The Golden Mean: A Designer’s Must Know

OK, say you’ve got a ton of GREAT colors you want to use for a room, but your not sure how much to use, where to use it, you know, problems like that. Well never fear because…..The Golden Mean!

OK, its a little more detailed than that. Fortunately though, its not much harder than that! If the golden rule is the basis of society, then this is the basis for design.

The Golden Mean: 60% First Color, 30% Second color, and 10% last color.

This is easy. A hole room is 100%. If you have three colors you want to incorporate in one room, the golden mean is just the right amount! (Note: You can do less than three, but going above three can be a bit chaotic). The 60% is a good hunk of your room. This color could be the walls, a main piece of furniture…whatever, just BIG! 30% might be in the medium sized furniture, or curtains. The 10% is so small, but is GREAT for accessories! Trinkets and books; you name it, that’s the stuff for this last percent.

Here are a few examples:

This is a really good example. The main color (60%) is the yellow. Its on the walls, the couch, the bed sheets. The 30% is the brown that comes from the boards of the bed, the small table, and the curtains. The purple in the bed sheets makes up the 10%. See how well this works?

The Beige/Off-whiteish sort of color is the 60%. Its on the walls, the couches, and the fireplace. The 30% is the black, that you find on the chair, curtains, and some pillows. And here and their you see this really ELECTRIC purple, that makes up the 10%. Its a bit in the painting, the tea cups, and an throw pillow.

One of those mathematical people? This way you can still be creative and at the end say, MATH RULES! Because is the case of the Golden Mean, it really does! Its like putting together the puzzle pieces for a room, one color at a time.