Wall Colors in Living Room, Color Combinations in Living Room Interior with Photos

The living room is a place where you can not only spend your free time and engage in leisure activities, but also welcome guests. It's no surprise that the design of this room requires special attention.

What first catches the eye when someone enters the living room? Of course, it's the wall color and furniture. Selecting a color palette used in decorating the room is the top priority.

At the same time, color choice for living room walls along with selecting furniture are key factors in forming an individual design. This raises a natural question: how to choose colors for the living room?

Design: Yelena Zhdanova, DivaDecor.ru
Basic Rules for Combining Colors in Interior Design

When choosing a color for decorating a space, you should not only rely on your personal preferences but also consider established rules for color combinations. Incorrectly combining even two shades can cause dissonance in the interior and psychological discomfort.

What should a proper color combination in interior design look like?

1. Using a range of shades within one color. For example, combining light yellow, yellow, and dark yellow. The palette should be diluted with a neutral companion that helps create a smooth transition from one tone to another. This can be gray, white, or beige.

2. Using harmonizing shades. There are universal tones like white, black, gray, and beige that can be combined with any other colors. They can serve as a base, supplemented with contrasts.

3. Contrast color combinations in interior design. To understand which colors combine well, use a color wheel—a palette of color combinations for interior design. For example, yellow and violet, orange and blue, green and red harmonize with each other. However, it's not recommended to use them in equal proportions; one of the shades should be more dominant.

4. Using adjacent tones (analogous triad). According to the color wheel, this includes green with blue and violet, orange with red and violet.

Besides this, it's advisable to follow recommendations regarding color decoration of the interior:

• Do not use more than three to four shades. Choose a main tone, and the others will serve as its companions. A proper color combination in interior design is considered correct if the proportion is maintained: 75% main tone, 25% companions, 5% bright color accents.

• For the background, use neutral shades.

• A monochromatic interior can look dull. To animate it, incorporate bright decor and elements with different textures.

Psychology, Meaning, and Perception of Color

When choosing a harmonious color combination in interior design, you can recall the Luscher Color Test. It helps determine a person's state based on their color palette choice. The test does not highlight gray, beige, white, or black—these are neutral colors. However, it highlights four basic shades: red, yellow, green, and blue.

They can be interpreted as follows:

• Yellow symbolizes joy, happiness, new opportunities, and self-development. An interesting color combination in interior design (photo below): muted yellow, gray, and green of living plants.

• Red symbolizes self-respect, confidence, and power. Many people cannot tolerate this color, perceiving it as aggressive. However, you can always incorporate muted red tones into the room's decoration, such as terracotta or dusty pink.

• Blue is self-restriction according to Luscher. From a psychological interaction standpoint, blue can be seen as calming and soothing, capable of providing good sleep.

• Green represents trust, optimism, and confidence in one's own abilities. This color in interior design brings calmness, relaxation, and reduces fatigue.

Classic Color Combinations

Some color combinations in interior design have become classic:

1. Black and white. A combination of two universal shades suits any style and space.

2. Gray and blue. Such a color combination in interior design brings tranquility and calmness. An elegant and stylish combination suitable for a bedroom, office, or library.

3. Beige (brown) and pink. A symbiosis of simplicity and classicism. Particularly relevant today is the dusty pink shade.

4. Yellow and ivory. A bright combination that suits spaces in need of additional lighting. Tones bring a note of joy, freshness, and cleanliness.

5. Red and gold. Vibrant shades can look too pompous, but muted tones help create an elegant and luxurious interior.

Warm and Cool Colors in Interior Design

Combining warm and cool color palettes in interior design requires following some rules:

1. Harmony is achieved by choosing a dominant palette—either warm or cool—and adding accent colors from the opposite tone.

2. Applying the principle of balance by one tone through another. For example, the result of such a principle is the combination of turquoise and beige.

3. Using mutual enhancement, where tones make each other deeper and more noble (e.g., emerald and marsala).

4. Applying the effect of softening or reducing saturation. An example of this technique is a neutral background with bright accent colors.

Combining warm and cool palettes can adjust the space. It is known that warm tones visually reduce space, while cool tones make it deeper and wider.

Using Gradient in Interior Design

A gradient (ombre) is a complex technique for combining shades from lighter to darker. It's used when painting surfaces, combining wallpapers, and selecting accessories. When decorating walls with a gradient, a transition from dark to light is made from bottom to top, visually increasing ceiling height.

When creating a gradient, it's important to find the right color combination in interior design. Then, ombre technique will make a room stylish rather than just colorful. When combining colors, you can use the color wheel. Often, gradients of blue and gray are used.

Applying gradient paint to walls can be complex for a layperson, so you can simplify the task by using ready-made textiles or decor with ombre color (curtains, throws, rugs, photos, floor lamps). Ombre curtains particularly look good against neutral, monochromatic walls. Small ombre rugs give an effect of volume.

Tables for Harmonious Color Combinations in Interior Design

When creating a trendy look for your home, it can be hard to decide which colors to choose. Therefore, there are methods that simplify this choice. These were created by specialists. In addition to the color wheel, there is also a tabular form for selecting shades.

To select proper color combinations in interior design, tables provide ready-made options. You just need to choose the main shade and then look at which companions suit it. Tables built on this principle usually contain several tones (five or six). The first one is the main, the next two are companions for it, and the fourth and subsequent ones are contrasting. Using such a palette, you can choose all necessary tones for room decoration.

The principle of operation for other tables may differ. For example, by choosing a preferred shade, you can see how well it combines with another color. If the compatibility is low, look for other options. More extensive possibilities are provided by tables that show a shade and several tones that combine well with it: analogous palette, similar shades of other colors, or contrasting tones.

Popular Colors for Living Room Wall Decoration

The color palette of a living room can be diverse. All existing shades are divided into warm and cool tones, which should not be mixed together. Which colors can be used as a base in any living room?

White
Undoubtedly a favorite of classical style, universal, and perfect for creating a cozy room. Light tones create an effect of expanded space, visually increasing the volume of the living room. White color easily combines with any other shade, especially appreciated in black and white combinations—a classic that never goes out of style.
Recommendations from Nadezhda Kuzina

The only rule for a 'white' living room is to use bright and contrasting elements because an exclusively white interior will give the impression of incompleteness. Among such elements can be furniture, paintings, or patterns on walls, curtains.

In general, a white shade of walls can be compared to a canvas: the further artwork will depend on your imagination.

Beige
Another winning option that is hard to ruin in living room design. This color solution makes the room bright and spacious, not tiring, and easily combines with other shades.

Walls decorated in beige tones pair well with furniture made of natural wood. This approach to room decoration will not leave your guests indifferent.

Design: Svetlana Starceva
Brown
There are numerous shades of brown color, and all of them will add elements of practicality and richness to your living room. Brown walls suit spaces that are well-lit.

Just don't overdo the brown color, as excessive use will visually reduce the living room. One more tip: paint the walls in brown first, then select furniture and other fixtures in a different shade to avoid elements blending into each other.

Gray

Another universal option for decorating walls in the living room. On a gray background, any bright accessories look great, whether it's furniture or paintings. A good option would be to dilute monotonous gray tones with patterns or stripes.

Design: Yana Molodых
Green
Among many shades of green, there are both vibrant and dark options for decorating the living room. The presence of green color adds a feeling of calm, which is sorely lacking after a hard working day.

Green colors look original and attractive, but choosing other design elements to match them is not so easy. Green shades may not combine well with all furniture or floor options, which adds some complexity to decorating the living room.

However, proper combination of all factors makes a room in green tones cozy, beautiful, and mysterious. Natural colors are always pleasant to the human eye, which your guests will surely appreciate.

Design: Stepan Bugayev
Yellow

Truly a vibrant color choice for the living room. Using a yellow shade range can be a saving solution for rooms with insufficient natural lighting.

Vibrant yellow color must definitely be diluted with other, more calming tones (white, gray, beige). A successful combination will make the living room so cheerful and lively that you won't want to leave it.

Design: Irina Sobylenskaya
Blue and Light Blue

Blue and light blue colors suit small rooms. These shades combine well with white, gray, yellow, lilac, and brown. Do you want to make the living room a place of tranquility and calmness? Then light blue tones will be a good choice for selecting the color palette.

When using blue or light blue colors, it's important to know moderation and know how to combine them with the material of furniture and other elements in the living room. With a successful selection, the space will look refined and unusual.

Design: Nikolay Nikolaev
Red

Using red color in well-executed design can lead to good results. However, an excess of this shade adds excessive saturation and contrast, which strongly irritates the eyes and can shock guests.

Want to use red shades? Dilute them with white furniture and curtains. This will reduce the 'danger' of red in the room and relieve eye strain.

Orange

Where you can speak about a person's character if they use orange for living room decoration. Walls painted in such a color will obviously speak about the owner's positive mood and give guests a charge of good spirits.

Overdoing orange is the same mistake as with red color. Since orange color is very popular among designers, they recommend diluting it with white, gray, beige, or black.

Violet and Lilac

Violet color is a symbol of wealth. Choosing to paint the living room walls in such shades indicates the owner's creative and unconventional thinking. Rich style and unusual design are what you can achieve by selecting lilac and violet colors for living room decoration.

Black
Here we can once again talk about the classic combination of 'white + black', which choice will bring nearly 100% effect for you and your guests. However, using black for wall decoration is a rather controversial issue, although acceptable in modern design.

It is considered that black shades can evoke sadness and melancholy in those who are in the room. However, there are now many projects where black tones fit perfectly into the overall design of the living room. The key point is to use additional matte, metallic, and chrome tones in the room's color palette.

Design: Studio Kameleono, Pavel Lychik and Anastasia Ivanova
Zone the Living Room with Color

A great addition to the overall living room design will be its zoning. Specifically, the room should have its own relaxation zone where guests can sit on a sofa and spend their free time in pleasant conversations. How can you divide the space?

1. A good solution will be to paint one of the walls in a bright and saturated color. Such contrast is especially noticeable in a room where the main shades are beige, gray, white, and other light tones. The brightness of the object visually divides the space into several zones;
   
2. If you have a dark room, where walls and other elements are in brown, dark green, or blue shades, you can highlight the area for leisure by installing floor lamps, lights, and chandeliers;
   
3. If you dilute monochromatic walls with several paintings or photos, you will also be able to highlight a corner in the living room.
   

Choosing Living Room Color by Side of the World

Just as a rose in the wind indicates the direction of the city's construction, you shouldn't forget about the direction from which the living room windows face. This can affect the choice of wall color and its maximum expression.

• If the windows face north, a good option is to use warm and bright colors for room decoration. Here you can use red, yellow, orange, green, etc.;
• In cases where the windows open toward the south, the situation is opposite. Here, cold and calm shades like blue, violet, and beige fit in naturally;
• Do the windows face east? This means the room will be well-lit. Using neutral, not bright colors will be an ideal solution for such a living room. Among these shades, you can highlight white, gray, beige, and lilac;
• Do the windows face west? Then everything is reversed: insufficient light should be compensated with bright and saturated colors like red, yellow, and orange. It's also not a mistake to choose calm tones (beige, lilac, violet, blue).

Design: Julia Piskareva

Decorating the living room is an important stage in interior design in any house, so you should approach choosing wall color with full seriousness.

Our advice: prefer colors that you like the most, and then see 'how it should be done'. This way, you can create a compromise variant and satisfy not only your preferences but also create a successful living room interior as a whole.

Design: Natalia Vasileva
Design: Anna Muravina
Design: Nikolay Nikolaev
Design: Olga Rozina, Natalia Preobrazhenskaya and Studio 'Cozy Apartment'
Design: Studio 'Cozy Apartment'
Design: 'ToTaste Studio'
Design: Marina Kutuzova
Design: Victoria Smirnova
Design: Alexander Babadzhanian
Design: Irina Krashennikova
Design: Elena Filimonova
Design: Elena Chabrova and Olga Chebysheva
Design: Irina Sobylenskaya