BEHR Paint’s New Color Palette: 386 Amazing Colors!

In celebration of the new BEHR Premium Plus Ultra^® Interior Paint (a paint and primer in one!), BEHR^® has launched a boutique, hand-selected palette of 386 colors that provides do-it-yourselfers a canvas to express their tastes and creativity. Whether you’re looking for relaxing, organic-toned neutrals or saturated and vibrant hues, BEHR^® has divided the color palette into six different design approaches to help you find your perfect match. Which one are you?

Color experts at BEHR^® have cultivated six design approaches featuring unique four-color, leaf-shape mini-palettes created for the BEHR Premium Plus Ultra^® Interior Color Center:

1. Casual Charm: Casual and inviting, uses simple, but elegant furniture and design elements such as attractively slip covered upholstered chairs. BEHR^® colors featured: Green Energy, Retro Avocado, Sliced Cucumber, Ivy Topiary

2. Classic Ease: In traditional rooms, finely crafted furniture usually takes center stage and colors are selected to communicate comfort and warmth, while the organization of the room conveys a classic sense of order. BEHR^® colors featured: Chocolate Swirl, Antique Copper, Toffee Bar, Basketry

3. Global Escape: Involves decorating without borders and connecting with colors, exotic patterns, shapes and unique objects from different cultures. BEHR^® colors featured: High Drama, Spiced Plum, Tibetan Orange, Red Pepper

4. Graphic Elegance: In contemporary styling, structure, form and décor combine harmoniously to make rooms simple, yet classy, and fashionable. BEHR^® colors featured: Pencil Point, Darkest Grape, Elephant Skin, Burnished Clay

5. Modern Oasis: The modern look features uncluttered surfaces and bold geometric forms. These are accented by contrasting textures like tile and wood and highlighted with a few well-chosen ornaments and accessories. BEHR^® colors featured: Golden Leaf, Pyramid Gold, Macchiato, Dusty Olive

6. Vintage Chic: Fresh, elegant approach that treats each room as a sanctuary, offering peace and serenity, and a reminder of earlier, and seemingly simpler, eras. BEHR^® colors featured: Caribe, Ozone, Lunar Shadow, English Channel

Don’t be afraid of color! Here are a few tips to help you get it right:

• Color creates mood in the home, and therefore enhances the function of the spaces where we live, play and work. For example, yellow can create a lively atmosphere in a kitchen, and green can enhance a relaxed feel for a bedroom or study room. Red is a welcoming color for entryways, while navy blue offers a dramatic surprise for a guest bath.
• There is still a great prevalence of natural tones that are easy to live with and decorate around, including dove grays, sandy beiges, caramel brown, mushroom taupe, and creamy off-whites. These neutral backdrops create a wonderful canvas for more adventurous color: rose magenta, mauve, cinnamon, olive green, sea-inspired blues and greens.
• Accent or feature walls are another terrific way to experiment with bright or bold colors. It is always a good idea to test, test, test the colors you want to try. Look at them in different lighting at different times of day. Light tones and neutral hues work well as overall backgrounds. Brighter colors are terrific for accent walls, painted furniture, or to draw attention to a certain part of the room, say behind a sofa or to showcase artwork. Dark colors will appear even more so in a room that does not get a great deal of light. BEHR^® offers all of their colors in 8 oz. samples.
• Colors can be used in all their variations to create different effects in a room setting. Light, sheen of the paint itself (matte or eggshell), texture of the wall (smooth or rough) and size of the space does play a factor in how the color will look.
• Lighter tones such as off-white, mint green, baby blue and blue sky generally promote a feeling of open breeziness. Darker tones such as navy, forest or burgundy often generate a sophisticated, theatrical feeling. They are often employed to help contain a large space, to make it feel more comfortable and human in scale.
• Warm colors in bold apple red, honey gold and vibrant orange advance towards the viewer, and can give the impression that a room is smaller than it is. This is a good trick to remember to help large rooms feel more inviting. The opposite is true for cool green, blue and purple—these colors create a perception of receding away, making a room feel larger and more expansive.
• Colors that contain hints of gray or brown are considered a neutral. Think sisal, driftwood, beach sand, stone gray, sage green or dusky mauve. These are perfect backdrop colors for when you don’t want the walls to compete with other items such as furniture or textiles.