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Interior designer Róisín Lafferty has shared five principles for making color choices feel intentional, arguing that a palette should start with a room’s intended mood and a clear reason for each choice. Her guidance includes committing to color across multiple surfaces and using it to shape how people perceive a room, while the source excerpt does not provide the complete text of all five rules.
Interior designer Róisín Lafferty has shared five principles for using color in a home, saying a palette should begin with the feeling a room is meant to create and a clear purpose for each choice. In an interview published by Livingetc, she describes color as an architectural tool that can affect how a space feels and how its proportions and boundaries are perceived, rather than a decorative finish added at the end.
Lafferty says her color palettes often begin with sources beyond paint charts, including veined stone, landscapes, artwork, travel and memories. She then considers how colors relate to materials, light and texture. Her central principle is not to follow fixed rules about which colors belong together, but to make sure each choice has an intention. In her view, a bold palette can still feel balanced when that intention is clear.
The first rule in the article is to decide how people should feel in a room before selecting colors. Lafferty gives a bedroom as a space that may call for a soft, restorative mood, while a dining room can accommodate a richer or more theatrical one. Hallways and other transitional areas, experienced while moving through them, may suit a stronger or less expected treatment.
Her second principle is to commit to a color rather than confining it to a small accent. Lafferty describes carrying color across walls, ceilings, doors and joinery to create an immersive effect. She says her studio has used a deep burgundy across hallways and cobalt blue on staircases, and argues that extending a color through a space can make it feel enveloping rather than louder. The article also identifies using color to manipulate how a room is perceived as a further principle.
Color as a Tool for Shaping Rooms
Lafferty’s advice frames color selection as a decision about mood and spatial experience, not simply personal taste or a paint trend. That approach gives readers a way to connect a palette to how a room is used: a calmer bedroom, a more dramatic dining area or a hallway that has a distinct character as people pass through it.
Her emphasis on extending color beyond walls also points to a practical design choice. Considering ceilings, doors and joinery alongside wall color can change the effect of a palette and make separate surfaces read as a connected environment. Lafferty presents this as design guidance, not a guarantee that a particular treatment will suit every room; light, materials and the intended use still inform the result.
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Lafferty’s Approach to Color
The Livingetc report presents the principles as Lafferty’s personal design practice, not as a set of universal rules or a formal color standard. She says her choices are often instinctive and may grow from a material or image rather than from a paint chart. The article describes her studio as working across interior architecture, art and design, though the supplied material gives no publication date or project-by-project breakdown.
The report’s first two numbered principles focus on emotional intention and committing to a chosen color. It also introduces the idea of using color to change perceptions of proportion, boundaries and movement between rooms. The source material provided here ends partway through that third rule, so it does not establish the full wording or details of all five principles advertised in the headline.
““I use color almost architecturally.””
— Róisín Lafferty, quoted in Livingetc
The Full Five Rules Are Not Available
The supplied Livingetc excerpt does not include the complete article. It identifies the first two rules and begins a third discussion about using color to manipulate a space, but the text cuts off before that principle is fully explained. The remaining rules and their exact wording cannot be confirmed from the material provided.
The source excerpt also gives no publication date, details of the article’s illustrations beyond image captions, or independent evidence about how the described color treatments perform in other homes. The design principles should be understood as Lafferty’s professional perspective, not as measured findings or instructions that apply in every setting.
Further Rules Await the Full Article
Readers seeking the complete five-rule list will need to consult the full Livingetc report. The supplied material does not state whether Lafferty or the publication plans additional coverage, nor does it identify a follow-up interview or a forthcoming design project tied to these recommendations.
For now, the confirmed guidance is to begin with the room’s intended atmosphere, make color choices for a reason, and consider how color across multiple surfaces affects the experience of a space. The remaining principles should not be inferred from the headline alone.
Key Questions
What is Róisín Lafferty’s main advice about choosing color?
Lafferty says to decide how a room should feel before choosing a palette, and to have a clear reason for each color choice.
Does Lafferty recommend using color only on walls?
No. She describes carrying color across ceilings, doors and joinery as well as walls to create a more immersive effect.
What examples of bold color use does the article give?
Lafferty says her studio has used deep burgundy in hallways and cobalt blue on staircases. She presents these as examples from her practice, not prescriptions for every home.
Are all five color rules available in the supplied report excerpt?
No. The excerpt gives the first two rules and starts a third about using color to affect perceptions of space, but it cuts off before the complete five-rule list is shown.
Source: rss
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