By Pat Allin

Adding color to your home is the easiest and least expensive way to change the look of your interiors. And, nothing is more pleasing to the eye or nurturing to the soul than surrounding yourself with the colors you love. Last month, I talked about trying out color in sample areas. This month, I will give you some tips for using color to energize and personalize your home.

If you browse through current magazines, you will see a lot of vibrant color. We have become used to builder "off-white". Because color is such a powerful force, you might find adding whole walls of color overwhelming. You could start by creating one color-accent wall, or by adding a colorful focal point such as a work of art or piece of painted furniture. Being adventurous in small areas will give you confidence to move on to larger areas.

Begin by focusing on your favorite color. What was the color of your favorite room in any house you lived in? What are the colors that make you feel happiest, most relaxed? Find a fabric pattern, a piece of china, or a painting you love and choose several colors that speak to you. Go for a ride and check out the fall colors. Become aware of the natural colors in our environment. Think about bringing them inside.

Choose three colors and go to your local paint store and bring home color samples of these colors in ranges that include darker shades and lighter tints. Lay these samples out where you will see them at different times of the day and under artificial light. Glance at them often and eliminate those that don't seem to be working for you. Do this until you can be sure of a palette that suits your tastes.

Then consider the following advice for using color. Keep color in large areas to a minimum, three hues at most. Choosing different values of the same color for different areas adds interest. The value of a color is the lightness or darkness of that color. For instance, the color of the sofa might be darker than the carpet or vice versa.

A limited color palette gives a sense of order to a room. If you carry a dominant color throughout the room, you can spark it up with accent colors. Avoid small spots of color that fragment the space. Choose one wall color and three accent colors. You can have one whole wall a different color. A piece of furniture might provide another color, the woodwork, another. Fabric and accessories can contrast with or play up the main color. One of the accent colors might be the main color of a room you can see through a door.

You can make the colors flow by using the same three colors in all the public areas of your home, but vary the proportions. If your wall color is gold in the living room, use a wall covering in the entrance hall that has gold in it. Balance your accent colors by distributing them around the room.

Uninteresting color schemes are usually those of insufficient contrasts. Neutral colors may be very restful, and that might be what you need, but adding color adds vitality. It is the most potent element of design.

Published in The Monitor, Montrose, CO. Copyright © 2005 by Pat Allin