Interior Design Tutorial: Tips to Use Color in Your Home

Learn how to define a color palette and use the "60-30-10" rule to add professional flair to your home decor—whatever the budget

Color is an incredibly powerful tool in interior design, and if used properly can help create harmonious and elegant atmospheres. But to achieve the best results, it helps to have a basic understanding of the rules for combining colors, and the proportions you should use.

In the following video tutorial, decorator Sofía Saraví O'Keefe (@decolookbook) teaches us how to define a color palette and how to apply the "60-30-10" rule to interior decor:

1. Explore your personal tastes and sensations

We all have colors that we like, to a lesser or greater extent. Nonetheless, independent of our aesthetic preferences, each color generates different sensations. Our objective is to determine how to combine and balance these two aspects to create interiors that work for us on a visual level, while creating the sensations that we want around our home. To achieve this, we have to think about what we like—but also what we want to feel.

Given there are no wrong answers here, different colors may work in the same space. For example, whites, blues and greens may work very well in a bedroom, since they create a feeling of calm and freshness. On the other hand, black transmits a sensation of elegance and sophistication that can also adorn this space.

2. Use a neutral shade as the predominant color in your palette when starting out

While color preferences are so subjective (and there are no right or wrong options given that everything depends on what we want to achieve in each space!), white is the most accessible and neutral.

With this in mind, Sofía advises starting with white as the predominant color in your interior design palettes. Then, as you become more familiar with interior design and its complexities, you can start to play with riskier colors such as blacks, yellows, and oranges.

3. Ask yourself: what feelings and emotions do I want my colors to transmit?

The color yellow evokes happiness and energy. Orange, like yellow, is the color of energy and creativity. Blue imbues us with a feeling of calm, but also sophistication and elegance. Green is a very flexible color that can be used in many spaces, as it helps with relaxation.

When thinking about using a vivid color, the best thing to do is consider the question: in which places do I want to feel that sensation? Then you can choose on that basis.

4. Look for inspiration everywhere!

Now you know what feelings colors create, and the infinite possibilities that each combination offers, it’s time to choose your palette.

If you're still not 100 percent sure which colors you like or how to combine them, look for inspiration: in scenic photos, in films, on a t-shirt, on the cover of a book, or in a painting. Inspiration can come from anywhere, not necessarily in photographs of interiors!

5. Use the "60-30-10" rule

Once you have the colors that will form part of your palette, a good way to distribute them is by using as a reference the "60-30-10" rule. The idea is that there is a predominant color, whether it be a ‘star’ color or a neutral color for the walls and floors, which occupies 60% of the space to be decorated. A secondary color, which usually stands out more than the first, occupies 30%, and the final 10% goes to a more eye-catching color.

This technique doesn’t mean that we have to always limit ourselves to three colors, but it is a good base from which to work and allows us to create balanced and harmonious atmospheres from a color point of view. If we want to use more than three colors, a good option is to choose, for example, different tones of the same color or play with different textures.

If you have enjoyed this tutorial, remember you can learn with Sofía to redecorate your favourite part of your house and imprint your personality in her online course Decorating Your Home on a Budget: Basic Concepts.

You may also be interested in:

- Color applied to interior design, a course by Miriam Alía.
- Interior design from start to finish, a course by Masquespacio.
- Introduction to interior design, a course by Nook Architects.