Pointers to ponder when picking paint colours!
So, you’ve decided to paint. You may be a pro at choosing colours and confidently make your way to the paint store or you may feel out of your element, unable to envision colours working together. I mean come on… you take a two-inch colour swatch home and now you have to imagine an entire wall looking that way? Ya… I get it. Even the most seasoned colour pickers (yep, that’s what I call ’em) look at trends in magazines or drive around the “nice” neighbourhoods looking for ideas. We can all use a bit of help and assurance when it comes to choosing colours. Let these tips guide you as you stand in front of the colour display at the paint store. I promise you’ll become a colour picker in no time!
6 Tips for choosing the perfect colour:
- Go to all the paint stores you can! Take as many swatches home with you as you want. Keep them in an envelope marked for each room and whether you want it for walls, ceiling, trim ect. I call it organized hoarding. Trust me, you don’t want to get home with a stack of chips and not remember which room you imagined it going into. When you finally do narrow down your choices, go back to a paint store and request a colour sample pot. They can vary in size and price from store to store so ask when you are there picking colour chips.
- Start eliminating some of the chips you’ve acquired. This can take some time and you may want to rally a few friends and a couple glasses of wine for this process. I recommend beginning with your trim colour. Consider keeping your trim the same throughout your home. This maintains a connection throughout the home and eliminates having to pick a colour for each room!
- Looking at all the colours you’ve picked out together makes it hard to see each one individually. Put each one next to your trim colour one at a time and get a feel for it. The colour chips will begin to look different and you’ll be able to tell right away if they work together or not. Maybe that neutral beige looks green when paired with this colour. Does that lovely toned grey go blue next to that colour?
- You’ll want your home to have a flow. Stepping from room to room shouldn’t be jarring. Eye catching sure but not jarring. Try to maintain a similarity in the depth of your colours. For instance, muted colours work better with other muted colours. Clean colours with clean colours.
- All paint stores will match competitor colour chips! Don’t feel like you need to buy from where you’ve chosen the swatch. Just remember when a colour must be matched, it will take the paint store a bit longer to get the colour just right. Expect a colour match to take up to 20 minutes to complete. Just enough time to get a cuppa coffee! And if you ask them to, they’ll label each can of paint with the room it’s destined for. Example Lilly’s Bedroom or Living Room Feature Wall!
- Did I just mention feature walls? Yes! I love feature walls! You can’t just pick a random wall though. It must be a natural focal point in that room. A fireplace wall in the family room or the headboard wall in the bedroom. Here you can experiment with your colours following my advice in tip #4. Flow!! Maybe pick a colour out of your couch cushions or the area rug or even art work in the room and use that as a feature wall colour. This can bring the room together nicely. You don’t want the walls to become overwhelmed with colour but rather draw the eye instinctively toward the highlight of that room. Remember that if the room is overcrowded a feature wall can just add to the confusion.
So there you have it! A handful of tips that I have learned over the years that helped me become the colour picker I am today! You may have noticed that I didn’t get into what colour schemes are in right now or what colours go well together. Colour trends move like fashion. Nothing stays for too long and if you paint what’s hot today you may be dating the walls tomorrow. Instead I encourage you to find out what colours you are attracted to and go from there. Remember…its only paint! It can be changed!