apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I never stick little paint chips on a wall - it's too easy to say "That looks bad" because you don't like the contrast with the existing wall color - besides the chips are too small to get a feel for.

I just go to the paint store - obsess over the chips for a while - then make a selection and slap it up on the wall. While I'm painting the wall, I freak out a little thinking "What have I done?" - but after I let the paint dry and get the furniture back into the room 9 times out of 10 it comes out looking great.

I think choosing paint color first is the hardest possible way to go, and is in fact the very reason why chossing paint feels so difficult.

I've learned that if you have your furnishings, textiles, art, and all the rest selected, wall color becomes almost obvious. When you can hold all the fabrics up to a swatch in all kinds of lighting, it's easy to narrow down to which shades of any chosen colors will work. It's still worth putting a sample on the wall before committing to all the work -- you may discover that the color doesn't work the trim you already had and you don't feel like repainting the trim, for example, or you forgot to consider the color of your carpet.

what is that blue color? love it!

i'm with bepsf on this one.

In my first house, I obsessed over paint chips and a Pantone fan deck before looking up one night at a plaque I had on my wall -- and realizing it was the exact shade of yellow I wanted. When the painter arrived a couple of days later, I just handed him the plaque and said, "Match this."

Work in broad strokes first before you get too specific with colors. Consider the overall design and style of the place first, and see what kind of color palette lends itself to that style. Pale whites and neutrals? Eye-popping hues? Dark, subtle tones? You probably already have a sense of what you like and can pick a direction to start with.

Color has three properties: hue, value, and saturation. Many people think of color in terms of hue first (red/blue/green etc.), saturation second (bright or subtle), and value (light/medium/dark) last -- if they even consider it at all! This is actually the reverse order to use when choosing paint colors for an interior!

Don't try to start by picking a hue. Start by picking a value (light/medium/dark) instead. This is what's going to have the biggest impact on the "feel" of a room, since dark wall colors tend to make the space feel smaller and more intimate while pale colors and whites reflect more light and tend to make a room feel more spacious (there are exceptions to this rule of course).

Then move on to saturation. Does your palette include vivid colors that leap forward to make a "punchy" statement; or does it require soft tones that visually recede and become a pleasing background for the rest of the furnishings?

Then move on to hues. You probably already know what you like and what hues will tie together your furnishings.

Go get multiple paint chips that are variations of the value/hue/saturation chosen and bring them home. Like others have said you'll need to compare paint swatches against the surrounding colors like flooring and trim.

Oh man, that blue is amazing

When I'm at the hardware store standing in front of the walls of paint chips, the first thing I do is find chips that match the shade(s) of my furniture, appliances, flooring, doors and molding (if you're not painting that, too), and other major visual objects.

I wanted to paint a huge multipurpose living/dining/open kitchen room in my apartment once. It was a huge task and I couldn't seem to decide on a color.

Once I had the beige of the carpet, the tan of the couch, the different browns of the wood furniture, the white of the moldings and cabinets and countertops, and the black of the kicthen appliances in my hand (yes, it was a hideous apartment), the perfect blue jumped out at me.

begin with a mini acrylic set and mix colors and put them on canvas. See what you like. Also, collect pics of colors that appeal to you and then evaluate what you really like.

looks like benjamin moore buxton blue - that's what i've got up in my dining room!

As someone picking colors (rather than just white) for the first time, I worked with a wonderful color consultant. And we did slap samples up on the walls before committing to the colors. I love the results - you can see my office here. The colors were picked to complement the art, and to achieve a specific feel.

In my living room, the only good option (given the colors already in the room, from the furnishings) was an off-white. Out of the hundreds available, she zeroed in on one that works perfectly. It would have taken me forever to do that myself.

In the apartment I painted that worked out best, my roommate and I picked out and agreed upon a small decorating item (in this case, a blue placemat with yellow flowers on it), and took it to the store. We painted the walls blue and used the other colors in the placemat as accent colors throughout the room.

Professional designers, whether it be textiles or furniture or art, have a great eye for color, and it's easy to "borrow" their expertise in this way and benefit from it.