Interior design: which colours go with orange?

Orange is one of those colours people are unsure about using, whether you like it as a standalone colour or not. From soft peachy / apricot that you may paint on a bedroom wall to bright tangerine or cadmium orange, the choice is huge.

But there are a few helpful guidelines. In general, the softer shades of orange work well to create a sense of warmth in a room while the brighter more vivacious tones are better used to invoke a sense of fun and life.

Consequently, you might want to restrict brighter tones to living areas associated with socialising and entertaining, while the softer tones are perhaps better for your living areas - the places you spend more time in and use for relaxation and everyday life.

Which colours go with orange?

Thinking back to the principles of the colour wheel that you probably touched on in an art and design class at school, you may remember that the complementary colour to orange is blue - think of the famous painters who combined the two colours with so much success. Monet is, of course, a particularly famous example, but not the only person to have thought about putting the two colours together...

But blue is not the only option. Not by a long shot. Orange works well with many of the neutral colours like grey, brown etc.

Orange also goes well with harmony or analogous colours, the ones that lie next to it on the colour wheel - shades of green yellow or red. Be sure to experiment to find the right tone. We've found a great free online tool to help you match colours.

Orange is a great accent colour

Orange is also a great accent colour that is able to lift a corner of a room or a tired looking sofa. Rather than redecorate the whole room, which is stressful, time consuming and expensive, an inexpensive way of adding pops of colour is to use throws and scatter cushions.

While we are massive proponents of using wool throws and blankets, you don't have to restrict yourself to wool; however, the quality of wool means your throw will last a long time and endure a lot of use. Wool also has all sorts of environmental benefits, being a natural fibre that is biodegradable and doesn't add to the accumulation of synthetic microfibres in our oceans in the same way that some commonly used synthetic fibres do.

Orange is a good colour for interior accessories

The added benefit of investing in interior accessories like wool blankets throws and scatter cushions is that they are flexible. You can carry on experimenting until you achieve the desired effect, whether this is happens through skill or by accident - who cares as long as it works! The other advantage is that as tastes and styles move on, you will be able to redeploy your trusty throws to match the interior design schemes of the future, rather than having to splash out on a whole new set of accessories.

If you found this article of use, why not check out our other colour guides: Navy blue living room design ideas; using green wool throws; a guide to using neutral colours.

If you are interested in adding a pure new wool throw to your collection, we have a large selection of blankets for sale. All sourced from producers in the British Isles. We've also come up with a few reasons in another article to help you justify the investment in buying a high quality wool blanket to help with your decision making process.

If you have any great ideas about how to use orange to brighten up an interior, please leave a comment below. Many thanks for visiting our online store.