Here's How to Get These Rooms *Without a Design Degree*

I'm always asked how I come up with the color palettes for my rooms, and a lot of times when I share the process of my room makeovers, because they are in multiple parts, the process is not trusted until the very end, because only I know what colors I'm also going to be adding to the space usually. I always think the best starting point for any room is finding something that inspires it, whether it be a piece of fabric, a antique chair that you love, a piece of art, whatever it is, a rug that you can pull other colors from, but a lot of times there's also not a starting point, and you just want to create a space defined by a mood or a feeling, which I also love. So today I want to share with you guys my 10 tips on how to choose a color palette that feels really thoughtful and timeless, but still really design forward. I don't want to share with you guys how to choose the most easy, simple, earthy toned color palette. We are going for a little bit more interesting, a little more punchy, design forward. It looks like a designer came over and did your house. That is what we are going for, but you did it yourself, so why don't we go ahead and dive on in. Since we are talking about color, your best friend, and my best friend to this day that I use all the time when it comes to designing a room, is the color wheel. I feel like this is the first thing you learn when you get into an art class, a photography class. The color wheel really is going to help you so much when it comes to design, because complementary colors are going to be your best friend, and they're what I love to design with. When you're looking at the color wheel, you're going to have your primary colors, your secondary colors, and there's also tertiary colors, which are even more like complex. They go just a little bit more further into a color family, but I feel like you can totally just look at this from primary and secondary colors, and essentially the color opposite of the color wheel is going to be the one that complements that tone. And some of you are probably looking at me like, Drew, I'm not using primary colors in my home, and I don't mean like direct primary red or yellow. I'm talking about anything under the red spectrum, anything under the yellow spectrum. An ochre color, a mustard, a butter yellow, pairs really nicely with the opposite color. So a lilac, an eggplant, something in the purple family, and this actually goes hand in hand with Christmas colors, and that's why I find myself loving red and green so much, but a lot of people don't love red and green because it reminds them of Christmas, but those are actually complementary colors that pair really nicely together. Going into our secondary colors as well, you can sort of see that the teal and then the red orange shades, those are kind of complementary, and I'd say that's a palette that I actually used in my lobby space. I loved this orangey leather. I feel like lots of times leather comes in this really orangey warm tone, and I thought contrasting that with more of a teal color, because that is the complementary shade, would just make that sofa pop, and I can definitely say it did. You can see in these photos how intense these colors are, and it's because they are complementary. It's something so simple that you almost forget to look at and think about. If you order yourself a color wheel, it's something you're going to reference often, and also think about when you go to design a space. You're going to be like, gosh, what colors do I need in here? Referencing the color wheel, you can pull what other colors you think might add and intensify, or just make other colors pop, or just feel more at home. Next is something you honestly kind of want to do before even going into color, and that is honing in on the mood you want to create in your space, because adding color is such an easy way to define a mood. A lot of times the architecture of the home, or the room you're working on as well, is also going to determine sort of the mood. So if a room is super, super bright and airy, and gets a ton of sun in it, maybe you want to contrast that and go darker in the space, because you do get that light and airy look. Or maybe vice versa, you have a room that has zero windows, but you want to also make it dark and make it feel cave-like. So you really want to define what mood you want to feel in this space. Do you want it to feel bright and airy? Do you want it to feel colorful? Do you want it to feel eclectic? Do you want it to be a mix of that? What do you want to use the space for, and what mood do you want to create in the space? Because that's going to be the kicking off point to figure out how dark you want your colors to be, what shades, what undertones, and what intensities you want them to look like in the end. Which just now leads me into our next tip, which is talking about how darker colors are traditionally a little bit more grounding, and lighter colors are typically more airy. And I find myself thinking about this a lot when I walk into a space, and trying to figure out where the focal point is. Sometimes when everything is painted light and bright, you don't have that focal point to look at. And so when I walk into a room, I love seeing like a focal fireplace, where it might have like a darker tile on it, because it draws your eye to that fireplace. There's definitely certain occasions in design where different rooms or different walls and spaces, maybe there's molding on the wall, maybe it has a certain type of architecture detail to it, where it just needs a heavier or more grounding feeling. And typically what comes with a heavier, more grounding feeling is a darker paint color. So if you want something to feel like the focal point of a room, or really, you know, like intense in a space, going darker or even brighter, something that pulls you away from the light and airy feel is typically what I tend to go for. But if I wanna open up a room and make it feel more light and bright and airy, I typically opt for something that has more white in it, or a more lighter color that bounces more of that natural light. Which I'm now gonna lead into natural materials in kind of conjunction with color, because there are so many times that natural materials can also really ground, or neutralize, or make a space feel completely different, even if you have the most brightest pops of color in a room. Whenever I'm designing, and I feel like my direction's gone a little too crazy, or a little too colorful, too patterned, whatever it might be, I always find myself gravitating back towards adding wood to a design. So maybe incorporating more wood through the decor, adding a wood floor lamp, a wooden side table, any element of wood I always feel like adds a grounding feel. And that kind of also goes back with other elements of nature. Just anything that you traditionally see in nature, visually, it kind of feels a little bit more natural. Anything that you sort of see digitally on a screen, a lot of times more intense colors, neons, those really, really bright, poppy, sometimes very trendy colors, are not natural. And so that's kind of why they sometimes feel a little out of place, not as timeless. But if you do opt for something that you traditionally see a bit more in nature, in rocks, in fruit, in, you know, natural elements, those usually are gonna feel a little bit more easier on the eye, and kind of something like that you see often, because it is out in nature. And because it is natural, it honestly just kind of feels a little bit more grounding in a space. Sometimes those bright poppy colors, which they definitely work, and they're definitely useful. And I think designers know how to use them really, really well, but if you don't, you can definitely feel like something that feels either out of place in your home, or something that's not gonna last for a long time, and kind of go out of trend very quickly. And this is why a lot of people love earth-toned homes. You know, it's natural, it feels grounded, it's very earthy, it has shades that you see often, greens, browns, creams, those really earthy, natural tones. But if you're someone like me that loves to experiment with color, play around with new shades and tones in your home, knowing when to go a little bit more intense with the color, or knowing when to draw back on the intensity of a color, is really, really key. And kind of think of it as if you're adding a chartreuse to a room, and instantly that chartreuse color is just bright and bold. You might wanna consider adding an olive green instead, because that olive green is a little softer, it's a little bit more muted, it still adds your essence of green that you wanted in the space, but maybe the chartreuse was just not that timeless feel that it needed. Maybe you have too much of that around already, and you need to add a little bit more of a grounding, neutralized green, so the olive green is the option there. But it can also happen vice versa, where everything kind of feels a little flat, and maybe you need to inject some personality into the space by adding a pop like the chartreuse. Also love incorporating varying shades of these tones in my decor and other elements of a room. So if I am incorporating, let's say three key colors in a space, something I like to do is kind of incorporate those colors in other spots of decor, maybe in varying shades as well, just to kind of vary up the color a little bit. It makes it feel a little bit more intentionally designed, but you just sort of vary the shades and hues to make the whole room look cohesive. The unexpected pop of color is still one of my favorite ways to instantly make it feel like a designer was in this space, because there's something about an unexpected pop of color, just something that feels out of the norm that instantly kind of feels a bit more thoughtful. I don't know if that makes sense, but it's kind of like, why was this placed here? Was there an intention to it? But when it is a space that you can tell has been designed, and when they add that little unexpected pop of red or that unexpected pop of blue, and it just makes every other color in the room sing, that is just so cool. And I've done that in my own projects many times, where it's just that one little vase of flowers that just transforms the entire space. So incorporating an unexpected pop at the end of your project, if you're kind of looking at it, standing back, and you're like, you know what? This kind of feels like it's falling flat. It needs like that little punch, like going back to your color wheel and finding the complimentary color for the full tone of your room. Like if it's leaning blue, getting some orange flowers or something more in that family and having it just compliment the space. My next tip is about considering the other materials in the space. So whatever else you're using in addition to your color, whether it be metal finishes, stone, tile, wood, whatever it is, considering those elements as well and how those are gonna pair alongside your color selections. Every room I do, I find myself incorporating metal in. I just personally love, love, love the look of metal. I love when there's high shine. I also love glass because I feel like it adds that nice kind of sheen that's different than what I find myself using a lot of. So I love incorporating glass decor. I really like the mix of materiality and the shine that you get from those types of objects. But also you wanna consider that when pairing metal finishes with specific colors because sometimes there are specific colors that definitely pop or look better with gold as opposed to silver and vice versa. So when you go into a kitchen design, you might be dead set on having silver hardware. You are gonna wanna definitely consider that when you go to color selection and not pair your colors with gold hardware because it can look completely different. Let's say you have optic white marble countertops. A lot of times what's going to make that pop even more is if you go super, super dark on the cabinetry. So if you went with a more middle ground color, it's gonna mesh a bit more and make the white not feel as harsh as if you went in with a dark. So just considering the elements of a room, what you're working with in there before in terms of the flooring, the countertops, whatever is sort of a hard finish if you're not able to change that, how are those gonna look with the colors you're also adding? This next tip is one that I learned the hard way and I'm now doing on a lot of my projects. And it's just painting large scale swatches of your colors because paint swatches can be so misleading when you go in and get a tiny little brush and you just do like a little square on your wall, seeing all the color around it, especially if you're painting on top of a white wall or a colored wall in general, like really seeing what is around and surrounding that color is going to change the look of the swatch, I promise you. And so what you should do is just get those big foam poster boards that you can get at the Dollar Tree, paint your entire swatch on the foam poster board and you can move it around your room and hold it up. You can also eliminate and have multiple different colors if you want to, but this tip really is just making sure that you create swatches on your wall that are large enough to really envision yourself living in that room. Don't just do a little tiny swatch and say, you know what, that's the one. I really strongly suggest doing a large swatch. It's gonna be painted over in the end. So go a little bit larger with your swatch to make sure that it's the color you really love before committing. And my last tip here is one, just to keep in mind for your next makeover, because every single interior designer does this and that is why their rooms look so top tier. This is creating a visual mood board for yourself. Whenever you see interior designers showing their studio spaces or the projects that they work on, a lot of them tend to have trays that they keep for each room. Every single room in a project has a tray and within that tray is the colors that they're gonna be using in terms of paint, fabric, finishes, wood finish, tile, metal finish, lighting, every single element that's gonna be going in that room is visually represented in front of you on a tray. So you're able to see how this fabric might mix with the wall color, which may be hard to visualize. And then you'll be able to kind of see where you wanna inject more color. You might need to draw back. You might need to go with silver instead of gold on a finish and see your full range of materials and everything you're working with prior to really committing on the project and going through with the install. So if you do have a little more time where you really wanna scope this out, even going through and cutting a tiny bit of fabric off the underside of your couch, if there's a little scrap that you can cut, anywhere that you can get pieces of, anywhere that you can get little visuals of what you already have, take photos of them on your phone, print them out, pair them alongside your fabric swatches, your curtains, your paint colors, put your paint on a board and then put all your items on top of it. It's gonna really give you a stronger visual sense and you can also play around with then printing out additional options you might wanna purchase and mixing and matching and seeing where you need to buy and where you need to maybe reupholster or where you need to paint. And that's gonna let you sit with it, expand your color selection and also just create more of a unique space in the end because a lot of times when you're designing on the go and you don't have the full room visualized and you add pieces as you go, it's just not going to create the vision you want. But if you have a little bit more of a set plan beforehand and you have it all mood boarded out, as you go along with the process, you're gonna be able to think about how other elements are gonna enhance what you've done. Thank you all so much for watching this video and I hope that you enjoyed and this gives you a little bit more help when it comes to designing with color because I know it can be a little scary when I first started my channel, incorporating color, everyone was like, Drew, all you do is brown, like all you do is brown. But once you start incorporating color in your home, you're gonna be so much more inclined to do so in your future projects and creating a very personalized and individual space is everything we are about here at Lone Fox. So I definitely wanted to create this video to share with you guys how you can incorporate color and just add that bit of life that your space might need. If you have any additional tips or tricks on how to incorporate color in your space, I would love to know in the comment section below. We always have the best time down there and you guys always have the best insights as well. So please share anything you have found helpful for picking out colors in your home. And that's today's video, you guys. I hope you enjoyed this one and we'll catch you all in my next one. Bye.