This weekend we finished the renovations on our basement family room. We’ve been working for about a month on weekends and evenings replacing doors, painting, fixing things and decorating.

We decided, since we have two teenage sons, that we’d go with a funky, modern decor.

That’s easier said than done. We don’t want it so modern that we have to change it in the next 5 years, and we wanted it to “fit in” with the rest of our house.

So how do we do that? And what does this mean for business?

These are decisions that businesses have to make regularly — the color of a logo, the color of your business decor, the colors that you use with your promotions.

Here are are 4 recommendations to make your life easy:

1. Research. Look at what others are doing. Magazines, online, in person. Look around — what are the color combinations that others are using, what are the current trends, what is your competition using, do you want to do the same or different?
2. Consider what colors “mean”. Every color has psychological impact. Red is appealing, yellows are declassifying, blues are believable and dreamy, grays are business hardcore, greens are environment and neutrals are just that… neutral!
3. Choose 3 colors. A Primary, Secondary and a Tertiary scheme. In our basement, we used a beige as our primary color. This tied the basement with the upstairs which also uses that color. It’s also fairly “life stable” so it’ll be around for awhile. Then we chose black as our secondary color with lime green as the tertiary. None seem that wild, but the combination creates a great up-to-date look.
4. Consider the use. Now that you have the colors selected, start thinking about where the colors should be used. Think about the function. Like white carpet isn’t practical, or if you have lots of text, you want a big contrast for readability.

I’m pleased with the way things coordinated for our little downstairs room. And we can easily freshen it up later when we outgrow the look. For a business, I would try to use colors that last 7-10 years — unless you’re a very trendy product. Colors are a lot of fun and add so much to your “look”. The more you plan, the better off you’ll be!