Picking Your Parameters
Part III of Introduction to Interior Decorating for my paid subscribers
Pick colors you like
Now we’ve come to picking parameters! First, I recommend picking the colors you like best. Here’s where I’m going to dive into the weeds a bit, and use some screenshots from the slideshow I created when I first presented this material at my parish.
How many colors? Here’s where designers usually are confusing—they want only one or two colors per design—which is useless to anyone who has Legos in their home. I am going to argue that you should choose at least three, and how to do so. I am also not in favor of “neutral design schemes.” Maybe neutrals work if you want to incorporate a changing array of colors so you can keep on trend—which is why I suspect public spaces and influencers may pick them—but for the rest of us, they are frustratingly impractical. This is mainly because we are managing homes with real people and children in them, and those people will bring color into our homes, figuratively and literally. If you don’t want to keep on constantly hiding or getting rid of toys, clothes, objects, and more that clash with your design scheme, incorporate color. Again, designers prefer white and neutrals so they can easily update: I do not want to spend my life re-inventing my home.
