How to transform your space with color

We asked Francesca Valan, Color designer, how to proceed.

When we want to transform the house with color, do we have to take trends into account?

Francesca Valan: "The concept of trend, if we mean advice imposed from the outside, has completely lost importance with the pandemic today we are the trend, each of us.

The real trend, in fact, is to experiment with polychromatic schemes starting from one's own tastes. Because color has this incredible power to brighten life. Let's use it!"

This wonderful sense of freedom can even make you feel a little dizzy thinking about our home and imagining it, suddenly, full of colours. What are the tips to avoid a carnival effect, which is difficult to sustain over time?

Francesca Valan:"The first consideration is to keep in mind that every domestic space responds to a precise function and that function determines the choice in the infinite range of colours.

If we like fuchsia, for example, we cannot paint the kitchen walls with that colour, because a plate of green salad, meeting the vibrations of fuchsia, runs the risk of turning grey.

While fuchsia can go very well for a small bathroom, for example.

Then there is keep in mind what you already have at home, furnishings, objects, fabrics. Again going back to the kitchen, choosing to change the colors at home is like deciding to cook a dish: you start with the ingredients that are already there in the fridge.

If the fridge is empty then you can indulge yourself with ad hoc shopping, exactly as in the case of a new and empty house, otherwise it is important to respect attendance."

What characteristics of color should be taken into account in order to choose the most suitable one?

Francesca Valan: "The two fundamental elements for using color in the most correct way are clarity and saturation.

Choosing a light or dark color depends on how much light enters the room and how it is used. If the room is bright, dark-toned colors can be used, but if it is an environment that we use a lot during the day, it is good to remember to keep the floor always darker than the walls and ceiling, whose colors affect the reflected light.

In the bedroom, for example, this ratio can be changed and the walls look good even darker than the floor.

Saturated colors, on the other hand, are those that are commonly defined as pure, yellow, red and blue in their most lively nature. Shades that go from pure color to gray are called desaturated and allow you to use color on larger surfaces, because they are more restful.

In fact, my advice is to keep the tones saturated for the accent elements, i.e. furniture, objects, fabrics, and desaturated colors for the surfaces."

Can we speak of an evolution of taste in colours?

Francesca Valan: "Today there is more freedom than in the past, we are less bound by trends, what we like wins over everything, just like the new international cuisine, the rigid rules have been broken.

Already now, but certainly within a few years, we will then have to deal with the new 'ratatouille colours', given by the use and reuse of recycled plastics.

Fewer and fewer pure colors, therefore, and green light to shaded shades, given by the mélange of small polychrome particles.

polychromy, as I said, today is completely cleared through customs: it must be used, however, always bearing in mind the materials and colors already present in the environment. In the presence of a multi-material space, for example, it is advisable to add a single chromatic accent, while if it is monometric, you can indulge yourself."

The color designer's last suggestion concerns the sensations given by color in a room: if the four walls are of the same color and the room is not open to other rooms, the risk is of feeling like one is in a closed box.

Painting a wall in a different color, perhaps present in the adjacent rooms, even if on the other side of the wall, offers a feeling of openness and greater lightness.

“Finally, we need to bear in mind - says Valan - that each color has its own sound. If you need a quiet environment, it is good to use neutral tones, also created by the sum of different colors, but chosen in neutral tones, therefore very desaturated".