Painting a room in one color is simple and less expensive, but one color can be a bit boring. Creating a color scheme that groups two or three colors together can create a dazzling effect. When creating a color scheme, you will likely settle on one primary color accented by one or two others; so when you purchase paint you can buy smaller amounts of the complimenting colors. To save additional money you can choose one primary color for all the rooms in your home and then different complimenting colors for each room.

When you begin your search for the perfect color scheme you should have a color wheel on hand. This helpful little device can be purchased at an art supply store or you can simply look online for color wheels. The color wheel will help you to see what your color choices are and will also help you to see what colors look good together.

Artists generally agree that there are four types of color schemes that you can create for your home: Complimentary, choosing colors opposite each other on the color wheel; clash, choosing colors that are close to or next to each other on the color wheel; analogous, using three colors that are related or similar (blue, blue-green, green); monochromatic, choosing various shades of the same color. Here are some examples of the aforementioned color schemes:

Complimentary: To create a complimenting color scheme for a room in your home, you would choose colors like yellow and blue, purple and green, brown and blue (of various shades).

Clash: Using clashing colors on your walls does not mean that your room will look bad, it simply means that you are choosing colors close to each other on the color wheel such as: orange and yellow, red and purple, and green and blue.

Analogous: To create an analogous color scheme in your room, use color combos such as: green, yellow-green and blue-green or orange, red-orange and yellow-orange.

Monochromatic- To create a monochromatic scheme in your room, use such colors as: forest green, green, and sea foam green, or violet, purple and lilac purple.