Re-decorate your home, bold colours

With Christmas around the corner, you may be thinking of sprucing up your home for the festive season. Or maybe your home is in need of a makeover or touch up. Interior decorating can be as minimal or expansive as you would like, even a little decorating can make a big difference to your home.

Here are some bold and beautiful design inspiration ideas that will hopefully assist your creativity and make your home that extra special for the holidays and years to come. Let’s glam up the home for Christmas.

Colour. When we think of Britain, many people think of the colour grey. This shouldn’t be seen as a negative. Grey has replaced white and cream in a lot of British homes. Do not assume it reads as cold or dark. With its popularity, grey comes in a huge spectrum and can be warming and soften a room. Farrow and Ball, a British paint brand, has a range of greys that interior designers return to because they warm a room rather than cool it. Little Greene holds a similar range.

Other rich colours such as deep reds and blues are back in fashion too, and when lit with the correct warm lighting, can look beautiful in living rooms and bedrooms. They are bolder than a grey and they make a statement, which is usually the point.

Using contrasting colours or bringing in another colour in the same family both work and add depth to a room. For example, if you have grey as your primary colour, think about adding a soft blue as your secondary with small accents of yellow tint.

Or if you are thinking of a rich red, why not try a warm soft grey or neutral white as the secondary colour to soften the room and then different tones of reds and pinks to use as the accent colour.

Almost any colour works with almost any other. There are no rules about which. What matters is the tone and the distribution. Use the main colour on the walls, the second on the furnishings and the third for accents. Three is enough to give a room depth without making it busy.

With a new look and feel to your room, think about soft furnishings that will enhance the feeling and look. Fabrics that always work for the holiday season include velvets, tweed, tartan and furs. Velvet changes as the light moves across it, which is what gives it depth. It is harder to keep clean, so it is not the obvious choice in a house with young children.

Tweed and tartan read as winter and autumn. Think of a cottage around a log burner, though they work as well in a city townhouse. Mixing textures is what gives a room depth, and changing the cushions is the cheapest way to test it.

And finally, do not forget about lighting. Using a warm light is so much better than a harsh blue light. It will make a room feel warmer, appear more inviting, and especially if using darker wall colours and tones, brightens the room making it more atmospheric. Don’t go for the cheapest bulb. Think about the atmosphere you want to set in the room.

Pinterest is useful for gathering ideas, though you will lose an evening to it. Do not be put off asking an interior designer for help on a small job. They will bring options you had not considered and stop you buying the wrong thing twice.

Call NU Projects on 020 7731 6841, or tell us about the rooms you want to change. Our in-house interior designers work on jobs of every size.