Which colours go together?
Choose the main colour, then a second from the suggestions or the whole palette, and see the two together in a room.
Main colour
For the walls, or whatever covers most of the room.
Sage
Second colour
For a sofa, the woodwork or a lower wall.
Warm white
Suggested for sage
A colour with a neutral
Sage with warm white
- How they work
- The neutral calms the colour and gives the eye somewhere to rest, so the colour can be stronger than it could be on its own.
- Lightness
- Sage 40, warm white 81: 41 points apart. There is a clear difference in lightness, so a door, a skirting board or a sofa in one stands out against the other. Guidance for people with low vision commonly asks for 30 points or more between surfaces that must be told apart.
- Warm or cool
- Sage leans cool and warm white leans warm. A cool colour on the walls is happiest in a sunny room, the side facing the equator. In a shaded room it can look grey and cold.
- On the walls
- A mid-tone wall holds its colour in most light, and changes the most between morning and evening.
- Best rooms
- Kitchen, bedroom and bathroom.
Read the write-up for sage and warm white
A screen shows paint only roughly. Paint a sample on the wall and look at it in the morning and the evening before you buy.
How the suggestions are chosen
Every suggestion follows a rule you can check against the colour wheel and the table below. Angles are measured round the wheel of hues, and lightness is the light reflectance value.
- The pairs written up in the guide come first, marked In the guide.
- Opposite on the wheel: the colour whose hue sits furthest round the wheel, at least 135 degrees away.
- A neighbour: a colour more than 30 and up to 75 degrees away, the one that differs most in lightness, so the two stay distinct.
- The same colour at another depth: within 30 degrees and at least 15 points lighter or darker.
- A soft white for a mid or dark colour, or a dark neutral for a light one, warm or cool to match it.
- For a neutral, one colour from each family, the one furthest from it in lightness.
| Colour | Family | Light reflectance | Warm or cool |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chalk white | Whites, greys and browns | 86 | Is a true neutral |
| Warm white | Whites, greys and browns | 81 | Leans warm |
| Cream | Whites, greys and browns | 72 | Leans warm |
| Pale grey | Whites, greys and browns | 65 | Is a true neutral |
| Stone | Whites, greys and browns | 62 | Leans warm |
| Greige | Whites, greys and browns | 46 | Leans warm |
| Taupe | Whites, greys and browns | 26 | Leans warm |
| Pewter | Whites, greys and browns | 28 | Is a true neutral |
| Chocolate | Whites, greys and browns | 6 | Leans warm |
| Charcoal | Whites, greys and browns | 5 | Is a true neutral |
| Soft black | Whites, greys and browns | 2 | Is a true neutral |
| Sage | Greens | 40 | Leans cool |
| Olive | Greens | 16 | Leans warm |
| Forest green | Greens | 6 | Leans cool |
| Duck egg | Blues | 60 | Leans cool |
| Dusty blue | Blues | 35 | Leans cool |
| Teal | Blues | 12 | Leans cool |
| Navy | Blues | 3 | Leans cool |
| Blush | Pinks, reds and purples | 61 | Leans warm |
| Dusty rose | Pinks, reds and purples | 33 | Leans warm |
| Lilac | Pinks, reds and purples | 47 | Leans cool |
| Plum | Pinks, reds and purples | 5 | Leans warm |
| Burgundy | Pinks, reds and purples | 5 | Leans warm |
| Butter yellow | Yellows and oranges | 72 | Leans warm |
| Mustard | Yellows and oranges | 41 | Leans warm |
| Ochre | Yellows and oranges | 27 | Leans warm |
| Terracotta | Yellows and oranges | 20 | Leans warm |
| Rust | Yellows and oranges | 12 | Leans warm |
Start from what is staying
Most rooms are not a blank page. There is a sofa you are keeping, a floor you cannot change, or a run of kitchen cupboards that cost too much to replace. Start from that. Choose it as your own colour on whichever side it belongs, the main colour if it covers most of the room and the second if it does not, and let the suggestions work round it.
The main colour is the one that covers most of the room, which is nearly always the walls. The second is for the next biggest thing: a sofa, the woodwork, or a lower wall below a rail. The buttons under the drawing move the second colour between those three, because the same pair can look quite different when one of them is on a door rather than a sofa.
What the lightness figure tells you
Paint makers describe lightness as a light reflectance value, a number from 0 for black to 100 for a perfect white. The tool works it out from the colour on screen in the same way, so you can compare two colours by their numbers as well as by eye. Two colours close in lightness blend into each other from across a room, even when their hues are far apart. Two colours far apart in lightness give every edge a clear line.
That gap matters for more than looks. Guidance on designing for people with low vision commonly asks for a difference of at least 30 points between surfaces that need to be told apart, such as a door and its wall or a step and the floor. The tool says when a pair clears that line and when it does not.
From the screen to the wall
A screen is a fair guide to whether two colours belong together, and a poor guide to exactly how a paint will look. Every screen shows colour a little differently, and a wall reflects the light in the room rather than giving off its own. Take the pair you like to a paint chart, find the nearest colours there, and buy tester pots.
For how far a tester pot goes, see how much wall a tin of paint covers, and for the walls themselves, the paint calculator.
Every one of the 24 pairs marked In the guide has a full write-up in colour combinations for every room: what the pair is, why it works, the rooms it suits, where each colour goes and what to watch for.
Questions from the margin
How do I know if two colours go together?
Look at three things: where they sit on the colour wheel, how far apart they are in lightness, and whether they are warm or cool. Opposites on the wheel make each other stronger, neighbours blend, and a neutral calms whatever it sits beside. A clear gap in lightness keeps the two distinct; a small one makes them blend into one tone. The tool reads all three for any pair you choose.
What is the 60, 30 and 10 split?
A rule of thumb for balancing a room: about 60 per cent in the main colour, usually the walls, 30 per cent in the second colour, such as the sofa, the curtains or a lower wall, and 10 per cent in small accents. It stops two strong colours competing, and it is a starting point rather than a law.
What does LRV mean on a paint chart?
Light reflectance value: how much of the light falling on a colour it reflects, on a scale from 0 for black to 100 for a perfect white. Most wall paints fall between about 5 and 90. The tool works it out from the colour on screen, so treat its figure as an estimate and use the paint maker's own figure where the chart prints one.
Why does the paint look different on my wall?
A screen gives off light while a wall reflects it, and the light in a room changes through the day and with the direction the window faces. A large area of a colour also looks stronger than a small chip of it. Paint a sample patch on two walls and look at it in the morning, in the afternoon and under lamplight before you buy.