Struggling to apply the classic colour wheel to your real-life grey sofa? Discover why complex colour theory is often useless for home interiors and what you should do instead. This post features an animated video that teaches you the practical way to start decorating with colour successfully—no complicated terminology required.
Somewhere along the way the world picked up the idea that in order to do colour well, you need an in depth understanding of colour theory.
So let’s say you’re curious and ambitious and you dive into learning all you can about theories of colour. You’ll start with a classic colour wheel that looks like this.
And yes, it shows you the theory of how saturated colours on the visible spectrum are organized in relation to each other. You’ll hear that the colour game is all about creating complicated sounding relationships between said saturated colours. Combinations like split complementary triads. (Huh?)
But you look around your room and you have this:
We’re no better off are we? Because how do we create a split complementary triad with our grey sofa?
💛 Well YOU actually ARE better off, because you did find your way HERE 💛
And I’m here to teach you the REAL way that rooms are decorated successfully with colour.
And if you’re sure you don’t want to dive into complicated colour theory, let me just free you and validate you. You absolutely don’t have to.
As the renowned colourist Janice Lindsay says:
“The funny thing about colour theory is how interesting it seems and how useless it is.“
Today I’ve created a little animated video to walk you through the way rooms are decorated for real. Not in theory. It’s wild to me that this is not taught in design colleges.
I have two True Colour Expert Workshops coming up in 2026. Vancouver in February and Chicago in May, learn more here.
Related posts:
Ask Maria: Now That I have your Colour Wheel, does Everything Have to be Neutral?
I appreciate your practicality in working with bossy rooms. We inherited a bathroom with black and red check tile and a red claw foot tub.
The color wheel shown in this post is arranged incorrectly. It should have complementary colors opposite each other.
Love these posts! I’ve never considered a “bossy room” and for someone who isn’t starting from scratch, or must work with what exists, this is extremely helpful.
After watching the video I looked again at the common areas of my overall neutral home and realize my fireplace brick of deep burgundy, black and sand colored bricks would probably be called bossy. My color scheme in terms of art and drapes is subtle colors of coral and turquoise.
When my home was beautifully and neutrally updated a few years ago by a Maria-trained interior designer I declined to whitewash the fireplace brick. I love my brick fireplace.
So I’ve tried to decorate it with colors that pull in the coral and turquoise and blue. It’s not perfect but it makes me happy and maybe that’s the best part of decorating, what brings you joy.
Maria,
You are spot on, make it so simple and are changing the world, one paint color at a time. Thanks for your inspiration, enthusiasm and generosity of decorating wisdom, that has changed my business for the best!
Cindy
Maria,
You are spot on, make it so simple and are changing the world, one paint color at a time. Thanks for your inspiration, enthusiasm and generosity of decorating wisdom, that has changed my business for the best!
Cindy
Maria, you’re great. ❤️ you. BUT! I’m still stuck on those first steps out of the gate after I’ve identified the boss. For example, I have orange toned wood everywhere; window trim, built-in gigantic bookcase, hardwood floors, interior doors, molding. Now what? Please do a video on choosing the beautiful thing and following it out a few steps. And, as a bonus, perhaps choose the beautiful thing, and then go out a few steps but DO IT WRONG! It’s so helpful to see both doing it well and doing it poorly. Thank you dear! You are wonderfully helpful and generous regardless. XO
Thank you! And here’s the thing—you’re mostly asking the wrong question, which is exactly why you feel stuck. And that’s ok, most people are stuck where you are.
Orange wood is not as bossy as you think. It just looks bossy when the room is empty or there isn’t much to inspire in it right now. The beautiful thing is the item that actually moves the room forward—a rug, art, fabric, something with colour and pattern that gives you direction. Trim and floors are not inspiration; they’re constraints.
And this is where my suggestion would be to watch any of my Colour Rescue makeovers on YouTube. Every single one shows the order of operations you’re looking for. You’ll see me choose the beautiful thing and build the room out from there—and you’ll see what has been chosen already before I get there so you can see why it’s not working.
Once you watch a few episodes, the lightbulb goes on. You’ll suddenly see exactly what to do next.
You’ve got this. Go watch a couple and report back 😉
Thanks for your comment!