Spring is all about new life, new beginnings, and colors. After a long, dreary winter, you’re probably needing a pop of color in your life anyways and pastels are the perfect way to do just that without making your home look overwhelming. With the rising interior trend of pastel use in homes and the fast approaching Easter holiday, we thought it would be helpful to give you a few ideas on where to use them, how to use them, and what not to use them with!

Pastel colors are a brilliant way to break up any room that seems overrun by neutral colors. They are best when paired with or next to neutral colors, as they are known for their “great communicating”. Too much grey, black and white may make for a clean space, but can often come across boring and does not accentuate the dimension of your home, whereas pastel colors create a sense of calmness and softness just from the sight of them and help to separate the lack of color in a room. Because pastels are created with just enough white to soften the color but not enough to eliminate the integrity of the base color, you are left with more of a fresh, peaceful tint of your color choice while still maintaining brightness and some vibrancy. Often colors with black undertones give off more of a dark, gloomy feel and can even create the illusion that your space is smaller and more crowded than it actually is. Not to mention, colors with a black undertone are often colors that are on the more eye-catching side of the color wheel, so if you are going for a subtle pop of color or a color that can be decorated and redecorated for each season, paint with black undertones may not be what you’re looking for!

Loving pastels and wanting them in your home is the easy part, but where to start and how to use a pale color palette is a totally different ballgame! Because pastel colors are so desaturated, it’s important to understand that a single stand-alone pastel hue may miss the mark. In order to bring the color to life and get the most out of it, it’s best when used collectively. Paint a larger space or an entire room to bring out the base color you chose or use several pastel colors together. In doing so, you will effortlessly channel a vintage, summery vibe into your home. Another point worth mentioning, if you had full intentions for just using the pastel color as an accent color or if you are nervous that too much color isn’t your style, you can easily add in décor pieces that highlight your color scheme and help to draw in the accent color(s) in your home! Although the easiest and probably most inexpensive way to add pastels to your home is to use interior paint, adding in matching decorations, furniture, blankets, rugs, and throw pillows is just as affective and will help to tie together the entire room.

The best parts about using pastels in your home is that because pastels are so desaturated, you can use even the colors most people would stray away from. Purple is one of those colors that is liked by so many and yet, not often used in houses. A lilac hue gives you the pop of purple you wanted, while still playing down the vibrancy of its base color enough to bring in that clean, calming sense. Not only can you use virtually any base color, but pastels allow you to experiment with the location you want the color to be too. Although some colors are not common kitchen colors anymore, such as yellow as it was in the 2000s, tints of it are making a huge comeback to give you that color you wanted without dating your homes style!

One of the most common, and in my opinion, one of the best ways to use pastels is with white. Although the color is muted, white helps to heighten the effects of pastels and allows for the color to speak for itself while avoiding an overwhelming contrast to the white used in your space. If you are looking to add more of a sleek, contemporary feel to your home, combining pastels with grey will do just that. Using a desaturated color with grey offers more of a soothing, warm appearance rather than the clean, fresh appearance the pastel with white option offers. Another really great way to incorporate pastels into your home is by using a monochromatic saturation of your favorite hue, but this option is for the bold and brave! Pick your base color out and use this to play off of. The color you choose will dominate your space, so it’s important to remember not to go overboard unless that’s your intentions for the space. Once your color is decided on, gradually add in different tints of that color to decorate your space. Start with your bedding, add in different tints of pillow cases, pull out the throw blanket you had tucked away in a similar shade, get a rug to match, maybe some new shelving, add some table-top décor, and anything else you see fit. You’ll see the room come together and you’ll see the dimension the different tints bring to your space, but keep in mind that this method is all about excessive color. If you like this idea, but not to this extent, try using different tints of color in a white or grey room. Because you are not seeing a massive color change in your space, the transition won’t be as dramatic and will give you some time to adjust to your new, colorful home!

We hope by the end of this you are feeling a little inspired and maybe all this talk about the use of pastels has you ready to add a little color into your home too! 

Happy Easter, all!