Colors for Your Home The process of picking paint colors for your home may appear totally subjective--you simply pick the colors you like. That is only partly true. While it makes sense to begin with the colors you like, other elements enter into play. For instance, do the colors you've determined work well collectively? Do they work with furnishing, carpeting, and draperies already in place? Picking paint colors is really part artwork and part science. Let's focus on the science part first.
Working with the Color Wheel The color wheel arranges the color spectrum in a circle. It is a sensible way to see which colors work well together. It includes primary colors (red, blue, and yellow), secondary colors (green, orange, violet), and tertiary colors (red-blue, blue-red, etc). Secondary colors are created by mixing two primaries together, such as blue and yellow to make green. A primary color such as blue and a secondary color such as green can be blended to produce a tertiary color--in this circumstance, turquoise.
Now that there is a color wheel in front of you, use it to help you envision certain color combinations. An analogous design requires neighboring colors that share an underlying hue.
Complementary colors lie complete opposite each other on the color wheel and often work well in concert. For instance a red and green living room in full intensity might be hard to stomach, but look at a rosy pink room with sage green accents. Similar complements in varying intensities can make attractive, relaxing combinations. A double complementary color scheme involves an additional set of opposites, such as green-blue and red-orange.
Alternatively, you can go with a monochromatic scheme that involves using one color in a variety of intensities. This ensures a harmonious color design. When creating a monochromatic design, lean toward several tints or several shades, but avoid too many contrasting values, that is, combinations of tints and shades. This can make your design look uneven.
If you need a more technical palette of three or even more colors, look at the triads formed by three equidistant colors, such as red/yellow/blue or green/purple/orange. A split complement comprises three colors- one primary or intermediate and two colors on either part of its complete opposite side of the wheel. For example, instead of teaming purple with yellow, change the mix to purple with orange-yellow and yellow-green.
Last but not least, four colors equally spaced round the wheel, such as yellow/green/purple/red, form a tetrad. If such combinations sound a little like Technicolor, remember that colors intended for interiors are rarely undiluted. Thus yellow might be cream; blue-purple, a dark eggplant; and orange-red, a muted terra-cotta or whisper-pale peach. With less jargon, the color combinations fall into these two basic camps:
Harmonious or analogous; strategies, derived from close by colors on the wheel less than halfway around.
Contrasting or complementary; techniques, derived from colors that are directly opposite on the wheel.
Interior Colors Don't just choose one color; think in terms of deciding on a color plan. Survey your furniture, curtains, window treatments, and carpets and rugs, and notice which colors might complement them.
Next, take note of just how many colors you think you might be using. Will the baseboards be a different color than the walls? They usually are unless the trim is in bad shape and you do not want to call attention to it. Exactly the same is true of other trim, such as home window casings and chair rail.
How about the area where the walls meet up with the ceiling? Will you install crown molding or various other type of cornice treatment there? Or are you considering painting the walls and demarcating the ceiling and wall junction with a color change?
In addition to paint colors, you'll also need to look for the level of finish or sheen the paint will have. The options range from the most shiny (high gloss and semi-gloss) to the dullest (eggshell and flat). These designations fluctuate with paint makers, but they are essential because the sheen of paint impacts the color. A rule of thumb says that walls usually receive flat or eggshell surface finishes whereas ceilings are almost invariably coated with a flat finish. Trim is normally coated with a semi-gloss or high gloss. These surface finishes are more durable and much easier to clean than duller coatings.
Think in terms of groups of colors.
Paint manufacturers group like colors together like below:
Interior Wall Colors All paint stores provide color chips of the paints they sell. Color chips will provide you with a small scale idea of what the colors will look like once applied. You need to do more than check out color chips to get a true sense of your colors... however they are a good place to start. In fact, a seasoned sales person at your neighborhood paint store can help you select color chips in a scheme. If you choose a buttercup yellow for the walls, the sales rep can suggest color chips that are usually associated with a design that has buttercup yellow as its anchor color.
When you have whittled down your color options, look at the color chips or swatches in different types of light including natural light at differing times of the day and in varying levels of artificial light. Even then, this color chip process is merely to get a concept of paints that you will sample in greater swaths of color. Hardly any professional designers pick from chips, even though they may start their color selection from chips. If indeed they do examine chips, they examine them one at a time over a white background.
Color Changing Take into account that large surface areas make any paint color show up darker than the color chip. The degree of variance is usually up to two shades. In the event that you pick the color chip you want, step "back" two shades darker for a genuine representation of what the color can look like when dry. Also, paint always appears darker once it dries. So, when you finally apply the paint, don't panic if the color doesn't look right initially. Wait until it dries.
If you are zeroing in on your final colors, paint a 2 x 3 ft. poster board or cloth material with the anchor color and stick it around the house so that you can visualize it in different light and near different colored floor coverings and furniture.
Color and Size Colors can affect the way you perceive the size of an area. Warm colors like reds, yellows, and oranges will make a space appear smaller because they can provide a cozy feeling to the space. The so called cool colors like blues and greens appear to recede from you, making an area appear larger than it truly is. If you really want to make a room seem large select a vintage standby such as a shade of white (there are dozens) or a neutral color.
Size Estimation While you get nearer to buying paint, determine the square footage of the room you will paint. Multiply the length of each wall by the width. Subtract the space occupied by the entrance doors, windows, and other openings. Add all the measurements together to obtain a total square footage of the area you must paint. If you're applying two layers which is normal for some paint jobs, you will be painting the surface twice.
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