How To Generate A Color Palette For Your Dollhouse And Create The Best Dollhouse Color Schemes?

I have struggled a lot with this question: how to generate a color palette and create some good dollhouse color schemes?

Especially when I am working on my DIY dollhouse kits, oftentimes I do not like the colors and I want to hack everything. (my gosh, that orange dollhouse furniture haha!)

Most of the time, it is a matter of taste (like I made my kit from Robotime in black with red accents), but some insights can tell you how to arrange a suitable color palette.

And today, we will dive a little deeper into this topic.

TIP: If you don’t want to dive way too deep into color schemes, I do have ONE BIG TIP for you! KEEP IT SIMPLE! Just keep to a few basic colors, about 4 of them, and use the same ones for your entire dollhouse!

Updated 03/01/24

But first: how to choose the right dollhouse colors schemes for your different rooms?

Well, besides choosing a certain color for personal reasons and personal taste, as I did with the miniature kit above ( black cat means some black in my café haha), there are several reasons why you would choose certain colors for certain rooms.

As this applies to real-size homes, I would translate this to dollhouses as well.

A few examples of what I mean:

1. Choosing the right dollhouse colors for your bedroom.

Choosing the right colors for your bedroom is quite important for your sleep and well-being.

I think that it is obvious that color has a huge impact on a person’s psyche and emotions.

According to research by Travelodge, a British company that has over 500 hotels and looked into colors and sleep behavior; people who sleep in a blue room, sleep for 7 hours and 52 minutes.

Other favorite colors for a good night’s sleep are yellow, green, silver, and orange.

For this, Travelodge asked 2000 UK households about the quality of their sleep patterns and the color patterns used in their hotel bedrooms.

Here are the color results for better sleep:

– Blue: Calming

A bedroom that contains a lot of the color blue has been proven that people tend to sleep best in them. This is probably because blue has a calming effect.

The color blue can even cause a reduction in blood pressure and heart rhythm, which are good ingredients for a good night’s sleep after all 😉

– Yellow: Relaxation

The color yellow scores the second best in the list of good colors for bedrooms.

British households with yellow bedrooms sleep an average of 7 hours and 50 minutes.

This color stimulates the nervous system and thus promotes relaxation.

To top it off, yellow creates a cozy environment and makes you fall asleep naturally!

– Green: soothing

Although a little bit less on average, the color green also ensures a good night’s sleep.

Its score is third place in the rankings, with 7 hours and 36 minutes on the counter.

This is because green is soothing, and calming and makes us fall asleep easily.

– Silver: comfort and luxurious

With an average of three minutes less than green ( 7 hours and 33 minutes of sleep per night ), silver would still be a good choice for your bedroom.

And in the meantime, you are giving your bedroom a luxurious look and some “shine”, like the moon, which could make our bodies think that it is nighttime and it is time to sleep!

– Orange: stability

Ending in the fifth and last spot is orange, with an average of 7 hours and 28 minutes per night.

Orange relaxes the muscles and gives a room warmth and a stable environment, which is ideal for falling asleep.

This study also showed that colors like purple, brown, and gray performed less well.

So it does seem like cozy and cheerful colors not just provide a great feeling during the day, but also make you sleep better, how bout that?

Do you still want dark colors in the bedroom? You can still cheer it up with colorful decoration pieces, like paintings or vases..

2. Choosing the right colors for your (dollhouse) living room.

Again, choosing a color for your dollhouse living room can be based on real-size living rooms.

Unless, of course, you would like to create a fantasy dollhouse like a fairy house ;-), then you would have “organic and natural colors” of some kind.

In a living room, color is one of the most important ambiance makers to creating a safe and warm feeling to it, so that when you come home after a stressful day, you will forget all your worries 🙂

The right color for your living room can also help create a larger visual space, by accentuating certain walls, for example, to make the living room appear larger, or more intimate.

How to make a living room look larger?

To have a small living room look larger, the best thing to use is colors with a light tone.

Paint the walls and the ceiling in the same color to create an even more spacious feel, or you can also paint the ceiling in a slightly lighter color.

Horizontal color accents, on the other hand, can also brighten things up and provide more depth in the living room. Of course, adding decoration pieces like colorful paintings or picture frames can create more depth.

How to make a living room appear lower?

If your living room is built in an old factory or is a mansion or your dollhouse is Victorian or luxurious with high ceilings, then you might want to do the opposite than trying to make them appear larger, as “the feel” isn’t that cozy anymore.

You can solve this problem by painting the ceiling a darker color, which immediately makes the room visually smaller.

Applying horizontal color areas can also “break” a room into smaller spaces.

To create a more intimate atmosphere, you can of course use other things than colors, by adding hanging lamps and floor lamps, for example.

Here are a few tips to change the look of your living room by using colors:

Choosing a WHITE living room.

White is the most used “color” for living rooms, that is because it is a neutral color, ensuring that a living room looks spacious and will never feel old-fashioned.

Another advantage of using white is that about all types of furniture will go well with white walls, regardless of the material.

A disadvantage of white is that it can start to look boring and impersonal, so creating some personality with eye-catching furniture or decorations or a possible accent wall, can bring things to life!

Earth tones in a living room.

Using earth tones such as terracotta, sand colors, warm gray tones, and lime green, you create a calming and southern feeling in the living room.

The furniture that goes well with this is antique and neutral furniture.

Pastel Shades in the living room.

If you like an elegant and summery atmosphere, pastel shades can bring this to life.

You can use colors such as sandy beige, lime green and light gray, and even pink. The Shabby-Chic style uses the latter a lot.

Pastel-colored walls draw little attention and focus on the interior of a room, so keep that in mind.

Using bright colors in a living room.

If there is one thing that you can say about bright colors, is that they can definitely have a huge influence on someone’s mood.

This is because we tend to associate this with nice things:

• yellow = a bright sun!
• blue = water, a blue sky, and the sea
• green= association with beautiful lawns

Using these colors usually reflects your own active personality.

The downside of this can be that it could make it harder to reach a calm state of mind and tranquility to wind down in the evenings.

3. Choosing the right colors for a kitchen.

You can basically add a whole bunch of colors to your kitchen, but here are 10 ideas to choose from :

1 – White: fresh and clean.

White is a pretty standard color for a kitchen, because of its clean look, but it doesn’t need to be boring at all.

When a white kitchen is for example finished with a high gloss, it can have a chic and modern look. Also, you can add some color to the rear walls, fixtures, and accessories.

2 – Cream: warm and inviting

Instead of pure white, a warm cream color fits into every kitchen style as well and you can also combine this easily with tons of other colors such as royal blue.

3 – Red: stimulates the appetite

Red is just what you need to stimulate your loved ones’ appetite!

But be careful what shade of red to use though, as it can be too much to handle.

Use a matte color and don’t use it for the whole kitchen, but only for specific parts of the kitchen.

4 – Green, make a statement!

Bringing green to the kitchen is really “out there”, just like red, especially if you use a green apple color.

If would you like a calmer look for your kitchen, then rather use olive green.

5 – Yellow: bring the sun inside!

It’s not very common to bring the sun into your kitchen, with that I mean the color yellow.

But why not try it out if you want an eye-catcher?

Combining yellow with gray can create a romantic nostalgic atmosphere.

6 – Orange: a warm but bold appearance

Like red and yellow, orange has different shades of color, and because of this it surely can be used in the kitchen.

Try combining soft pumpkin orange for example with dark wooden fronts for a very warm appearance.

7 – Gray: a modern look.

Gray is quite popular these days for interiors and even exteriors.

Like white though, it is actually a fairly safe color that you can combine with lavender or turquoise, for example.

8 – Blue: a new diet?

Blue, on the contrary to red, actually reduces your appetite. Maybe you are happy with that for your kitchen when on a diet haha!

So while the color bleu can be tricky, when done correctly, it can give you a nice result though!

Bleu is also very fitting for a nostalgic kitchen.

9 – Brown: soft and warm.

The color brown has been quite popular in for example Dutch interiors for decades. It creates a soft and warm atmosphere and is timeless.

You can combine it with clear white for a spatial effect.

10 – Black: is chic!

Looking for something different for your kitchen? Then you can partly color the front of the kitchen, but I would leave the rear walls, floor and kitchen accessories white.

This combination looks quite chic, especially when executed in high gloss.

Using a black matt gloss creates a more calm look.

4. Choosing the right colors for a bathroom.

Now, choosing colors for the bathroom, is a lot simpler, as you would expect 😉

As bathrooms usually don’t get renovated for 20 to 30 years, it is advisable to choose a color that will remain pretty for years to come.

It is also quite important to choose bathroom furniture with a timeless color. The next tips will help you make your color choice.

– First of all: Classic White is always good for a bathroom.

Remember the 70s and 80s when everything was very brightly colored and had busy patterns in the homes?

Ever since then, luckily in my opinion lol, white returned as a basic color for the bathroom.

White stands for pure and clean and is now again frequently used in the bathroom.

White toilets, sinks, shower floors, walls, and white tiles, this color has a timeless look in the bathroom and combines well.

To add some color though to all this white, you can add accessories that have colors, like:

• fabrics such as towels, bath mats, and shower curtains
• soap dispensers, toothbrush holders, towel holders
• vases, jars, colored glasses, candles
• colorful lamps and colorful toilet flush plate
  

Other colors that you could use in a bathroom are:

– Sand colors: a warm feeling

Sand and nude tones have a soothing effect on the eye and mind, as they visualize peace and harmony.

– Shades of Gray

There are many different shades of gray ( apparently so say some book authors haha ).

Adding a small amount of brown, and gray looks warm, and with a blue cast, it has a cooling effect.

Accessories with red, yellow, or turquoise also go quite well with a gray bathroom.

– Pastel shades:

Light blue, rosé, mint, etc, provide lightness and well-being in the bathroom.

The nice thing about pastel colors is that, in addition to white, they always look fresh and friendly.

Choosing an accent color for your dollhouse scheme

If you want to have an eye-catching accent on walls, you can use an accent color.

Don’t be afraid to play around and experiment with colors and patterns.

After a few years, you could get tired of the accent wall, but I would think it can be easily painted over.

If you want to give a room a quick and different look, creating an accent on your walls is a fantastic method.

You can also get creative by using other materials than just paint, like a different texture, pattern, artwork, or architectural element.

Are you still with me? Sorry if it has taken too long to get to the main point of the title of this article haha. Hang in there!

That’s me: I get carried away when writing about this stuff! 🙂

So, almost there: what is a color pallet and how many colors can you generate with a color palette?

A color pallet is a set of colors that a painter can use in his work, and many dozens of different colors are available on the market.

You don’t need all those colors at all, you can get quite good results with a limited variety of paint.

And remind you, you can get different colors by mixing them up as well.

You can for example create purple by mixing blue and red and go lighter to violet by adding white, the possibilities are endless!

A color wheel is basically a circle containing all basic colors, and it starts with the primary colors red, blue, and yellow.

With these colors, you can create secondary colors such as orange, green and purple, and tertiary colors such as magenta, olive green, and turquoise.

There are twelve basic colors on a color wheel.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, FINALLY: HOW TOO GENERATE A COLOR PALETTE?

Let’s split this up into several questions and I will answer them all for you.

The reason I am writing it this way is that writing a big chunk of text would get cluttered for me, as well as for you.

Remember, I am not a professional writer, so here we go ! 😉

How can you combine colors?

By combining colors that are laying next to each other on a color wheel, you can create harmonious color combinations.

Frequently used combinations are orange-red, blue-turquoise, and green-yellow.

To get shades of colors, they can be combined with neutral tones such as white, gray, or black.

How many colors does a color pallet have?

There are 12 basic colors on a color pallet wheel.

Which colors don’t match together?

There are certain color combinations that just don’t go together well.

Complementary colors are actually colors that clash, as these are opposite each other on a color wheel.

They can also reinforce each other, so we prefer to not use them for fashion or home interiors.

The following pairs of colors are not going well together:

• yellow-purple
• orange yellow- purple blue
• Orange-blue
• Orange-red- Blue green
• Red-green
• Red purple-yellow green

Try to mix those colors together, and you will get dark gray, you can try it yourself!

Is there an app or tool to create a color palette?

Yes, there are actually tons of online tools to create a color palette and click on the link below to find 10 free tools that you can use to generate that color scheme!

You can find an oversight here of 10 free online tools to generate your perfect color palette.

Besides these ten, I would really also recommend trying Canva to create your color palette, the video below explains to you how to apply it.

Can I make a color palette from an image?

Oh yes for sure, you can make a color palette from an image by using one of the tools and apps from the paragraph above.

You will need to upload your image to the software that you are using, look for the eyedropper icon in the toolbar, and open the color picker tool.

After that, you can choose a color that you want to use for generating your color palette, and it will show you the color code for that color, which is called HEX.

This is how each of these software works to make a color palette from an image.

What is the 60-30-10 rule?

The 60-30-10 rule is created to provide more balance in any room.

This rule is very simple: use the first color for 60% of the room, the second color for 30% of the room, and the third for 10%.

Just choose three colors that go together well and go from there. (of course, you can use all kinds of shades of colors)

How do I choose a color scheme for miniatures?

And last, but not least, we must not forget our miniatures, of course!

How are we going to generate a color palette for our dollhouses and miniatures?

First of all: I know what it is like to try and decide which colors you will use for your miniatures and dollhouses.

Here’s where I chip in with my own opinion and thoughts on this topic.

I could be short and say: “well, it is totally up to you!“, but that would be a tad too easy, isn’t it?

BUT, this is actually very true!

Besides the “wrong combinations” that I spoke about above, it totally depends on your own taste, mood, what’s in fashion, and even the time of the year ( like for winter miniature scenes ) or the color of your clothes!

A few things that I advise though:

• definitely use the color wheel
  
  
• do not use complementary colors (as explained above)
  
  
• choose if you want energizing colors or calming colors for all of your rooms (as explained above)
  
  
• Start out with the color of the walls and create a base color, from which on you can decide on any accent colors and accessories.
  
  Try not to do it the other way and buy or create miniature furniture and only then the colors of your walls, floors, and ceiling.
  
  Unless of course you already have the furniture first.
  
  
• To paint a dollhouse I would use a minimum of three different colors and a maximum of five colors. One of the colors being a brighter accent color.
  
  The most popular color scheme for dollhouses is three colors, this makes it the easiest color scheme option.
  
  
• Have fun!

Related article:

• How to paint a dollhouse? Assemble the dollhouse first!

My Final Conclusion

I hope that you enjoyed this article on how to generate a color palette and how to choose a color scheme for your dollhouse, it turned out quite long sorry haha

But I did want to include most of the rooms of a (doll)house so that you can get a general idea of the colors used the most for each room.

If you have any more questions about this topic, feel free to leave them down below in the comment section or if you would just like to chat with me, you are welcome to do that as well!

You can also join my social media channels or Facebook group which is getting larger by the day!

I wish you happy crafting!

Kind regards,

Lizzy

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