If you want to give your master bedroom an exotic makeover, paint and color are important tools to achieve your aim. Unfortunately, just painting it red will not turn it into a sensual love nest. Though color is key to creating mood, the ambiance of a room also depends on furnishings, lighting and architecture, not color alone.

Although some decor styles work with different colors, others work with a particular palette. For example, the cozy Tuscan look depends on earthy colors. Substitutions wouldn’t work. Minimalist architecture eschews boldness and noise in favor of neutral colors, uncluttered lines and simple forms. Particular styles invite particular color schemes. Ignoring this can defeat your efforts to create atmosphere with a paint makeover.

Your furniture and decor style may give you inspiration for an appropriate color scheme. Taking your lead from your room instead of trying to make a room fit a color scheme is the sensible route. That doesn’t mean you have to be timid, but breaking the rules of good interior design can produce a jarring effect that is antithetical to ambiance. A color wheel can help you choose contrasting and complementary colors.

Which Mood?

If you are intent on creating a certain mood, first ask yourself if the room and the furnishings will support it. If not, you may need to refurbish. If your furniture is stylistically reasonably neutral, you will be able to utilize most color schemes to create the mood you want.

Colors and Atmosphere

Pastels and Neutral Colors:

If you want your master bedroom to be a calm retreat, neutral colors contribute to a feeling of peace and spaciousness. Most styles of furniture will go with these undemanding colors.

Primary Colors:

Clear, bright colors can add cheerful or sophisticated notes to a plain master bedroom furnished in a contemporary or rustic style.

Rich and Deep Colors:

Antique furniture in dark wood invites deep, rich colors to complement it. The result can be exotic and luxurious, perfect for some master bedrooms.

Earthy Colors:

Depending on the depth of color, these colors too can help create a warm and sensual atmosphere.

Blue and White:

This is a simple, cool and timeless color scheme that has rustic and traditional overtones rather than evoking the passion of the boudoir.

Black and White:

High contrast black and white color schemes suit rooms with unfussy furnishings, producing a cool, sophisticated look.

Browns and Burgundies:

Few colors can be both neutral and warm, but these fit the bill. They are especially useful for master bedrooms whose occupants want to avoid frilly femininity.

Lighting, Color and Mood

If color is crucial to creating atmosphere, it is in turn dependent on lighting, both natural and artificial. Light can bleach or deepen colors and dramatically alter a room’s atmosphere of. If using blues in a cool room, choose shades with more warmth. Similarly, if using yellows in a warm room, go for cooler shades.

Colored lights are one way of manipulating mood in a room without necessarily painting and changing soft furnishings. The right light can turn a bedroom that is neutral and cool by day into a room that is full of warmth and sensuality at night.