Building or renovating your custom home can be daunting. In my experience, the best Colour Schemes are those that have been inspired by the timeless beauty of nature. However, there are so many sources of inspiration, from the crisp and clean Scandinavian style, to the classic Coastal Hamptons lifestyle, and to the earthy, natural Mediterranean region.  Creating a Colour Scheme you love and will love forever can be as simple as deciding what style and lifestyle you aspire to and drawing on that inspiration throughout your selection process.

I always like to start with the main flooring of the home. The type of flooring you choose will set the tone for the whole house. This is usually one of the biggest investments of the build, and you’ll ideally want to live with it and love it for years to come, so it’s a fairly big decision. Despite the magnitude of options and finishes with flooring, I like to prompt the client to decide how they want the flooring to FEEL, as in warm or cool, smooth or textured, matte or semi-gloss etc. These are important considerations that will create our start point from which we build the rest of the design decisions upon.

Once the flooring decision has been made, you can build up from here. The key zones of the house like the kitchen/ lounge/ al fresco will want to complement the flooring and continue the theme you are creating. If your goal is to create a warm, vibrant base like our Palm Springs Colour Scheme, you might like to enhance a warm flooring with warm peachy cabinetry, brass tapware and plumbing fixtures, and balanced by soft matte stone. Or if you’re more a fan of our Scandi Colour Scheme, you will ideally want to continue our muted, restrained palette of greys, cool whites and black for a pared-back and sophisticated scheme. The key is to balance the undertones of your design selections, so study them closely and hold up your samples in different light, as well as next to each other to ensure they work harmoniously together.

Once your core, ‘big ticket’ items have been selected, you’ll want to complement your scheme with furniture, fabrics and window treatments. Softening and balancing your hard finishes like stone, tiles and flooring is an important design element that is best considered in the initial stages. The scale, fabric and style of your furniture, styling accessories, linens and window treatments play a big role in the overall enhancement of your home. The idea is to complement and contrast your hard finishes, so pairing buttery tan leather with soft greys works well, as does a soft white lounge with warm timber flooring. Houseplants are always a good idea as they add charm and life to your interior scheme; choose low-maintenance houseplants with the perfect shade of foliage to complement your chosen scheme beautifully.