I consult on selecting paint colors at least twice a week. It is the least expensive way to change a room but also the most feared choice most homeowners make. Most are even paralyzed into selecting an interesting color and will just settle for a practical palette of neutrals. So lets take some of the fear out of paint.
WHERE DO YOU START?
Well, since with paint, we are really talking about color, let’s start there. There are many things to consider with color, which is why I feel people are intimidated with selecting paint. You have to take into consideration,
- What is already in your room
- The overall color scheme
- The mood you want in the room
- The style and décor of the room and those adjacent
- What effect the color will have on the rooms perceived size
- If you will tire of the color
WHAT IS ALREADY IN YOUR ROOM
This is actually a great place to start in selecting your colors. Look at your fabrics, flooring, artwork, and accessories and let them be your inspiration.
Go to the paint store and pick up a fandeck of colors. Now match each color that is already in your room to a sample and pull it out of the fandeck. Separate these colors from the thousands available to help narrow down your choices. With paint, your choices are truly unlimited since they can color match to anything you bring into the store.
Look at these colors and see if you are drawn to any of them. Remember, you do not have to paint all of the walls the same color. Look at the architecture features in your room. Do you have niches, columns, mantels, pot shelves, pop-outs, arches, or molding? These can all be painted different or accent colors. I do like to keep door casings and baseboards the same neutral color throughout the house. A bright white looks wonderful against a colored or taupe wall.
From these colors, one way to make your selection is to pick your favorite and then go two shades darker or lighter and make this your paint selection.
If you have not purchased your furniture or are looking to change in the near future, I always advise my clients to wait on selecting paint colors. Since you can have any color made, it is easier to match paint to the sofa, then a sofa to a paint color. My order of selection is, Upholstery, Window Treatment Fabrics, and then Paint. Of course the best way to do it is to coordinate them all at the same time, but that is not always possible.
THE OVERALL COLOR SCHEME
As with any of the decorating in your home, you need to keep in mind your overall color scheme. If you do not have a color scheme already established from your existing furnishings, here are 10 Color Scheme Inspirations from my book, A Decorating 10!
- Artwork
- Fabric
- Nature
- Area Rugs
- Clothing
- Flowers
- Pillows
- Wallpaper
- Wrapping Paper
- Paint Swatches
Plus a couple extra for inspiration: Model Homes, Hotels, Restaurants, Bedding, Magazine Pictures or even Television Shows.
Your color scheme provides a blueprint for your rooms. You wouldn’t build a home without them, so don’t try and pick paint before you know the direction of your color scheme.
THE MOOD YOU WANT TO CREATE
Color does help set the mood in a room, so look at what the room’s function is when selecting colors. If you want a relaxing and peaceful atmosphere, red would not be the color of choice. With mood comes some color psychology. Color impacts our mood, appetite, energy level and even elicits specific responses. So here is a quick color psychology lesson.
WARM COLORS like, red, orange and yellow give us a warm feeling inside. They are strong colors, which will evoke specific responses and moods. Such as,
Red – Red is one of the most powerful colors and will even increase blood pressure and heart rate. Red is a stimulating color of passion, energy and appetite. Today, red is a very popular color in dining rooms.
Orange – Orange warms a room but in a more less dramatic and passionate way. Orange is considered more friendly and welcoming then fiery and seductive red. Orange works well in social areas, such as your Living and Family Rooms as it will bring a coziness feeling to the rooms.
Yellow – The color of sunshine, laughter and sunflowers. Yellow brightens any room and catches your eye more then any other color. Yellow is great in poorly lit rooms and helps brighten your spirits. It is wonderful in kitchens and a laundry room. Just be care as yellow too strong in intensity can work the opposite way and actually cause anxiety.
COOL COLORS like, blue, green and violets give us a peaceful, tranquil and restful feeling. These are the colors of the ocean, sky and nature and evoke peace and stability. Cool colors can give a chilly feeling to a room, so you may need to warm things up with your furnishings or lighting.
Blue – Blue has been the number one color for two years and considered the color of money by retailers. Blue is ideal for bedrooms as it is soothing and restful. It also suppresses our appetites because there are very few foods that are naturally blue in color.
Green – Green is nature and around us everywhere. Most people are very comfortable with green because of that reason. Green makes us feel at home and darker shades make us feel very secure. Green is great in every room of your home.
Violet – Depending upon the shade, not all people react well to violet. In darker shades it is a very regal and rich color. Lighter shades are more appealing to most. Violet in these lighter shades is nice in bathrooms and bedrooms.
White – White gives a clean and streamline feel to a room. But too much white will evoke a sterile hospital atmosphere.
STYLE AND DÉCOR OF ADJACENT ROOMS
It is important to have a continuous and harmonious flow from room to room, especially those that are open to each other. Today’s floor plans are more open with Great Rooms and combined Living and Dining Rooms. These rooms need to have a common theme, mood and style, along with color scheme.
When you are selecting new colors and thinking about painting, look at your architectural details for natural breakpoints and areas where you can change paint colors. Consider the style of your home and the décor you have chosen when selecting colors. The colors should be appropriate for your theme, mood and style. A Desert Southwest design wouldn’t work well with yellow and blue, although a Country Cottage theme would. Where as, a peach and green color scheme could work for either, but not a Rustic Retreat theme. Books are a wonderful inspiration if you are unsure which direction you need to move with your theme and colors. Also, look towards what professional interior designers have done in model homes in your area.
COLOR AND SIZE
Color also affects the perceived size of a room. You can manipulate the visual effect in a room with your color and paint selections. A general rule of thumb to follow is that light colors will expand or make a room appear and feel larger where dark colors will retract or make a room appear and feel smaller. A monochromatic and flowing color scheme will make an area larger, where multiple colors and color changes from room to room will appear smaller or busier.
When looking at paint in a room, I am normally starting with all white walls. White is a standard for builders and what most people are comfortable with. When thinking about how color will change the size of the room, if your room is currently white you can know that it will never look larger then when all white. So if you already have a small room, be adventurous and make the room more intimate and cozy with darker tones. It will actually detract form the size of the room. If you want to raise the ceiling in a room, paint it white with the walls a contrast color. You can also heighten a space by painting vertical stripes. One unique and easy was to do that is by taping off the stripes and just painting every other one with a glaze. It gives it a great tone-on-tone paint effect.
If you want to make a room more cozy and homey, choose darker colors for the walls and then a darker shade for the ceiling.
WILL YOU TIRE OF A COLOR
If you are concerned about tiring of a color, a simple solution is to paint the main areas in a neutral comfortable color and paint the accents in your room your secondary color. This way when you are ready for a change, you will only have small accent areas to re-paint. Some of these accent areas are: niches, door arches, soffitts, plaster pop-outs, mantels, columns, or any other architectural feature your home may have.
Now that we have talked about color, let’s look at selecting paint.
WHAT IS PAINT & WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENCES?
Paint is the most versatile and inexpensive decorating tool you can use to dramatically change your rooms. Paint, is a thin film that protects, seals, hides, and decorates. It is a simple mixture of ingredients of pigments, a binder and a thinner. It has been used for over 5,000 years to protect, preserve and decorate our structures. Today, it still serves that purpose, but is used more for decoration and beautification of our homes.
One of the questions I am asked on a regular basis is what type of paint should be used? Most homes are originally painted with flat, as it is the least expensive. Flat serves it purposes, but I always recommend upgrading your paint when re-painting a room so that it has more durability and clean ability. So what are the differences in the finishes?
FLAT – Flat paints help hide surface imperfections as it has little or no reflective qualities. It is used mostly on ceilings and interior walls. It is best used in very low traffic areas as it difficult to clean.
EGGSHELL or SATIN – These finishes have a much better durability and good quality paints can actually be scrubbed down. These do have a sheen to them, which gives a lustrous appearance. I recommend these finishes for all rooms.
SEMI-GLOSS – Semi-gloss is good for trims, moldings, bathrooms, kitchens and high traffic areas. Semi-gloss does have a higher reflective quality so be careful where you use it, so that you do not create a mirror effect and it will show imperfections in your surfaces. This finish is very stain-resistant and easy to clean.
HIGH-GLOSS – This is best used on trims, moldings, doors and windowsills. It is the best in durability and stain-resistant, but you will see imperfections and it is highly reflective.
Along with the durability and sheen level, I have learned from personal experience that you get what you pay for in quality. A better quality paint will be easier to apply and last longer. As with furniture, purchase the best quality you can afford at the time. Watch for a sale or wait until one comes along.
HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT COLOR
We already talked about the colors in your room, so now how do you not make that paint mistake. With your colors in hand, purchase a quart of each color you are considering. Now purchase 4 pieces of poster board for each color. Paint the poster board and tack up to the walls. No longer do I suggest painting directly on the walls. Painting on the walls doesn’t allow you to move the color around the room next to your counters, furniture, artwork, window treatments, flooring or to other walls at different times of the day. Also, if you paint colors next to each other, they will affect each other in appearance. Plus, depending upon the color, you might have to prime over the areas so that you can start with a clean canvas for your new color.
HOW MUCH DO YOU NEED
I always suggest having your painter or paint store provide you with this figure. The amount you will need is affected by the type of paint, the spread rate, and what you are painting over. But a quick double check is, add together the lengths of all four walls and multiply the total by the height of the room. This is your total square feet of surface to be painted. Now divide this by the paint’s spread rate, an average is 350 sq ft. This will give you the total galloons needed. If you have a lot of windows and doors, you can subtract their square footage from the number. I always leave them in to have some extra to keep.
Well, I hope you now have more confidence to select a new paint color that will change your rooms. Be adventurous, pick a color you have always loved, and enjoy!