The best colour palettes for a zen home, room by room

As we are all set to spend a lot more time at home for the foreseeable future, and as spring has officially sprung, refreshing your home is on most people's to-do list. But if you’re looking to redecorate, what colours do you choose? It might be time to consider colour psychology.

Colour psychology is the study of hues affecting the nature of human behaviour. Sunlight, and the colours generated by it, influence hormonal responses, making us feel certain ways when we see different colours.

To create the perfect colour palette for you, follow these three questions: How do you want to feel in this room? How will others feel in this room? Which colours can I put together to get the best out of this room?

The team at My Tool Shed have designed a guide to create the perfect atmosphere in your home, room by room. With colours such as orange creating joy and green encouraging feelings of freshness and harmony, are they the perfect combination for a living room and bringing people together? Find the best colour palettes for zen interiors...

Colours: Green / Yellow / Orange / Purple

Key Emotions / Traits: Freshness / Harmony / Happiness / Joy / Warmth / Luxury

Green as the main colour in the living room not only gives the sense of freshness but also possibly a more important trait here, harmony, perfect for a room designed to bring people together. After this, try adding some yellows and oranges to promote happiness, joy and warmth to the space. Finally, a dash of purple here and there is always good to add a sense of luxury.

Colours: Brown / White / Purple / Black

Key Emotions / Traits: Dependability / Reliability / Resilience / Perfection / Cleanliness / Royalty / Luxury / Elegance / Formal

Brown gives off a sense of dependability, reliability and resilience. These traits are what we look for when it comes to furniture, something we can trust to store and hold things, so wooden coloured cabinets, dining tables and chairs all give off these emotions.

Next, because of the food in a kitchen, it’s important to feel clean, so a splash of white will tick this box. Then we all want to eat like kings, so let’s feel like it at the same time by adding some purple into the room. Finally, finish off the room with some black here and there for a bit of elegance and to give off a formal feel, perfect for around the dinner table.

Colours: Blue / White / Green / Brown

Key Emotions / Traits: Peaceful / Cleanliness / Freshness / Calming / Dependability / Reliability

The bathroom, especially if you enjoy a nice bath, is a place where people go to relax and recharge. Blue not only resembles water and the sky but it’s also a peaceful and calming colour, so this makes for a great main colour for the room. Pair this with white in order to make the room feel clean.

When it comes to accent colours, use greens and browns. They promote freshness and calmness and then brown, in particular, is great for a sense of dependability and reliability which is always the feeling you want to give off when the room has larger appliances.

Colours: Red / White / Pink / Green

Key Emotions / Traits: Love / Passion / Desire / Cleanliness / Safety / Calming / Harmony / Fertility / Tranquillity

When you are with your partner you want to feel love, passion and desire towards each other, and the colour red promotes this. In the bedroom, you also want to use colours that are going to help you relax and ultimately sleep.

White is a great place to start as it can make the room feel clean and pure. Pink also has a calming effect, which is important if you’ve had a stressful day at work, and finally, use green, as it gives off a sense of tranquillity.

Colours: Orange / Yellow / Purple / White

Key Emotions / Traits: Creativity / Fascination / Stimulation / Joy / Happiness / Wisdom / Ambition / Goodness / Innocence / Purity

For a developing child, anything that can help them grow mentally can only be a positive thing. As a result, if you analyse colour psychology, it appears orange is the perfect main colour to have in a kids' bedroom, as it encourages creativity, fascination and stimulation, a few amazing traits for a child. Importantly, it also gives us joy and happiness.

Yellow has many parallel attributes to orange so these can both be main colours. Yellow, aside from the same positive qualities as orange, also promotes intelligence and cheerfulness. Great colours to pair with either of these as accents to the room are purple and white. Purple’s ability to promote wisdom and ambition will, of course, be beneficial for any child’s room and then white can emote goodness, innocence and purity.

Colours: Black / White / Green / Red

Key Emotions / Traits: Power / Authority / Perfection / Wisdom / Confidence / Intelligence / Determination / Strength

This colour palette for your home office centres around character traits you need to be successful in business. We start with a main colour of black. Black gives you the feeling of power and authority, some important traits to instil in yourself in order to succeed. After that, what do you want from your work? Perfection, so white is your go-to first accent colour.

Then, when you go about your work you want to be wise, confident and be intelligent while conducting key bits of business, which you can get from the green. And finally, work can be tough and can get you down and tired at times, so throw hints of red around the office space to give yourself sources of determination and strength.

Colours: White / Green / Blue / Purple

Key Emotions / Traits: Cleanliness / Purity / Innocence / Freshness / Tranquillity / Calming / Peaceful / Luxury / Royalty

When it comes to the guest room it’s important to give off a good first impression. The easiest way to do this is to make the room appear and feel as clean and fresh as possible. White is perfect for this as it gives off a purity to the room and then use some green to continue the freshness and tranquillity.

After that, it’s important that your guests feel like they’re being treated like kings so throw in some blue and purple as these give off a sense of luxury, extravagance and royalty.

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