H: Danielle Robinson, Webchat Host
A: Karen Haller, Colour Expert
H: A new study shows that millions of us are literally living in neutral homes that are crying out for colour. Have the years of advice on moving and not improving let us languishing in boring and plain abodes that lack character? Joining us now is Karen Haller, Colour Expert. So how can we introduce more personality into our houses, Karen?
A: Well the really, really easy way to introduce colour into your home is to really think about your own personality and how you want to feel and what colour means to you and then when you know what colours that you love then you are able to bring them in to your furnishings, into your accessories, into anything at all. I think what’s been happening over the years is that people have been losing confidence about trusting their own colour instincts and trusting their own choices. There was a really interesting stat that came out from some recent research that came out from the colour match from Argos and I was working with them on this and that is 75% of the UK are actually more concerned in creating a home that others will love rather than creating home for our personality and I think that’s quite an extraordinary statistic.
H: Do you think that’s because a lot of us are thinking for when we sell the property on we don’t want it to offend anybody?
A: Yes there is, when we get a house ready for sale, it’s a very different mind-set and a very different way of decorating your home because what you are doing is creating a place that will attract the most buyers. When you are creating a place for your home you’re not doing that. What you are doing is you’re personalising it and you’re making it about you. So one’s depersonalising and one is personalising and what we’re looking at now is how to bring the personality back into the home and how to personalise your own home so it’s a reflection of you and your personality. So anyone can walk in and they can see your personality in colour.
H: I guess because a lot of people now aren’t moving houses as much as we used to. All the research seems to be saying we’re staying put and improving so now is the perfect time to actually to make those choices and to be a bit bold with your choices do you think?
A: Yes and it’s not even, a lot of people I think are scared of colour because they think they have to put lots of really bright colour around but colour comes in many different shades and many different tones and it’s picking the right one for your personality. So if you have a very serene, very gentle personality you’re not going to be sitting there in really, really bright colours because that just doesn’t match who you are. So it’s picking the right colours and the right tones of colours that suit who you are because your home is an expression of you. If you are a little bit stuck of maybe have lost a little bit of confidence and not quite sure how to bring colour into your home there’s a really, really quick and easy colour personality match, sorry, colour personality test over at www.argos.co.uk\colourmatch and that helps you to find the colours that match your personality, it tells you a little bit about your personality and it’s explains which colours to use and also on the website there’s sixteen colours to choose from and there are so many accessories that if you just want to start bringing in colour very gently and bit by bit then this is the way to do it without breaking the bank.
H: Absolutely. Do you think people should have a colour scheme throughout their whole house or can each room be different because obviously each room has a different purpose, when you go to be you want to be relaxed.
