The Sunday News
Amanda Ncube
MATCHING colours when decorating or designing your home can either work to your advantage or it can ruin everything. Some people are more concerned with matching their colours, which is not a wrong thing, if you know what you are doing.
The first things to take into account are fixed items in your home such as counter-tops, tiles, carpet, paint, fireplace stone, sinks, toilets, siding, and roofs. These determine everything from colour to set-up hence when selecting them, extreme cautiousness is advised. You should go out of your way to ensure that all colours, especially the neutral undertones and whites synchronise, you will in most cases, end up with a mess.
There are some colours which tend to be vexing and people see no essence of differentiating them until when you are done decorating such as may cream and white. For example, if you need to paint your cabinets and have whites instead of creams in your counter-top or tiles and you choose cream instead of a plain white . . . that could mess things up. Again, if you select standard bright vinyl windows instead of the standard beige, that could also ruin your décor.
Another thing to pay particular attention is your bathroom. Avoid an instance whereby a bright white tub in a simple bathroom without an accent of white anywhere else is a bad idea. Make sure that your tiles relate with the counter-top in your kitchen. These may be minor details but they play an important role.
To make sure that there is consistency and balance your tiles should relate with the counter-tops in your kitchen. Do not forget the ceiling, the colour of your ceiling should synchronise with other fixed items such as tiles and counter-top. There is nothing frustrating like realising you have made a mistake after you have finished decorating your space. It will haunt you and you will be forced to change one of the items.
There is nothing fabulous about tile that does not match the carpet that does not match the counter-top that does not match the backsplash and does not match the cabinets. This could haunt you for the entire time you have those items.
However, do not under any circumstances assume that the same applies to other elements such as accessories. If you do, you will be annoyed instead of happy every time you see that thing you paid perfectly good money for and now want to rip out.
