Nov 22,2010
By New England Design and Construction

Orange represents youth and creativity, happiness and speech. Using Orange can be used to promote lively conversations and your home. By using orange it reminds you and your guests of the summertime so people start thinking about warmth and how comfortable it is. Since orange is the Feng Shui element of Fire, it projects more of a lively energy. It’s generally more comfortable and it’s just an easier setting to be in.

Now the places I would want to use orange are anywhere people would gather in, so places like the kitchen, living room, and play area. Now the important thing about using orange is again, find a balance. In my opinion you should never use orange completely, it promotes eating, I would rather use it as an accent in combinations with other colors. I find orange goes well with light ocean blue, green, red, and black. But it really depends what kind of feeling you want to go for.

Rooms with blue and orange reminds you of spring and summer time. The ocean and the sunset. Very comfortable and with the accented half blue and half white accented walls it creates sort of like a beach kind of feeling. Very bright and energetic.

Now with a combination of green and orange we start having a more playful atmosphere, Notice again how the walls are not completely covered in orange. You mostly see orange being a tool to accent a wall or accessorized / furnitured with orange.

Here we have something in a more professional setting. This is more like an office lounge area, you want to keep things professional but you also want to keep things lively and more open.

Now be careful with using too much orange and red. Orange and red are the color of flame and passion. Think if you want to keep a room promoting all year around. The image below is from a deluxe hotel suite room….. in the Bahamas….

Now my favorite combinations with orange is using more natural earthy colors like brown and tan. Orange walls with brown furniture makes it very comfortable and soothing since we’re using fall colors it’s nice to use some natural things such as baskets for storage (or tan).

You can always find our past articles on our design tips blog.

If your ever interested in our work, check out our portfolio. Shoot us an email anytime you like some suggestions how to remodel, we’d be more than glad to help you!