Have you ever chosen a colour to paint a room and been disappointed?
Natural and artificial light greatly impact how we see colour, and colour can change significantly throughout the day and even the year. How paint colours are rendered in your room could dramatically differ from the sample.
Let’s look at the conditions that impact how light affects colours and decorating choices.
Time of Day – Morning light is cooler and blueish-tinted, gradually warming up throughout the day to warmer, more yellow tones. Evening light is softer and more muted.
Room Orientation – In the UK, north-facing rooms have cooler light than south-facing rooms, which receive the most direct sunlight. The sun’s daily passage impacts east—and west-facing rooms and colour intensity throughout the day.
Seasonal Changes – In the Northern Hemisphere, the light in Summer is brighter, making colours feel more intense. During wintertime, the opposite is true; light is more diffused, making colours look more muted.
Artificial Light – Modern LED lighting is available in the full spectrum of colour temperatures, and the choice of lighting will enormously impact colour. Old incandescent light bulbs emit a yellow light and will enhance warm paint colours. Click here for more information.
The Impact of Light on Colour and Decorating
Understanding how light alters how we perceive colour is crucial. This knowledge will empower you to make the right decorating colour choices for your space, ensuring a harmonious and visually appealing environment.
How Time of Day Impacts Paint Colours
Morning light is cool with a blueish tint, which makes blues and green appear more vibrant and sharp. Warm colours like yellows, reds and oranges will look more muted.
A beautiful pale blue like Farrow and Ball’s Borrowed light works well in cool morning light.
Conversely, in a room that receives a lot of light in the afternoon, the blues and greens will be greyer and more muted, and the warm yellows and oranges will look vivid and saturated.
The warm peach terracotta of Little Greene’s Masquerade will come alive in afternoon light:
If you have a dual-aspect room that receives light all day, consider what time of day you will use the room and what colour the light will be. A bedroom, living room or kitchen all have different factors to consider.
Using a soft neutral will create a relaxing and calm atmosphere in a room that receives a lot of light in the evening.
Little Greene Rolling Fog:
Understanding How Room Orientation Impacts Colour
North-facing rooms receive consistent cool indirect light throughout the day, which can make a room feel cold but also create a feeling of sereneness. Using warmer colours in North-facing rooms will compensate for the lack of natural light and warm the room up.
South-facing rooms receive strong direct sunlight throughout the day, making colours vibrant, intense, and even overpowering. Cooler tones balance the intensity, and a light neutral will dial down the heat.
East-facing rooms receive sunlight in the morning, and West-facing rooms receive sunlight in the afternoon and evening. In an East-facing space, choosing a versatile neutral colour that works under cool and warm conditions is a good choice. In a West-facing space, warm colours will feel overwhelming in the late afternoon; a muted cool shade will counteract this.
If your room has more than one orientation, again, think about the time of the day you will use the room. A neutral colour is a good choice, but even these seemingly less colourful shades can go from beige to grey to purple in a day!
Farrow and Ball’s Elephants Breath goes through quite a colour transformation throughout the day:
Colour and the Changing Seasons
In Summer, the light is brighter (even in the UK!), making colours feel more vibrant. There are much longer daylight hours during Summer, so we benefit from longer hours of natural light. Conversely, light is softer and more diffused in Winter, making colours appear more muted. We rely so much more on artificial light during Winter, so this is a consideration. There may be rooms in your home used more in Summer or Winter, so keep this in mind when choosing colours. Be wary of very light colours that may feel airy in the Summer and cold in Winter. Deep, warm and cosy colours may feel too heavy in Summer.
Using Artificial Light to Enhance Your Colour Scheme
Artificial light plays a significant role in enhancing your chosen colour scheme. By understanding the colour temperature scale and the effects of warm, neutral, and cool light, you can use artificial lighting to your advantage, creating different lighting scenes to complement your colour choices.
A wide array of artificial lighting is available on the colour temperature scale. Colour temperature is measured in degrees Kelvin (K). As a guide, 2700K to 3000K is warm light, 3500K to 4000K is neutral light, and 5000K and above emulates bright daylight and is a cool colour.
Lighting in the neutral range balances and minimises the effect on paint colours. Warm lighting is warm and yellow and will enhance warm colours within a room. It adds a golden glow. Incandescent lightbulbs have this effect.
Cool light is excellent where clear, bright light is needed, but it is blueish and will make warm colours feel washed out. It will cast a blue tone throughout the space.
Modern LED fittings are available now with adjustable colour temperatures, providing flexibility for your lighting scenes. Using dimmers to create different lighting scenes is another way to control the impact of artificial lighting on your colour scheme.
Summary
There’s no escaping the impact of light, but it can embraced, and you can enjoy the ever-changing hues and tints throughout the day. Here are some final tips for decorating and choosing colours:
Test Samples
Always test paint samples in different lighting conditions. Ideally, apply the samples to a large surface so you can observe them at various times of the day. This will give you a more accurate understanding of how the changing light affects the colour, helping you make the best colour choices for your space.
Reflective Surfaces
Mirrors and glossy finishes amplify natural light in a room, which is helpful in North-facing rooms; matt and chalky finishes have the opposite effect.
Window Treatments
Your window treatment choice will impact the light intensity coming into your home. Sheer finishes diffuse bright sunlight, softening the impact of paint colours. You can use blinds and drapes to control the amount and intensity of light entering a room at different times of the day.
Understanding the nuances of colour and light allows you to choose colours that harmonise with natural light confidently. Using considered artificial lighting can ensure your space feels visually appealing throughout the day. The interplay of colour and light brings your room to life!
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