Decorating Color Schemes in Green

Explore all the possibilities of using greens in your home, and find the interior design color scheme to suit you best...

Do you love green? Want to use it in your decorating color schemes for your home, but aren't quite sure how to do it? ...and what will work?

Green is a wonderful color to use for your home, it is restful, peaceful and makes us think of nature.

Choose green for rooms where you want to relax. It is an ideal choice for living rooms and bedrooms.

Although green is very balancing and harmonious, using too much can be a bit bland in a room. Avoid this by mixing in different shades and tones of the color, or adding accents of other colors too.

Also take care, as pale green can be an unflattering color on the skin - so avoid using a lot of pale green in rooms where you do a lot of entertaining (your living room, perhaps?) or where you want to look your best.

Green is one color, but there are lots of different combinations and decorating color schemes you can use to make the most of this beautiful color in your home, and use it to express your personality.

For more ideas about combining colors, look at this information about the interior design color wheel

Ideas for Using Greens

Greens and Greens
Greens and Turquoises
Greens and Blues
Greens and Yellows
Greens and Oranges
Greens and Purples or Lilacs
Greens and Reds
Interesting Color Combinations

Greens and Greens

• The easiest way of using greens is to use them with greens. This way you are guaranteed a simple, harmonious scheme, that works well, and feels restful and balanced.
• By using different shades and tones of greens, you can add interest to a very simple color scheme, and tailor it to your preferred tones.
• You can try muted, very natural tones of greens, to give a soft, natural look. Choose from the whole spectrum of greens, right from sea blue/greens and teals, to yellow-y beiges.









• Or you might fancy going for something with a fresh feel, to make your room feel bright, cheerful and spring-like. Choose fresh tones, in pale to mid shades, to keep it bright and breezy in your home.









• Green lends itself very well to rich, jewel tones. These are beautiful teals, turquoises and bold, rich greens. You can often use quite bright and bold shades of green on your wall: as a cool color the tones don't impose themselves on your room quite so much, and make your room feel dark and dingy.

  You'll probably still want to check these bold colors suit your particular room before you choose them for an all-over color. But they are all great choices for an accent wall or for accessories.










• For the ultimate in soft relaxation try these really soft, muted tones of green - very gentle on the eye. These greens can almost be used like neutrals, and mix well with all kinds of beiges and browns.

Greens and Turquoises

• Greens and turquoises are an excellent color combination. Try them in decorating color schemes for kitchens and bathrooms where they will give a fresh and funky feel.
• They work because they are next to each other on the color wheel, giving a harmonious look and feel to your decorating color schemes.
  
  






• Fresh, pale to mid tones of greens and turquoises is the more common look (see above). Also try deeper green tones, mixing with deep shades of teal, for a darker, and more sophisticated feel, reminiscent of the sea itself.

Greens and Blues

• Greens and blues is another very popular look. Again these work well because greens and blues are next to each other on the color wheel. This gives a subtle, and blended harmonious look.
• Using greens and blues together can encompass the whole tonal range from blues through turquoises and teals right to greens. You can mix together paler tones, for a relaxing look, refreshing mid tones, or deeper tones, depending on the look you want to go for.









• Mix colors of a similar tone and shade, or go for a bolder look by mixing a pale blue with a darker teal blue-green, for example.

Greens and Yellows

• Again these colors go together well because greens and yellows are next to each other on the color wheel.
• Greens and yellows mixed together tend to have a fresher feel (the influence of that wonderfully cheerful yellow). This is your chance to experiment with those fantastically modern zingy lime greens which are all over the place in contemporary interior design at the moment.









• Even if you use the paler shades, this can be quite a bright and bold look, so if this isn't what you were after, consider using yellows and greens quite sparingly, or mix them together with other neutrals, or deeper and more sombre shades of dark green.

Greens and Oranges

• Greens used in combination with oranges is quite an unusual scheme, but one that can work quite well, used with care. It is quite a striking scheme in itself, so it is best to keep such decorating color schemes quite simple, and don't overuse these colors, or use too many different shades and tones.









• This is a scheme that can work well used in soft, pale tones and shades (see above for greens used with corals).
• Or you might fancy something a little bolder using stronger and deeper shades and tones of orange, right through to red. These may be best kept as an accent color or for accessories, unless you are in search of a deliberately bold and striking look.

Greens and Purples or Lilacs

• This is another unusual interior design color scheme, but one that can work really well.
• Soft and pale greens and lilacs can give you a wonderfully gentle, calm or fresh feel in your home, with quite a feminine touch. This works really well for living rooms, or bedrooms, where the lilac can soften the decorating color schemes.









• Choosing greens and lilacs in similar pale tones, will give a harmonious feel, whereas mixing pale and dark tones and shades will give a more dramatic look...
• And if it's drama you are after, deeper and darker purples, violets and greens will give a very striking look. Once again, take care that the darker colors don't overwhelm your room, or keep them for accents and accessories.

Greens and Reds

• Greens and reds are amongst the most dramatic decorating color schemes you can get! This is a 'complementary' color scheme, meaning that it uses the color opposite green on the interior design color wheel.
• This is a very striking color scheme, and should be used with some care. Try not to use equal intensity colors of red and green in equal amounts in your room - this can lead to a 'strobe effect' fo the eye - and is not very relaxing at all!
• Instead, the color scheme works better if you choose green as your main color, and use red as your accent (or vice versa), or... use one of the colors as a pale shade, whilst using one of the others as a deeper shade.
• Greens work really well with pinks (which, after all, are just pale reds) and gives the same dramatic color combination, without the visual 'flicker'.
• This would be a good combination for living and dining rooms. Deeper and muted tones work really well for heritage and historical looks, or Victorian decorating ideas.

Interesting Color Combinations

• If you want to try something a little bit different, go for tricolor decorating color schemes. Carefully done, these give added interest, and a bit of variety to your look.
• The best of the tricolor decorating color schemes using green is to go for green, purple and orange mixed together. This is quite an unusual look, and very striking.
• A very dramatic feel can be achieved by using the three together in equal (deep or bright) shades and tones - but be careful that this does not overwhelm your room, or the look and feel that you are trying to achieve for your room.









• An easier look to try is to use the colors in paler and softer shades, which will give a more relaxed feel (but still with some 'drama') or to use 2 of the colors as your main color scheme, and only to add the third as an accent color.

I hope this page will give you lots of ideas for different ways to use greens in your own decorating color schemes.

Of course, this is actually only a small selection of the countless interior design color combinations that you can try with greens...

Get some paint swatches (and later on, use tester pots) and play around with different effects in your room. Use a color wheel for more help with combining blues with all different colors.

I recommend this 'Color Scheme Sourcebook' for an excellent source of color combining ideas.

Use a bit of creativity and imagination, and I am sure that you will come up with some very unique and beautiful effects for your rooms.

Get some ideas for your decorating color schemes

Find out how color in interior design is linked with personality and emotion

Discover how your color schemes can help you heal

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