How to Decorate with Analogous Colors

The color wheel can be your best friend when decorating your Boulder, CO, home or office using analogous, or side-by-side, colors. Woven together, these three compatible colors can unify the walls, floors, furniture and accents. The end result is a harmonious trio of colors that marry perfectly with each other. The pros at Jacobsen Brothers Painting have put together some tips for decorating with three adjacent colors on the color wheel to create a pleasing, engaging color scheme.

Primary, secondary, tertiary

According to Benjamin Moore , an analogous color scheme of 3 adjoining colors has a primary color, a secondary color and a tertiary color. The primary color can be red, blue or yellow. The secondary color can be purple, orange or green. The tertiary color is a blend of primary and secondary colors. They can be blue-green, yellow-green, yellow-orange, red-orange, blue-violet, or red violet.

However, this is not a hard and fast rule. You can also choose a secondary color and use the two surrounding tertiary colors for your trio.

Choose your mood

If you know the mood you want to create in a space, it’s easier to find an analogous family that achieves that feeling. A relaxed, peaceful space will have blues and greens like the outdoors. A rich, vibrant space will have reds, oranges and yellows.

Need to tone it down? Add off whites and earth tones to keep it grounded. Want more crispness? Try a bright linen white and a splash of beige as a background to your analogous color scheme.

Easy hack for the hero color

When you think of the color that you want to feature, take a look at it on the color wheel. If you’ve chosen green, put that color in the center of the trio. Now you know what two colors to use in pairing. Green would have blue-green and yellow-green as complements for the room. But green would be your hero color and would be featured in the most space.

Analogous by the numbers

Now that you’ve chosen your three analogous colors for your color scheme, consider the ratios. Many decorators like the 60-30-10 rule. You already know your hero color. That is going to appear in 60% of your room. The complementary colors are going to show up in 30% and 10% increments, respectively.

Muted or loud

Not excited about using true colors? Not a problem! The colors that are most popular this year are very understated and blur the lines of definition. You can take a general color scheme of green – green/blue – blue and turn it into fern – gray/green – breezeway blue.

Want it to pop? Embrace the colors in their most intense saturation point. Try using red – red/orange – orange in all of its boldness. Or enjoy the intensity of the popular dark marine blue paired with accents of green/blue and blue/purple.

Why Choose Jacobsen Brothers

With over 65 years in the professional painting business, Jacobsen Brothers Painting knows how to feature analogous color schemes in Denver’s favorite spaces. Need fixes before painting? We can do that, too. We offer easy drywall repair options with our full line of services.

Get your free estimate today!

Ready to redecorate and to create something amazingly analogous? Call us today at (303) 449-3239 or email us at mark@welovepaint.com to schedule a free consultation with our color designer to plan your analogous color scheme for your next painting project.