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Crisp, considered blocks that never argue: colour blocking composes the room like a painting, in two or three matched colours and sometimes two materials. Here is the art and the craft - with six complete palettes to get you started.
Discover the palettesStart here
Colour blocking sets crisp, sharp-cornered geometric blocks on the walls, in two or three colours that agree: a large rectangle behind a sofa, a high band running towards a door, a square above a console. It is neither an accent wall nor a pattern: it is planes of colour, set out with a tape measure and masking tape, that divide the room into zones and give every piece of furniture its place.
The gesture comes from painting - Mondrian, Rothko, Matisse's cut-outs - and from the architects' studios of the 1920s, where walls were coloured in planes to read the space. It returns today as the step after drenching: once you have understood that one colour can envelop, you learn to make two converse. It asks for colours composed to live together, and finishes that answer each other - precisely what our official pairings and our ranges of finishes allow.
Why it works
Colour blocking is not a style exercise: it plays on how the eye organises a room. Three mechanisms explain its power.
01
A block behind the sofa names the sitting area; a band behind the table names the dining area; a square above the desk names the corner for work. Without a partition or an extra piece of furniture, colour zones the space - the dream gesture for open-plan living rooms and studios.
02
A block is a plinth: the piece set in front of it looks intended, anchored, designed for the spot. A sofa floating in the middle of a great pale wall becomes, on a plane of colour, the centrepiece of the room. The block frames - it does for the furniture what a frame does for a painting.
03
A horizontal block widens a narrow room; a vertical block lifts a low ceiling; an off-centre block rebalances a badly placed window. Where the accent wall submits to the architecture, the block draws it as it pleases - and it takes only a roll of masking tape to draw it again.
Your turn
Pick a palette, then set the blocks one by one: the large plane behind the armchair, the high band towards the door, the square above the radiator. At every step, watch how the room reorganises itself.
The palette
The blocks
In real life a block can also set itself apart by its material - the same colour matt on the field and satin on the block. See the matter of the blocks
Our palettes
Each palette gathers a quiet field, three blocks that agree - the large one, the band, the square - and the white of the ceiling, all drawn from the official Mylands pairings. Every swatch links to its colour, ready to sample.
01 · Sitting rooms & living rooms
A sea blue, a golden sand, a mist blue on a pebble grey: the easiest composition to live with, for bright sitting rooms that face the light.
02 · Kitchens & dining rooms
A sage, an olive green, a touch of violet on a chalk white: the colours of an orchard in April, composed for a dining room or a kitchen.
03 · Bedrooms & dressing rooms
A powder pink, a deep plum, a slate green on a pinkish white: the bedroom composition, soft in the morning, theatrical by evening.
04 · Kitchens, hallways & darker rooms
A frank gold, a delft blue, a pale yellow on a stone white: the composition that manufactures sunshine in a north-facing kitchen or hallway.
05 · Sitting rooms, hallways & children's rooms
A terracotta, a Wedgwood blue, a coral on a chalk white: the most Mediterranean composition - warm, frank, made for southern light.
06 · Studies & evening sitting rooms
An ink blue, a lime green, a verdigris on a porcelain white: the composition of studies and evening rooms, graphic by day, velvety by night.
Going further
The connoisseur's variation: blocks that differ by only half a tone - or by their material. Two neighbours of the same family, one on the field, the other on the block, and the composition reads up close as a relief rather than a contrast. Subtler still: the same colour, matt on the field and satin on the block. Head-on, one plane; from an angle, under the light, the block appears.
The golden rule: neighbouring values. Too frank a step would rebuild the classic block - not a fault, but another gesture. Our official pairings name each colour's family neighbours; that is where tone-on-tone blocks are composed.
Observatory · No.34 on the field, Mayfair Dark · No.218 on the block: two blues of the same family, and the study draws itself without ever breaking the envelope.
Serpentine · No.192 on the field, Greenstone · No.190 on the block: a sage and its paler neighbour, a relief that only appears in raking light.
The matter
Colour blocking rests on two things: a crisp edge and a chosen material. The field in matt, where it drinks the light and forgives imperfections; the block in matt too, or a notch more sheen to bring it forward - a plane in Eggshell on a matt field stands out by its texture as much as by its colour. The woodwork follows the field, with a notch of sheen to shrug off knocks.
This is what makes blocking simple at Mylands: every one of our colours exists in every one of our finishes, and two planes of the same shade in two materials come from the same pigment - the relief is guaranteed, the colour does not shift.
Find your finishThe rules of the art
A block is set out from what it carries: 20 to 30 cm wider than the sofa on each side, floor to cornice or to the height of the door. Draw it in pencil with the furniture in place - never on an empty wall, there is nothing to justify it.
A field and two blocks are enough; a third, smaller block closes the composition. Beyond that the eye no longer reads planes but a pattern. And all three are taken from the official pairings of one shade - coordinating colours and accent - so they never have to argue.
A block with a blurred edge is a stain. Good-quality masking tape, laid on a field dry for 48 hours; a first thin pass in the field colour to seal the edge; then the block, and the tape pulled away at 45° while the paint is still fresh.
A large rectangle behind a sofa or a bedhead is the safest block - and the most spectacular for one tin. Bands, offset squares and blocks that turn the corner come afterwards, once the first has taught you what the room will accept.
Scale and geometry. The accent wall paints a whole wall, corner to corner, as the architecture gives it; the block draws a plane you decide - smaller than the wall, wider than the furniture, at the height you choose - and can set two or three of them talking. The accent wall submits to the room, the block composes it.
A field and two or three blocks, taken from the official pairings of one shade: its coordinating colours for the large planes, its contrasting accent for the small one. Two blocks close in value and a third franker one make the most balanced composition. Our six palettes above are composed exactly so.
The field must be dry for 48 hours. Mark out with a level and pencil, lay good-quality masking tape and press the edge down with a finger, then paint a thin pass in the field colour along the tape: it seals the micro-leaks. Then apply the block colour, and pull the tape away at 45° while the last coat is still fresh.
Marble Matt Emulsion on the field and the blocks - Dead Matt for a dark block - and Eggshell on a block you want in relief: the same colour in two materials stands out under the light. Eggshell or Satin on the woodwork, Marble Matt Emulsion on the ceiling. Every colour exists in every one of our finishes.
Order the 100 ml sample pots of the field and the blocks, and paint them side by side, in their real places on the wall - the field over 50 × 50 cm, each block against it, edge to edge. A pairing is judged at the join, not on separate cards. Our online visualiser also lets you try the colours on a photograph of your own room.
The family
Six ways to wear colour with conviction, from the total envelope to an afternoon's gesture. Each has its page, its rules of the art and six ready-to-paint Mylands palettes.
Torn between an accent wall, coloured woodwork or a dado? See the ways of decorating
Two colours that agree say more than one colour alone - provided you know where one stops and the other begins.
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