room or do you use it for chilling out? Different colours evoke different emotions, so it makes sense to tie in the mood of the colour with the desired use of the room.

Choose your colour scheme to suit the mood of each room with the following guide:

Kitchen

In many homes, the kitchen is considered to be the hub of the home. It is no longer just used for cooking, so much so, that many families incorporate their eating area into the kitchen, and space permitting, many have a sofa and TV, or even a desk, in there too. With this in mind, the kitchen needs to be multifunctional, with a colour scheme to suit all purposes. Yellow is a cheery, warm colour and has been reported to increase metabolism, so it is an ideal colour to use in the kitchen.

Living room

If you want to create the feeling of calm and tranquility then green, the symbol of nature, is your colour. We have all heard of the ‘Green Room’ on TV sets, where artists wait before they appear before the camera, the reason these rooms are painted green is purely for the stress relieving, calming effect that the colour has on the brain. Green is a great colour for a living room, especially if it has large windows or bi-fold doors, bringing harmony between the interior and exterior.

For a more formal lounge, the deeper tones of purple emit feelings of wealth and royalty and can create a real feeling of opulence in a room. Be careful not to be too heavy handed with the dark purples, as you can end up with a gloomy, not to mention sinister, looking space. Gold can work as a nice accent against purple, to add an element of light, whilst still maintaining the feeling of splendour.

Dining room

With many people now using their kitchen as a dining space, the traditional dining room is a thing of the past in a lot of homes. Dining rooms now tend to be used for more formal occasions or for entertaining, and as a result, the room can be decorated with a little more flair than if it was for every day use.

Red it is a bold, passionate colour, that provokes feelings of excitement and passion; and it works brilliantly in dining rooms, where the emphasis is on bringing people together and interacting in an intimate environment.

Bedroom

The emphasis when decorating a bedroom is to evoke a restful, tranquil environment. There are several colour options that are ideal for the purpose, with the emphasis being on ‘less is more’.

Pink is a lovely calm-evoking colour, so much so, that ‘drunk-tank pink’ is often used in prisons to calm the inmates. It is a passive colour, symbolising love and romance, which makes it a good colour for a bedroom.

Lighter hues of purple, such as lavender, have a similar relaxing effect to blue but without the chill, making it another calming contender.

Green is another, less obvious, alternative for the bedroom, especially for those wanting to start a family, as it is traditionally a symbol of fertility.

Nursery

It is no coincidence that babies’ bedrooms are often painted in pale blues and pink, as both shades are calm, peaceful colours. If you want to decorate the room before your little bundle of joy arrives, however, and are wanting to choose a unisex shade, you may want to go for a tranquil green instead of the usual unisex colour of yellow.

Despite being a nice cheery colour, yellow can also cause feelings of anger and frustration and it is the colour most likely to cause people to lose their temper. Studies have shown that babies cry more in yellow rooms, so it’s really not the best choice for a nursery!

Playroom

If you want to make a statement with a bold colour, orange is the perfect choice. It is attention grabbing, energetic, exciting and warm, hence being ideally suited to an exercise or play room. 

Office

When decorating an office or study area, especially in the home environment, you will want to create a haven which is calm and conducive to clear thinking. Blue is an excellent choice for emitting calm and serenity, evoking feelings of peace and tranquility. It’s also secure and orderly and encourages productivity. Blue can also be quite a cold colour, so make sure that you include a few warmer hues into the scheme to ensure that chilled doesn’t turn into frosty.

Taking colour a step further

Once you have decided on a general colour for your room, you can push the design even further and create an overall theme with a considered colour palette. All aspects of the room can reflect the palette in some form, and now even bi-fold doors can be incorporated into your colour scheme.

In an industry first, Origin has injected some colour into the bi-fold door market by launching its Colour Palette range. Origin’s range of colours highlight 90 different door colour options, allowing homeowners to handpick the colour, or colours, they love. The colour palettes have been designed to reflect the language used by paint manufacturers, inspiring people to think about bi-folding doors in a new, more creative way.

Neil Ginger, CEO of Origin, explains: “People put a great deal of thought into choosing their perfect interior. Folding doors are a real focal point but people get stuck in a mind-set when choosing doors, thinking they should be white, grey, black or wood effect. We hope our new colour palettes will inspire homeowners to think more creatively – whatever the colour of their room, they can integrate their door frames by matching the wall colour or make them a feature with bold contrasting colours.”

Inspiration Comes From Everywhere.

Inspiration for colour palettes can come from anywhere, whether from a woodland walk or from a row of pretty beach huts. So, if for example a customer has a nautical or beach themed home and is looking to liven up their living area, then the Beach Hut range adds a pop of candy colour which complements the laid back blues and whites of the seaside.

For added inspiration, Origin has created Pinterest pinboards for some of their ranges to spark inspiration in customers, including Origin’s Beach Hut board and our Retro Collection and Pop Art boards. As Origin’s doors are bespoke, customers can mix up the colour palettes and choose a different shade for the interior and exterior door frames if they wish.

Each palette describes a style story of an era or setting, and the concepts have been carefully selected to include a range of diverse styles, including:

Heritage – Soft shades of cream, green and blue which bring a touch of traditional elegance to period properties.

Pop Art – Bring the brightest colours to your home with dazzling shades indicative of the Pop Art era.

Naturalist – Return to nature with earthy colours inspired by the greens and browns of the natural world.

Gentleman’s Club – Relive the opulence of luxury private clubs of the past with jewel like shades of red, purple and green.

Beach Hut – Escape from it all with candy floss colours which evoke memories of the seaside.

The Hamptons – Cool beachside tones with a sophisticated coastal vibe inspi red by Ralph Lauren.

Tuscany – Warming shades of terracotta and olive evoke visions of a Tuscan village.

Urban Chic - No frills, statement greys and blacks which are ideal for classic urban architecture.

Retro –Bold colours inspired by the fun, colourful décor of the 60s and 70s.

Have Fun!

The beauty of colour is that it allows you to have fun with your home, brightening up otherwise lacklustre spaces. Not only do Origin’s range of new colours bring a fresh new twist to the world of interiors, the playful names used to describe the different palettes are a great way of getting inspiration to take the theme further.

Within the ranges, the bold colours have playful names such as Marilyn’s Lipstick in the Pop Art range and Blue Blazer in The Hamptons collection. The more muted shades have names such as Espresso in the Tuscany range and Rich Peat in the Naturalist range. These names have been purposely chosen to evoke not just the colour, but an image in people’s minds of the era and style the colours help to create.

A home is a personal statement and bi-folds offer a key a focal point which can now be styled to either complement the colour theme in the home or provide a bold contrast.

For more information on Origin's bespoke bi-folding doors, contact your local installer today.