Confidence with colours
Many people who are confident and assured about most aspects of their lives lose all confidence when trying to mix and match colours. You should always follow your own instincts. Decide what appeals to you and what you feel good about and use this as your starting point.

There are no fixed rules about colour. It pays to forget all those old adages, such as blue is cold, red and orange clash, blue and green should never be seen, etc. The finished look is affected not just by the colour, but by the shape, texture and amount of colour used, as well as the amount and type of lighting.

Humans respond psychologically to colour. While we associate yellow with happy faces, smiles and cheerfulness, we tend to see white as neutral and restful, while black is liable to depress the spirits. By manipulating the colours in a scheme, we can change a room from a happy welcoming room into a clinical, cold room. Think of the cosy dining room of a local caf' painted in rich colours to create a feeling of warmth and trigger a desire to eat. Contrast this with the hallways of most hospitals, traditionally painted stark white, a neutral colour often considered clean and clinical. When developing a colour scheme, think about what the room will be used for and the emotions you would like to encourage. For example, restful colours in a bedroom to encourage sleeping, or bright reds and yellows in a children's rumpus room to energise and lift spirits. Each colour scheme is appropriate in the right place.

When developing your colour scheme, remember the most successful schemes usually have a limited palette of two or three principle colours, with perhaps additional touches of other colours in small doses.

As with everything in life, the more colour schemes you create over your lifetime of decorating, the more confident you will become. And, if worse comes to worse and you just can't stand your new colour scheme, you can always paint over it!