You are probably going green in many ways: recycling your plastics, reusing old furniture and trying to reduce your electricity use. But there is one way of going green you might not have thought of: painting your house green.
Image: Quinn Dombrowski / Flickr
Green has many positive connotations – it is a symbol of spring – but it also can look strange or out of place in your home. For instance, certain shades of green are used in institutional settings. Using the wrong green can be garish or depressing.
Here are some tips in how to use this potentially problematic colour in your home decorating schemes.
1. Bright green – think the colour of Granny Smith apples – is a very active colour. You can’t help noticing it. That’s why, for certain rooms, it might not be ideal. Imagine, for instance, waking up to a bright green after a party. But it can be perfect for those people who are most active in your life: your kids. Green and white can make their rooms look fresh and fun even when they are a little messy.
2. The Victorians were drawn to green, and they made it work in their formal dining rooms by using a green with a muted, mustard base. This sort of green has a very sophisticated tone, and can work very well in a room full of neutral-coloured furniture (particularly grey).
3. Bathrooms can also stand a bit of green, particularly sage. Green’s wake-up effect works well in this context (it can also help you out in the kitchen, too). Just don’t go crazy with it: you don’t want an olive-y nightmare. It works well as an accent for an otherwise white or grey bathroom. Think bathmats, or a restrained backsplash.
4. Save the jewel-like or heavy greens for even-lighter accents in more multi-purpose rooms. A living room with a white couch will look great with dark green pillows with gold thread.
5. When using green outside, once again, use it for accents: doors, shutters and balcony railings. You’ll always want to go very dark or saturated outside – green tends to look very light in sunshine.
6. And stay away from certain shades at all costs: hunter green and avocado are so closely tied to the 80s and the 60s respectively that your look will instantly dated if you use them.
Heleen Jacobsen
Broker of Record with InfoMarket Group GMAC Real Estate
www.infomarketgroup.com
No related posts found
