Interior Designers Swear By This “8-Inch” Paint Rule

Despite all the ways decor intricately comes together in any space, it never ceases to amaze me just how transformative a single coat of paint can be. It doesn’t matter if you’re craving an airy white oasis or a trendy color-drenched jewel box — the perfect shade of paint can be a total game-changer. To find the perfect shade, however, you’ll have to look beyond a fan deck and swatch your wall. 

It’s no secret that swatching is essential — but how large should each swatch be? Teeny, tiny strokes might allow you to compare multiple shades in a confined space, but you won’t get a good feel for how a color might look on all four walls. On the flip side, painting one colossal chip is overkill. “You don’t need a particularly large swatch to determine what color to paint a room,” explains Diana Lombard, an interior designer in Northern Virginia. 

If you’re looking for the Goldilocks of paint swatches — not too big, but not too much — designers swear by an eight-inch rule. In other words, your paint swatches should always be at least eight inches wide and eight inches tall. 

You can always paint these directly onto your walls, but Lombard swears by Material Bank’s 8×8-inch samples (ask for them at your local paint shop!). Sydney Levy of Anthony Wilder Design/Build tapes Benjamin Moore’s 8×9-inch samples onto her walls. 

Plus, there are countless peel-and-stick swatch options on the market now. Benjamin Moore has 9×14.75-inch adhesive chips, while Lombard prefers 9×15-inch options from Samplize. “The peel-and-stick makes them extremely easy to use and move around,” she says of the latter. “They are also made from real paint, so the color is as close a match as you can get without actually painting anything on the wall.”

If you’re unable to get an eight-inch swatch, try painting a standard piece of printer paper, advises Sarah Snouffer of Third Street Architecture in Washington, D.C.

If you can get a two-foot-by-two-foot swatch put on a wall, that would be the perfect size to make sure that you see [the color] in different lights,” she adds. “Make sure that it is placed on different walls throughout the space.”

Regardless of which size you select, it’s also important to buy multiple swatches of the same color and try them in several different locations around the room.

“Light can drastically alter the appearance of a paint color,” Lombard explains. “Depending on how natural light hits a wall [at different points], the color of the paint can look very different, and it can change throughout the day as well.” 

Lombard recounts designing a room with a bunch of angled walls; she quickly noticed the same paint color looked vastly different on each surface. “On one wall it was gray, another purple, another pink, and so on,” she explained. “That experience taught me that it’s not about having the biggest swatch — it’s about seeing that color on different walls and in different light before you commit.”

That’s why it’s important to leave paint swatches up for a few days, to “observe how the color changes with different natural lighting throughout day to night,” explains Snouffer. When you have the right size swatch and a bit of time on your side, you’ll be much closer to finding your perfect hue.