5 Ways to Get Blue Into Your Living Room Color Palette

If you’re looking to update your living room and you like the color blue, this article is for you. I’m going show you how to use blue color palettes.

These five interior design tips will help you work blue into the color palette of your living room. Plus, you’ll see examples below for each one of these five tips.

1. You Don’t Have to Use Paint

If you want to use blue in your living room, you don’t have to paint the walls of your living room blue. In this first example, the walls are blue and they’ve used blue paint to set the color palette.

But in this second living room, the walls are neutral. Note the living room still has a lot of blue in it to set the color palette.

2. Decide the Mood to Set

Color can be used to set a mood. Blue is typically a cool color, but you can warm it up. In this first light blue example, the tone of the room is cool. It makes the living room feel more relaxing and serene.

In the second living room, where blue is still a big part of the color scheme, they’ve used more of a gray shade of blue that gives it a warmer feeling. They’ve also decorated with a lot of warm accents to make the space feel cozy.

Just because you’re using blue doesn’t mean the space has to feel calm and relaxing. It can feel warm and cozy. It just depends on the shade of blue that you use and what you pair with the blue.

3. Use 60-30-10 Rule

When you’re setting a color palette, you want to use what’s called the 60-30-10 rule. You can use this rule by picking a dominant color and then using some accent colors. If you want to use blue in your living room, it doesn’t have to be the dominant color. It can be an accent color. 

In this first example, the dominant color is white. They’ve used a turquoise blue in the rug and the artwork as the secondary color. 

Along with the 60-30-10 concept, there’s a design tactic about dispersing the color around your room. If you want blue to be part of your color scheme, don’t use it in just one place. You want to sprinkle it around the room in different elements.

In this example, the living room is pink and blue. They used blue in a lot of places around the room. Blue is incorporated in the living room with the curtains, chairs, rugs, and throw pillows.

4. Consider the Fixed Elements

The fourth tip is that anytime you’re setting a color palette in any color, you need to consider the fixed elements in the room. Fixed elements are items you can’t change and incorporate those into your color palette. 

In this example, the flooring is the fixed element. There are also wood beams that are usually expensive to change or paint. They’ve worked these beams into the color palette by using that same wood tone in some of the furnishings. They’ve used blue as more of a secondary color. It’s in the rug, upholstery, painted furniture, and throw pillows.

5. High Contrast or Low Contrast

The fifth thing is to consider whether you like a high contrast or a low contrast style of room. This coastal living room is a high contrast example. There’s a lot of contrast between the white and the blue in the room.

In this example that we saw earlier of a light blue living room, it’s a low contrast because the colors are in the same range.

I hope you’ll think about these five design tips if you want to use blue when you’re redecorating your living room.

Comment below on the color that you’d like to see, and I’ll try to find examples in every style. If you don’t know what your style is,

I’ve got a style quiz that shows you examples of all the different styles. Take the quiz to figure out which design style speaks to you.