Róisín Lafferty’s Five Rules For Using Color

TL;DR

Before you orderOffer from Amazon

Get home appliances delivered free with Prime

• Fast, free delivery on millions of items
• Prime Video, Amazon Music and more included
• Member-only deals all year

Start your free Prime trial →Free trial for eligible customers · Cancel anytime

As an affiliate, we earn on qualifying purchases.Hide

In an interview with Livingetc, interior designer Róisín Lafferty outlined five principles for using color, beginning with the mood a room should create and the reason behind each choice. Her approach favors committing to color and using it across surfaces and materials, rather than treating it as a final decorative accent.

Interior designer Róisín Lafferty has set out five principles for using color in a home, arguing that choices should start with a room’s intended mood and have a clear purpose. In an interview published by Livingetc, she described color as an architectural tool that can affect how a space feels and is perceived—not simply a finishing layer on the walls.

Lafferty said her palettes often begin with sources beyond paint charts, including stone, landscape, art, travel and memory. She considers the relationships among color, material, light and texture, and said a colored object or surface can establish a room’s emotional character as powerfully as paint.

Her first principle is to decide how people should feel in a room before selecting its palette. She suggested that a bedroom may call for a soft, restorative atmosphere, while a dining room could support a richer or more theatrical treatment. Hallways, which people experience in motion, may suit stronger or less expected colors.

Lafferty also recommends committing to a chosen color by carrying it across elements such as walls, ceilings, doors and joinery. She said this does not require using one identical shade everywhere: related tones and materials can create a more enveloping effect. Her other principles, as presented in the report, include using color to shape the perception of space, building palettes through tonal relationships or contrast rather than exact matching, and giving each decision a clear reason.

Color as a Tool for Shaping Rooms

Lafferty’s advice offers homeowners and decorators a way to approach color that goes beyond choosing a favorite shade. Starting with the intended mood can help guide decisions about where color appears and how it relates to furnishings, finishes and light. That makes the approach relevant even when a room is not being fully repainted: a rug, artwork, stone surface or light fitting can provide the starting point for a palette.

Her emphasis on carrying color across architectural details also reframes a common design decision. Instead of treating doors, ceilings and trim as separate neutral elements, her approach considers them part of the same composition. Whether that is right for a particular home depends on its proportions, lighting and the effect its occupants want; Lafferty’s examples are design guidance, not a guarantee of a particular result.

From Paint Choice to Room Atmosphere

The Livingetc report presents Lafferty’s own design philosophy and examples from her work. She said she has not viewed color as a decorative stage added at the end of a project. In her account, it can emphasize or dissolve boundaries, draw the eye through a room and change how neighboring spaces relate to one another.

Among the examples she described were hallways finished in a deep burgundy paint she calls “Moves Like Jagger” and staircases in cobalt blue. She also said her studio uses two different tones—Zallal on the walls and Dahana on the ceiling—to create an enveloping room. These are examples of her practice, rather than findings from a comparative study of interior design choices.

“I use color almost architecturally.”

— Róisín Lafferty, speaking to Livingetc

What the Published Guidance Leaves Open

The supplied report excerpt does not provide a complete, clearly enumerated list of all five rules or the full text of the sections describing them. Its discussion includes mood, commitment to color, color’s effect on spatial perception, and palette-building through related tones or contrast; the remaining principles are not fully specified in the available material. The examples and advice are Lafferty’s professional perspective, not independently tested claims about how every color scheme will affect every room.

The source material also does not include a publication date, details of the projects shown in the accompanying images, or information about how Lafferty’s examples perform under different lighting conditions. Those details cannot be confirmed from the supplied report.

Applying the Principles at Home

The report does not announce a product launch, design project or scheduled follow-up. For readers using the advice, the next step is to identify the feeling a room should create, then look at existing materials and objects that might anchor a palette before settling on paint. Lafferty’s method also suggests testing how a color relates to surfaces such as ceilings, doors and joinery, rather than judging it only on a small paint sample.

Any practical result will depend on the room and its occupants. The source offers no timetable or additional announcement from Lafferty or Livingetc, so further developments are not specified.

Key Questions

What are the main ideas in Róisín Lafferty’s color advice?

She recommends deciding on a room’s intended mood first, committing to color across more than one surface, and using color to influence how the space is perceived. She also favors palettes with a clear rationale over fixed rules about which shades belong together.

Does Lafferty say every surface should be the same color?

No. She says commitment does not mean using one identical shade on every surface. Different but related tones can work together, and she describes layering color through materials, upholstery, lacquer, glass, artwork and lighting.

Where does Lafferty find ideas for a palette?

She told Livingetc that ideas may come from veined stone, landscapes, artwork, travel or memory. The palette then develops through the relationships among color, materials, light and texture.

Are these rules proven to work in every home?

The source presents them as Lafferty’s design principles and examples from her work, not as universal or experimentally tested rules. A color’s effect can depend on the room, its light, its materials and the preferences of the people using it.

Source: rss