Paint Colours for a North Facing Room

If you’re decorating a south facing room, the choice of wall colours is endless due to the beautiful warm light during the day.

But what about north facing rooms? They can appear cold, even gloomy and often carry a grey or green hue due to the lack of sunlight coming in. Bright colours can appear very flat in a north facing room. This aspect can be challenging to decorate, but not if you follow a few tried and tested colour theories for north orientated spaces.

Image Credit: Colourtrend. Colour: City Dusk

1. Choose neutral colours with a warm undertone.

If you want to paint your north facing room in a neutral colour, steer clear of colours that have a grey undertone because the colour will appear as a darker, colder grey in the space. Instead, opt for neutral colours with a yellow or pink undertone. These will help to warm up the room and make it feel more inviting.

Here are some beautiful neutral colours that are worth considering in your north facing room:

• Colourtrend Batch Loaf

• Dulux Rich Taupe

• Little Greene Silent White

• Fleetwood Jet Stream (Pantone Collection)

• Farrow & Ball New White

Image Credit: Colourtrend. Colour: Batch Loaf

2. Embrace the dark.

Rather than trying to brighten up your north facing room, embrace the darker light and choose a dark colour on your walls. This will create a cosy, comforting and moody atmosphere, and dark colours really come into their own by night when lit with accent lighting such as corner lamps.

If you want to go with a darker colour in your north facing space, consider some of these beauties:

• Curator Forecast by Orla Langan

• Little Greene Etruria

• Colourtrend Source

• Fleetwood Rivington Rain (Vogue Collection)

• Farrow & Ball Down Pipe

Image Credit: Little Greene. Colour: Etruria

3. Choose warming reds, terracottas, pinks or purples.

A north facing room is the perfect space to experiment with reds, pinks and purples. Sometimes these colours can appear too warm in a south facing room, but they are the perfect choice to create cosiness, warmth and a unique look in a north facing room.

Here are a few of my top choices.

• Colourtrend City Dusk

• Curator Chestnut Grain by Conor Holden

• Fleetwood Purple Dove (Pantone Collection)

• Little Greene Tuscan Red

• Farrow & Ball Sulking Room Pink

• Fleetwood Betsy 1920 Deep (Vogue Collection)

• Colourtrend Pink Chocolate

Image Credit: Colourtrend. Colour: Pink Chocolate

Remember, always buy a tester pot and paint about 1 metre x 1 metre on your wall, live with it for a few days in the various lights throughout the day, and then make your final decision. Your north facing room is in for a treat!