Sometimes there is nothing quite so daunting as a big, blank wall, waiting to be painted. With all the time, money and effort that painting entails, you want to be sure that you're actually going to like the finished product. Read on for some tips on how to choose color wisely.
Consider your light.
First of all, you should be realistic about your space and the colors that will work within it, and light plays a big role here. White and pale colours look great in light-flooded rooms, but can look dingy and sad in a basement apartment or a North-facing home. It might seem contrary, but a warmer, darker shade can actually improve a room which doesn't get much light. The good news is that with such a huge spectrum to choose from, whatever color you're after, you can probably find a version of it to suit your home.
Neutrals aren't really.
Beiges, taupes and greys might seem safe, but these so-called "neutrals" can be a color minefield. You'll want to pay close attention to the undertones of your floors, furniture and any large elements in the room, and try to stay consistent with your new wall color. Got a pinky-beige carpet in your rental that you can't tear out? That cool grey might not work so well, and you might be better off with a warmer, pink-based taupe.
Gather as many swatches as you can.
Let's assume that now you know the general color you want for your room: a dark blue, a light grey, a vibrant orange or whatever. Your first step is to go to the paint/hardware store and grab as many swatches as you can. Swatches that are lighter than what you think you want, swatches that are darker, swatches that are warmer or cooler or anywhere in the general color family you're after. They'll all look a little different when you get them home, so don't be too quick to dismiss in-store.
Don't pay too much attention to brand, either; you can always have a base paint tinted to a color you like on another company's swatch card. The best swatches are as large as possible and printed full-bleed. The white lines in between and around colors only serve to confuse the eyes, so if you have swatches with those, cut them up!
Compare, compare, compare.
It's next to impossible to judge a color on its own, so get those swatches into the room you want to paint. Hold them vertically against the wall everywhere: by the floorboards, next to the window, behind your artwork and next to the sofa. Do this in the morning, afternoon and evening. Gradually, you'll dismiss the ones which won't work and (hopefully) be left with 2–3 top contenders.
Do a (thorough) swatch test.
Once you've chosen the colors most likely to work, go buy a small sample tin of each. Paint largish swatches (at least 10" square) of each color on the walls in several parts of the room. Then wait for at least a couple of days, observing the colors at different times of the day, in different lighting conditions. At this point, one of them should jump out at you screaming "Pick me, pick me!" (If it doesn't, go back to the last step).
Do you have any other tips for choosing color? Chime in below!
(Image: Sarah's Contemporary Color in London)
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Great ideas, but I don't generally recommend my clients paint their color options directly on the wall. If you do this , the color beneath will affect the new color options and one another. A much better option is to paint the color on white foam core board. You can then place the color boards around the room to see how they will look in different areas of the room. Colors often look different near windows vs. interior walls. Good Luck!
Jula that's a great idea! I've been too scared to paint, even a swatch, for fear of committing to a color that might not look so great in the end.
Use Swatch Right for testing wall colors. They are paint-peel-and-stick removable color sample decals. Paint it once, stick it up, look at it, peel it off, move it to another wall, behind the sofa, bend it into a corner, etc. Repeat as necessary. Can even repaint Swatch Right and use one over and over. http://swatchright.com/paint-color-sample-decals/
Foam core warps and doesn't conform to the substrate (the wall).
Great information! I like the fact that you mentioned holding the paint swatches vertically. Everyone's first impulse is to hold it flat - horizontally - which does not give a true paint color reading.
What a great and useful post. I have a small place with Northern exposure (no other light) and my place is painted an off-white. I have always heard that expands a room, but in this light I DO think it looks "sad" and will try a darker, warmer shade now. Thank you!
Great tips. The chunky knit pillow in the photo is gorgeous! I knit up a cabled one but I like this one so much I'll have to make another!
I loved a tip I learned here on apartment therapy to match colors to inspirational objects already in the room. I matched a color swatch to a flowerpot that had stripes of teal and similar oak tones to my wood furniture, and I thought the color combo looked nice in small scale- perhaps it would work for the room? Never thought I'd paint my bedroom teal but it really works (as an accent wall)! That was a great tip.
These are awesome!!!
My method is to chop them all up and tape them to the wall in a particular location. Pull down the ones that don't speak to me over a couple days, without overthinking it too much. Then move them to a different location a time or two and keep paring down the same way. Within a week or so I'm usually down to one or two and by that point it's a matter of taste. I've never been unhappy with a paint color this way.
Use the Sherwin Williams Color Visualizer!!! It's incredible - I posted a picture of a color I was considering and people thought I had already painted the room. It's unbelievable realistic and very easy to use.
https://www.sherwinwilliams.com/visualizer/
Whoops. Here is a better link: https://www.sherwin-williams.com/visualizer/
The tool is on the lower left.
Here's a tip about the minefield of neutrals: go to the craft store and pick up a couple of those 99 cent bottles of acrylic paint in a color close to what you think you would like. Then apply the colors to paper plates (waxed coated or foam). Carry them around to the different rooms, lighting and at different times of the day. Use painters tape and stick them to the wall. It will help you see better the undertones that you may or may not want-pink, yellow, green, purple etc. After you get a better idea of what you DO want, then take your plate to the paint store and you will have a better handle on how to pick a color with no crazy undertone or too light/too dark surprises.
My silly little tip....find the colour you want in the fan deck and then buy (or sample) the next lightest shade of that colour. Even with a large sample painted on foamboard will look different when the entire wall or room is painted that colour. Colour tends to magnify itself when it's surrounding you.
For me I use Apartment Therapy as my testing grounds. See something I like? I pin it with the brand and the paint color. With so many colours and opportunities to mess up why not go for a tried and true colour home owners already love.
SkylarkM - a couple lovely turquoise wall colors from Sherwin Williams are Waterscape SW 6470, Watery SW 6478 and Raindrop SW 6485. Hope you find your color!
I try to find a few (legitimate) sources that show the color on the walls. this helped me tremendously in picking the right paint color for our living room. http://www.lifeonchurchill.com/2012/02/neutrals-blues.html of course look at physical swatches too!
I'm with cbreynolds, pick the color you like on the swatch and go at least one if not two shades lighter. This method has never failed me.
I'm also of the mindset of sticking with one brand. There are so many colors to choose from, you can very, very easily get overwhelmed. By sticking with one brand I at least prevent some of that feeling.
The yellow in the picture is stunning and a great example of picking the right shade! One or two shades off in that color could be disastrous.
I have to second the comment that you have to put your swatch against a white background, whether a primed wall or a piece of poster board or foam core. We had a bright blue living room (similar to the color of blue painter's tape), and even though I primed a square to paint the swatches on, the blue was still so dominant that I couldn't choose a color, for months. Eventually, I primed the whole room, and within a couple of days I had my color chosen.
SkylarkMelody - Do you think the painters bought a different brand of paint than the one you chose? It sounds like a bad color match. I've never hired a painter, but I think I read somewhere that some painters might buy a different brand from the one you request. Perhaps you could buy the paint yourself when hiring a painter if you wanted to be sure. Maybe someone else has had experience with this.
Less intensity does not mean lighter. A designer told us to pick our color from the final four and she would have it mixed at 75% pigment, due the limited lighting and narrow space. She taught us that you can tone down not only in color, but also intensity. Paint stores don't advertise this because it's more work (for their computer) but you can request colors to be mixed at ____% pigment. We later used this trick for an exterior match on a wall that had faded due to UV exposure.
If you're stuck, a colorist or property stager can provide that subjective opinion to get you moving again. In our area 2 cans of quality paint+ tax cost the same as an hour with a colorist, so it may be worth enlisting help before wasting time and $ on paint that you're not satistifed with. If you're organized, a colorist can help you determine color for several rooms in an hour. Real estate agents can often recommend color consultants for your area.
i just painted my dining room. i wanted the perfect shade of light grey walls without any undertones.
i used google to search images of different paint colors from various brands. with the plethora of home blogs out there, i was able to find tons of pictures of the numerous colors i was considering. oftentimes, there are comments about the undertones, so i knew what to stay away from. this was the best way for me to see what entire rooms looked like in different shades of grey.
i ended up painting my dining room valspar blizzard fog. i love it.
Grey is a very difficult color to get correct. It can have a lot of undertones of many colors. My trick for grey was to pick up samples an match it against my grey Pesian cat. He had a lot of different grey hues. I matched him up to a light shade I wanted and love the color. atched a darket shade to him for a differet room. Pay attention to nature. Nature makes pure colors. Sadly that kitty moved on to kitty heaven, I have an orange cat now but not looking ot match paint to him any time soon. However he loves to go outside and with all the fall colors and turning leaves he blends right in ..
my very wonderful Aunt Cathy, who is really great at this, suggests painting sample colors on just a plain ol' piece of white paper and taping those around the room.
wordgrl, paint that white! we had white walls against dark wood trim in a north-facing room in the cold northeast and Aunt Cathy helped us find a beautiful warm cozy golden yellow--what I could not believe the first morning I came down to the new color was that the yellow warmed up the space so much that I forgot to do my usual turn-on-all-four-lights-in-the-room routine. check out before and afters and process here:
http://goldentouchhome.blogspot.com/2011/05/when-golden-touch-comes-to-visit-part.html
I seriously shudder looking at that sad dirty white now.
Be VERY careful about the base tint of a specific color you like. No matter what anyone says, if you go to a different paint line, even within the same brand, it will look very different if you are sensitive to color. No matter how much you try with computer match, even with a great colorist, you won't be able to match.
Also, color reflects off itself. If you plan to do a room, get large boads, paint them, fold them in the center and then tape the into corners around your room. Or do it with adjacent flat sheets. The color will look very different than it does on a single plane. Another option is to paint the inside of a shoebox and see how the color reflects.
Look at the samples you've painted on the wall at different times of the day, and with Artificial light, because it will change significantly.
Don't waste money buying large sample sheets. Or too much time with little squares. The paint color will look different, period. Go to samples as soon as feasible.
Just to make life interesting, people see color differently - often men and women. So you think that blue goes towards green and he thinks it is too purple...
I think that Julia Cordeira has great advice, don't use your sampler directly on the wall. I also found that when you look at your swatches you will notice that certain colors have a luminous reflection and other have a very flat look about them, don't go for the flat, it is a question of light and the flat color will absorb the light and the luminous color will reflect the light. each room has a different light, so it is important that you choose your color in the exact room that you want to transform. Light really creates color.
decogirlmontreal.com
@cindy lewis: cat-matching colors, that is just adorable!
Wow! This is a great tips for beginner like me! I really loved the paint in the picture as it harmonized well with the furniture. I also found great ideas at streamline painting as well. You can check it out guys!