When designing the house of your dreams, there's nothing that can make it all come together quite like a paint color that you love. However, you're going to want to make sure you choose the right paint color, so you don't have to spend exorbitant amounts of time and money painting the wall back over again.
Choosing a paint color is a matter that combines artistry, craft, and a little bit of theory. This article will provide you with all of the paint color advice you need to begin painting the house of your dreams.
1. Start With the Furniture
When looking at interior house paint colors, it's best to start with the colors and textures already present in your furniture. You might be tempted to pick your paint color first since they occupy so much space, but this would be a mistake. It's much easier to design your paint color around your furniture than to buy furniture based on paint color.
What general aesthetic is your furniture giving off? If you have wood coffee tables and sofas that emphasize browns, tans, and greys, it might be best to keep your paint color similarly subdued. However, if your furniture is sleek, angular, and modernist, you might want to go with sharper colors.
2. Mood, Tone, Undertone
At the end of the day, paint color is about more than color, just as music is about more than sound. Colors are made up of other colors, which influence how we perceive a given space.
Warm paint colors, including shades of black, green, white, and grey, will have undertones of "warm" colors, such as red. The reverse is true of "cool" paint colors; they're going to have the same feeling as blues, greens, and greys.
This is why getting specific about the paint color you choose is very important. You would not do well to say, I want blue, and then pick a random shade of blue. The undertones of that shade might very well clash with the rest of your style.
3. Go Big With the Testing
It's important to test the paint on your wall before you choose your color. Your color could work great in theory, but until you see it on the wall, you won't know how right it is.
Don't go smell on the test swatch. Paint the biggest swatch possible when testing, so you can see better how it will bring the whole room together.
Make sure you test the sample of color in all sorts of light. As any artist knows, color and light are intrinsically linked in the world of paint.
Your color needs to hold up against all sorts of light. Not only does it need to look great at any time of day, but it needs to look great no matter which lamp you pull into your house, which lighting fixtures you install, or how many people are absorbing the light with their bodies.
Rooms that face towards the south will have more light coming in, so they're going to have a warmer feel. Rooms facing to the north have less light, so they're going to feel cooler.
4. Don't Choose a Color, Choose a Palette
To achieve aesthetic success, your whole home needs to come together in a way that makes sense. However, that doesn't mean you should go monochrome or two-tone. In fact, that would probably make your house look pretty strange.
Instead, pick a palette. Choosing a color palette is key to all designs. Everyone from home designers uses it to film directors.
A color palette is a spectrum of colors that you can decorate your house with. There are many ways of approaching a color palette. You can choose colors that all have a similar look to them to create a meditative experience, or you can choose colors that work well as opposites, creating a look that's unique but not murky.
5. Leave Room For White
No matter what scheme you go for with your colors, however, always leave some room for white. Generally, a color palette will mostly feature colors of your choosing but should always contain some splashes of neutral and white. You're going to need a place where the colors of the room can balance out.
You're not going to be able to avoid white. It works extremely well with light, a lot of furniture and flooring is white, and it's one of the staples of housing—instead, design around white.
6. It's Different For Kids
Don't worry about your children's rooms fitting the color scheme of the rest of the house. For children, individuality and a sense of play and fun are more important than adhering to an aesthetic standard. Let your children pick the color of their room, and they'll surely thank you for it.
7. Hire a Professional
It might seem strange, but you should really consider hiring a color consultant. Professionals will be able to address any issues with light, furniture, and texture you have with your home and help you pick colors to make your home shine.
We have many options for you here at H3 Paint and hope you'll consider taking our help in designing your house.
Choosing A Paint Color Is More Than Choosing a Paint Color
As you can see, choosing a paint color is about more than just the color you want to have on your walls. You have to consider the color of your furniture, the undertones the colors give off, how the light might affect the color, how different colors play off each other, and many other things. Keep these tips in mind, and your house will look great in no time.
For more information, contact us today.