If you are new to painting your bathroom walls, you will soon come to see that nothing changes the mood of your entire bathroom like altering the colour of your walls. Painting your bathroom walls not only creates a powerful visual statement but is ultimately a reflection of your personality and design style. And the great thing about painting your washroom is because of its size, you could probably finish this weekend project in just a couple hours. A good place to start getting color ideas is by looking at the colors of your furniture, woodwork, curtains and other prominent knick knacks such as a painting you would like your bathroom to compliment. The bottom line though is to pick colours that you like and feel comfortable with. And remember to preserve a sense of consistency throughout your home, so try to maintain similar colours between the rooms in your house. If you are not quite ready to commit to a particular colour scheme but still want to paint your lavatory walls then choose a light or neutral color such as white, gray or sombre tones of brown, which you can accent by adding eye-catching accessories. These colours are also easy to paint over if you do decide on a color scheme at a later date.

"Summary: Interior paint swatches along with color swatches and paint samples are good color selection tools to help you visualize the color scheme you can use when selecting paint colors for your bathroom walls. Mold resistant paint is a good bath design choice made by Behr, Sherman Williams and Benjamin Moore house paints."

Another way to choose colors if you are starting from scratch is to use nature as your inspiration, you would be surprised at the many different colour combinations that are in your backyard or your flower garden. The most common way of choosing your color combination is through the use of colour cards or a colour wheel to help spark your creative mind’s eye and map out the colour schemes in your bathroom. If you are trying to create a warm, cheerful and energetic feel to your bathroom then use warm colours. Warm colours have a tendency to advance in space, whereas cooler colours have a tendency to recede. If on the other hand you would like to create a calm, soothing impression, then cooler colours such as blues, greens and purples are your best choices.

All colours can be made either warmer or cooler depending up the combination of pigments, for example green can be made warmer by adding more yellow or cooler by adding more blue. Another way of changing your bathroom wall colour is through tints, shades and tones. If the colour you choose for your bathroom is made lighter by adding white, the result is called a tint. If black is added to your lavatory colour, the darker version is called a shade. And lastly, if gray is added to your bathroom wall paint, the result is a different tone.

The purpose of a colour wheel is to combine colours so that you can get a sense of which colour schemes to use. Complementary, split complementary, analogous, and monochromatic are four commonly used colour schemes used when designing your bathroom. Complementary colors are opposite one another on the color wheel and are thought to be harmonizing (red and green for example). These high contrast rich colors create a vibrant look and must be managed so that they are not too grating. They can, however, work well if used in small doses when you want something to stand out or you can reduce the jarring effect by using a softer tone of the complementary color to create less contrast.

A split complementary colour scheme occurs when you pick one primary colour then pick its complement on the wheel, the colours right next to the complement on either side are split complementary colours. This color scheme for your bath has a similar strong visual contrast as the complementary color scheme, but it visually creates less tension. This is often a good choice for beginning painters because it is easier to work with.

An analogous color scheme uses colors that are beside each other on the color wheel. Because these analogous color schemes are often found in nature, they work well together and can create comfortable designs that are harmonious and pleasant to the eye. As a first time bathroom painter, the only stipulation is that you create enough contrast when choosing an analogous color scheme. The rule of thumb is to choose one color to dominate your bathroom while the other colour acts as a support and the third colour is used as an accent. If you like one particular colour but still want to create an interesting look to your bathroom walls then you can use a monochromatic colour scheme which uses different values and tones of the same colour.

Ok now that we have the colour wheel spinning out of control in your brain, you may be saying to yourself, alright, this theory is fine and dandy but when do we get to apply it to a real world bathroom? In Part 2 of How to Choose a Colour Scheme for Your Bathroom, we will examine real world applications of how to paint your bath.

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