How to Use a Color Palette to Make a Room Pop

If you are thinking of updating a room in your house choosing a new color palette is one way to add a new look to a tired room.

The trick is, how do you use a color palette once you have picked one out? In this article we will walk you through the steps of decorating a room with a color palette.

Step One: Choose your color palette.
There are many options for choosing a color palette. Using an area rug, a painting, a pre-made palette from a manufacture (found by the paint swatches) or by searching the web (Pinterest is a great place to find color palettes).

We are going to use a pre-made color palette from a paint manufacturer as our starting point.

When using a color palette decide which is your base color, primary accent color and secondary accent color. In general, your base color should be used 60%, primary accent color 30%, and secondary accent color 10% depending on the mood you want to create.

Here is our palette indicating our choice for color percentages. We want a subtle contrast for our contemporary room so we have chosen the color, brown, that is most neutral as our base. Our brightest color is used as the secondary accent color to create a pop for visual interest.

Our style is contemporary and we already have in place a neutral sofa and a modern accent table set.
The walls, ceiling and trim work are painted with the neutral white from our color palette.

Step Two: Decide where to use your base color.

We have a room with all white walls and neutral furniture. Since we want to use our base color 60% of the room, we have decided to paint the walls in the base color.

Step Three: Decide where to use your primary and secondary accent colors.

Since we have painted the walls the base color the majority of our other pieces will be in the primary accent color.

Here, we have added a contemporary textured rug in the primary accent color as well as ceramic lamps.

We also have added throw pillows to add contrast and interest to the neutral sofa.

We use are secondary accent color to create a pop of color in the vases on the coffee table and textured bolster pillows added to the sofa.

Step Four: Choose artwork.

We have chosen a print of Starry Night by Van Gogh that has all the colors of our palette to tie everything together.

And here we have our final room designed with the color palette of our choice.