How to use the colour wheel as a vital tool in your interior decor

Proven, working relationships between colours are set out for you once you understand how to navigate around the wheel

A bold, modern triadic colour scheme hangs on Little Greene's colour for 2026, Adventurer, a warm aubergine. Hicks Blue (door) and Acorn Mid (fireplace). The sizzling yellow vintage lamp holds its own, €38 per litre, suppliers include Hickeys of Maylor Street, Cork.

Choosing colour is often an overwhelming moment. It can drag on, stall in procrastination and panic, and annihilate the initial confidence you had to throw a colour party all over the room. A virtual mood board held in your hand on the phone, or pinned up in slashes of paint, imagery and tugs of material can help to curate an idea to lead you home to a scheme. Working this way is organic, it’s exciting, but it can be chaotic without a little theory to underpin all that instinctive creativity.

What is the colour wheel?