🌈 Inside My (Slightly) Obsessive Colour Process
Why We Need to Sample, Test, and Feel Every Shade
Because colour is emotional—and your walls deserve more than a guess.
People often tell me that the homes I design feel “so intentional.” And they are. But what’s often hidden behind those final, polished photos is the real process: the paint testing chaos, the gut decisions, the emotional colour debates, and all the moments where we stand back, squint, and go: “Hmm… maybe not that one.”
For my recent Clapham project, we didn’t just pick colours from a moodboard. We created a colour journey—room by room—where each space had its own energy, purpose, and palette. Not just one paint colour for the whole house, but fifteen carefully chosen shades, from soft blush pinks and dreamy blues to bold ochres and deep charcoals.
This wasn’t about finding trendy colours. It was about finding the right emotions.
I dive deep into this in Module 2 of my online course, Colour Your Home Happy, but if you’re curious to get a little taster... read on 👇
✨ Feel First, Pick Later
Before we think about finishes or furniture, we ask one core question: How do you want to feel in this space?
Not what looks good on Instagram. Not what your neighbour used. But what feels right—for you.
That feeling becomes the thread that guides everything else. Sometimes, that means pulling inspiration from memories. Sometimes, it means asking odd but revealing questions like:
What jumper do you wear when you want to feel powerful?
What’s the colour of your favourite café?
What’s the shade of a place where you once felt calm?
I don’t call this a “palette.” I call it emotional mapping—and it’s just the beginning.
Imagine walking into a room and instantly feeling a sense of calm or a burst of energy. That’s the power of colour. It’s not just about aesthetics; it’s about creating an environment that supports your emotional well-being. Whether it’s the soothing blues of a coastal retreat or the vibrant yellows of a sunlit meadow, the right colours can transform a space into a sanctuary that resonates with your personal narrative.
🎨 Now Comes the Real Work: Testing in Real Life
We never pick colours off a screen. And we never rely on tiny swatch cards.
Instead, I bring full-size paint samples to the site. We test them on the actual walls, in natural and artificial light, at different times of day. We compare them with tiles, flooring, fabrics, and wallpapers. We observe. We change our minds. We layer.
This step is non-negotiable, because colour lives and breathes inside a space. A soft lilac can look dreamy in one corner and greyed out in another. A punchy coral might sing next to velvet, but clash with glossy cabinetry.
It’s not about perfection. It’s about finding harmony—and that takes seeing colours in their true, lived-in context.
Testing colours in real life is an immersive experience. It’s about understanding how a colour interacts with the light that filters through your windows at different times of the day. This process ensures that the colours you choose will not only look beautiful but also feel right in every moment of your daily life.
💡The Light Changes Everything
You can’t see colour without light. Literally. Goethe said, “A colour nobody looks at doesn’t exist.”
Which is why the advice to “test a swatch” is kind of... incomplete.
You have to see colour move—at 8am light, under your kitchen’s warm pendants, on a cloudy Tuesday. It’s never just the pigment—it’s the atmosphere. Morning light can bring out the warmth in a colour, while evening light might highlight its cooler tones. Artificial lighting, whether it’s the soft glow of a bedside lamp or the bright illumination of kitchen lights, can dramatically alter how a colour appears.
When I work on a home, we might test two or three colours for each wall. Not to find the perfect shade, but to witness how they interact with the space and the people in it. It’s a dance. A slow one.
👉 Tip: Personally, when selecting a shade—say, a specific black—I carry a small Rechargeable LED Wall Light with adjustable colour temperature settings. It allows me to test how the hue appears under warm, neutral, and cool lighting conditions. By shining this light on painted swatches, I can see how the colour shifts and ensure it matches the feeling I want to create.
🏠 One Home. Many Moods.
A recent project in Clapham ended with 15 different colours across the house. Not to be “bold,” but because every room had its own rhythm.
Think about it: you're not mono-emotional. Every day, you experience a wide range of emotions, and your home should be designed to help you navigate through all of these. Each space can help you achieve the specific behavior or feeling you'd like when facing a particular emotion.
There’s no rule that says you need one cohesive palette for your home. In fact, most of my favourite projects use many colours—but never randomly.
Each room has its own emotional job.
The hallway can be a palette cleanser.
The kitchen, a container for energy.
A reading nook might want to feel like velvet and breathing.
A guest room can surprise you—something unfamiliar, but warm.
Rather than choosing “statement colours,” I help people design emotional transitions—from one room to the next. Like composing music. Like scoring a film.
💥 What if the Colours I Select don’t Match Together?
Here’s a secret…
….they don’t need to!
Designers are often taught to “harmonise” colours using formulas and wheels. But sometimes, it’s best to put the colour wheel aside. Instead, think about colour like jazz:
mood,
rhythm,
contrast,
and a whole lot of intuition!
If a colour “clashes” but makes you smile when you walk into the room, that’s enough. If a soft pastel makes you anxious—don’t use it, even if it's trendy.
This isn’t chaos. This is learning to trust your body’s cues. Of course, there might be colours that make you hesitate or even cringe. Every one of us has shades we steer clear of, often for reasons tied to past experiences or emotional responses.
But stepping outside your comfort zone can open up exciting possibilities for your designs.
Much like experimenting with unconventional musical chords, embracing unfamiliar colours can help create emotional layers within a space. When you try a colour you usually avoid—like a bold orange or a muted olive—you may discover it evokes a unique feeling or adds a contrasting energy. Don’t think about whether the colour ‘matches’ anything else. Instead, treat it as an experiment to see how it feels in the space, allowing yourself to be surprised by the impact.
💬 Want Help Finding Your Colour Story?
Feeling overwhelmed by colour choices or unsure where to start? I offer one-on-one colour consultations and full interior design packages to help you bring personality and emotion into your home—without the guesswork.
👉 Book a free discovery call and let’s talk about how we can make colour work for you—not against you ✨!
🎨 Want to try building your own palette based on emotion? Try my free Colourful Memory Palette Quiz—a fun (and surprisingly accurate) way to connect your memories to mood and colour.