Steal This Free Designer-Approved Trick for Picking the Perfect Paint Color

Picking a paint color can be one of the most exciting — and most tedious — parts of any home decor project. Rarely is it easy to land on the ideal shade for your room. Often, you’ll need to sample several different hues on your wall and observe them as they change with the light throughout the day before landing on the ideal pick for your space. 

As someone who can suss out a whisper of difference between two colors, choosing paint has always been a long and laborious process for me. Don’t get me wrong — I like a lot of different colors, but I always seem to have a very specific idea in mind of the tint I want, and it’s not necessarily easy to find it in existing paint decks. My secret sauce? Tinting a paint color lighter or darker to match my vision. 

It’s a trick designers have relied on for years to customize paint hues for their clients in an easy and approachable way. Because here’s the thing: A certain shade of green may look great in the paint store but skew a bit too dark in your space, and then what? Well, if you rely on this Goldilocks method, you can keep everything you love about the color, including its unique tone, and tint it lighter or darker per your needs. 

The best part? You don’t need to be working with a pro or have a skilled subcontractor in your back pocket. Many hardware store paint counters, especially those helmed by companies like Benjamin Moore and Sherwin-Williams, are adept at modifying the formula of the paint to lighten (add white) or darken (add black) the shade to your liking.

Whenever I use this technique, I try to stick between a 25% and 50% modification, either lighter or darker. If you’re looking to change a color by making it 75% lighter or 75% darker, you may as well just choose a new shade. But for those small, it’s-almost-perfect tweaks, this method can’t be beat. 

Take my most recent project, for example. I’m turning the family room in our new home into an English-inspired snug, complete with a cozy blue color drench on the walls, shelving, and ceiling (yes, I will be removing that Tommy Bahama-inspired wallpaper). After testing almost 10 colors, I landed on Benjamin Moore’s Van Courtland Blue as my almost-there color, but it just needed a little finessing. 

The room borders many other high-traffic areas in our home, so I was worried that, as-is, Van Courtland Blue would be just a bit too dark. To problem solve, I went back to the mom-and-pop paint store in my town and asked them to mix me up two additional samples: one at 25% lighter, and one at 50% lighter. 

As you can see from the swatches above, there is a subtle but noticeable difference between all three of the paint shades (from top to bottom: Van Courtland Blue as-is, Van Courtland Blue 25% lighter, Van Courtland Blue 50% lighter). By lightening the paint formula ever so slightly, you can keep all the tonality of the hue while compensating for the needs of your specific home. 

It turns out that this trick once again helped me nail my perfect hue; we’re going with the 25% lighter option, which captures the moodiness of the original shade while softening it a bit for our historic home. The next time you think you’ve almost perfected your paint selection, try this Goldilocks strategy out. I promise you’ll end up with a shade that’s just right.