ON several occasions I've had clients lament to me about how their homes feel lifeless and uninspiring, explaining to me how certain significant changes - often very expensive ones - would alleviate their problems.
Their instinct is to think of a major intervention as their only recourse when a far simpler solution might be at hand: a change in colour.
The judicious use of colour is a simple and effective way to make the spaces we live in more livable.
Colour affects our mood and well-being and influences the way we feel in a space.
A darker colour is visually heavier than a lighter colour and this darker colour makes a surface feel closer to us than a lighter one would.
The concept is simple and intuitive and if applied properly can make small rooms seem more spacious and cavernous spaces a little more manageable.
Ceilings, by the very nature of being above our heads, are profoundly affected by the concept of visual weight.
Exposed wood beams with wood decking as a ceiling treatment are very common here on the West Coast. The rich colour of the stained wood mixed with the texture of the decking gives considerable visual mass to a ceiling and tends to make it feel lower than it would in a lighter material.
This was a scenario I was confronted with recently in the renovation of a beautiful mid-century modern home here in North Vancouver.
The main living space was very generous in size and the richly stained ceiling and darkly stained beams made it feel lower and smaller than it was.
The homeowners wanted to enhance the space somehow and the idea of a skylight was brought up but the idea was quickly dismissed as being ineffectual (and expensive) since a glazed opening in a dark ceiling would only present itself as a bright spot in a still-dark ceiling.
We remedied the situation by sanding and staining the fir beams back to a natural clear finish and then introducing a single layer of painted white drywall between the beams - covering the decking - to transform the space into the grand space that it was intended to be.
Lightening the visual weight of the ceiling was an easy and effective way of creating the loftiness we were looking for.
The opposite would be true as well.
An alcove or nook painted in a deeper, darker colour than the room it adjoins will maximize its sense of separation. The heavier visual weight will enhance a sense of shelter and protection within the smaller volume while making a feature of the space itself.
Painting a single wall within a room a darker colour makes that wall stand out within the space and draws the eye to it. Often called a feature wall or accent wall, this use of visual weight makes a wall more dominant and important within a room and is a wonderful way of highlighting an important feature of the home. We employed this idea in the mid-century modern renovation by painting a wall /bulkhead system running through the main space in a dark charcoal to create a striking visual element that zig-zagged through the volume, producing a dynamic feature that would have otherwise gone completely unnoticed.
How we feel within a space is influenced by many different factors.
A considered careful use of colour will influence the "visual weight" of walls and ceilings and can be a positive transformation for any space.
Kevin Vallely is a residential designer in North Vancouver. Follow along Kevin's "small house" design at cliffhangerhouse.com.
