Consider the aspect of the room.

• If the natural light is warm, cooler colours are often the first choice
• If the light is cool, warmer colours add cosiness

Cool colours recede and increase the apparent size of a room. Warm colours advance to decrease the size.

Look at the balance of colours.

• Light colours should be used in large areas
• Deep colours on a small areas – accent colours work well for smaller areas such as architraves, skirting and trim details

Think about using colours to change the shape of the room. Backgrounds should not be intrusive; their role is to enhance what is in the foreground.

• Receding colours on a ceiling to make the room feel taller
• Advancing colours will make the ceiling feel lower

Avoid using two colours of the same strength together.

Choosing the right blend of colours for your rooms may seem a confusing and complex process but following a few simple rules and success is just around the corner.

We hope this simple guide to colour will give a new insight to make your tiling project that little more special than even you originally imagined. And don’t forget you can carry the sample rules into decorating the rest of your home or future project.

Use the colour wheel to create the scheme of your choice. The wheel is made up of three colour groups.

• Primary colours – red, blue and yellow
• Secondary colours – a mix of two primary colours
• Tertiary colours – where primary and secondary are mixed

From the colour wheel combinations of colours can give you a number of different colour schemes.

Achromatic schemes - shades of black and white

Monochrome schemes - a single colour, often in several tones
Monochrome – using light tones can make a room feel larger

Analagous schemes - two or more colours that are adjacent on the wheel.

Complementary schemes - colours that are opposite each other on the wheel

Split Complementary schemes - colours from the wheel in combination with the two colours that are directly on either side of the colour opposite the one chosen

Triadic schemes use three colours spaced equally round the wheel