Almost everyone remembers what it was like to use the color wheel when they were children. The color wheel moved around in a circle showing all of the primary colors and the hues in between. On the color wheel, each color represented s different feeling or mood. This color scheme is as true today as it was two generations ago.

When looking at colors and color tones there is a generalized category of four different feelings brought about by color. The first is the warmer tones, the second is the cooler tones, the third is the pure tones, and lastly the grounding tones.

The warmer tones are tones that can easily be associated with warmth, such as red, orange and yellow. Each of these tones is represented in the sun and are meant to invoke powerful emotions. Red which is symbolic of so many things like passion, love, and fire all have feelings of warmth. Orange of course is symbolic of citrus, and the sun and roaring fires, while yellow of course personifies the daytime sunlight, and other fruits like lemon and banana, these are warm and cheery tones. In fact, each of these three have an air of warmth brightness and cheeriness. These colors invoke action, feeling and transparency. The thought of the sun, love, and fire each can inspire people to feel more profoundly and express more openly.

The cooler tones are meant to invoke feelings of relaxation, spirituality and meditation. These tones include the colors and hues of, blue which reminds people of the ocean and the sky, the green tones which remind people of the grass and trees and purple tones remind us of the purple flowers, and late day sunsets. Each of these colors often inspires people to reflect on these places different, times and spaces. These colors are places of relaxation and are colors that people think of when they are having their quiet time. When people go to the ocean, the forest, or experience a late day sunset, they are filled with meditative thoughts and enjoyment of quieter simplicity.

The lighter and more clear tones such as white and ivory, personify pureness, and peace. These two are great neutralizing tones for any room. They bring about a freshness and make people think of the pure ocean foam, billowy clouds, the moon, fresh snow, and the sand. Both of these inspires a neutral feeling and a pure feeling.

The last color tone group are the colors of brown and black. These colors are perfect to create a grounding feeling and are describe as earth tones. These are great colors to balance out any room’s décor.

Often, people choose to blend colors and tones to create a myriad of emotions and thoughts. When breaking down what colors to use in a particular room, often one of the guides is to analyze whether the room is meant to be a quiet reflective room or one of love, passion and activity.

The décor is often chosen for a room after the color scheme is created. This is important as colors should not just blend but compliment each other. Each color should inspire thoughts and evoke emotions. Most rooms have more than one color and they usually are not stark in contrast. However, certain rooms can have stark colors contrasting each other quite well. This usually works well in such rooms as the kitchen and bathrooms. Rooms like the den, dining room and library, often use the combination of browns and blacks blended with whites and ivories. By contrast bedrooms, family rooms and living rooms are open for a variety of color schemes and color combinations. These rooms have more flexibility based on the personality of the home owners or primary room occupants.

Knowing and understanding how these colors might reflect in a finished room’s décor is an important way to analyze whether the color scheme works for any given room. In addition to the overall color schemes, there are variations depending on the location of the home, condo, vacation property or apartment. If the property is in the city adding green, blues and earth tones can give people a feeling of being out in nature. Homes in the country can blend or contrast in color schemes depending on a person’s wishes. In this case almost any color will do for primary rooms. Creating the perfect décor in a home is not as difficult of a task once all colors are weighed out and considered for their purposes, not just for their tones and hues.