Painting your home is often one of the best parts of being a property owner.
After years of living under someone else's roof you can finally decide on the colours for your walls, and once this important decision has been made, that's when you get to show it off!
So what are the best ways to highlight the colours you have so carefully chosen, and either applied yourself or paid for a professional to paint?
Lighting
The first port of call is to ensure that the room is properly lit.
You can use a mixture of natural and electrical lighting to illuminate areas that you think deserve special attention.
This will ensure that those pretty new colours aren't hidden away in shadowy areas.
Accents
A trick that the professionals use all the time is to highlight your cool new paint scheme with little accents around the room.
It works in the same way that a blue shirt will bring out the colour in blue eyes.
Picking out little knick-knacks and homewares like cushions, table runners and lamps that match the hue on your wall will draw the eye and increase the visual impact.
Artwork
Similarly, artworks can have the same effect.
In this case it's best not to have an image that is identical to the colour on your walls, but rather to find a print or painting that has elements of the colour.
Alternatively, complementary or opposing colours in an art work can do just as good a job. If your wall is a lime green for example, a black and white print will offset the bright hue.
For some specifiers, such as interior designers, a showroom will be an integral part of their trade.
But where to start? There are so many things to consider and you'll probably want to dive right in and show everyone what you can do.
Unfortunately showrooms usually don't offer a lot of space to play with, so here are three ideas to get you started with the front window display.
Create interest
The window is your first chance to impress and create interest, so it's no place to be boring.
While you'll have to include your skills with everyday design ideas somewhere in your showroom, use the front window to show off your unusual and inspirational ideas.
Bold colours and different designs are the things that will most likely bring those window shoppers inside to find out more.
Keep it fresh
At first you'll probably want to make a change every other day, but after this stage it might take a little more motivation to keep that front window up-to-date, especially if you've found a look that you really love.
Keep it fresh by changing up your display every one to two weeks so that anyone regularly walking by or driving by can see that you're committed, creative and organised.
You never know which display will bring them in, so keep in mind that it could be your next one!
Light it up
One place so many shops fall down in is their failure to adequately light up their interior.
Windows can often create shadows because of the overhang of the outside roof, so you might need to battle this with light-spreading mirrors and artificial lighting options.
Not only should you be able to see the window set up from outside, you can use lights to literally highlight certain parts, so invest in a couple of floor lamps and let your imagination do its thing.
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Colours shown on this website are a representation only. Please refer to the actual paint or product sample. Resene colour charts, testpots and samples are available for ordering online. See measurements/conversions for more details on how electronic colour values are achieved.
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