Paint can instantly transform a room! But people often have a hard time picking paint colors. These are my best tips to keep in mind when choosing paint colors.
Without a doubt, one of the most common questions I get from readers is, “How do I pick paint colors for my home? I am so overwhelmed. I don’t even know where to start!” If that’s how you feel, let me assure you that you aren’t alone. I have been there myself!
So, how do you choose the right paint color like a pro? I’m sharing my designer tips for exactly how to choose paint colors in this post!
Designer Tips for Choosing Paint Colors for Your Home
Tip #1: NEVER choose your interior paint colors first
The biggest mistake I see people make is trying to choose a paint color BEFORE making any other design decisions for a space.
Heck, I’ve done it myself! In our first house, I randomly picked out a red paint color for our kitchen. I didn’t test colors on the wall next to our cabinets. I didn’t even take paint swatches home to look at them before deciding. I just went to the paint store, picked a red color and went home and painted. And it was a disaster. I hated it. So I went back to the store and chose a different red and painted it again. Did I test the new color? NOPE. I figured the second one had to be better. I still hated it.
FINALLY, I took the time to bring some paint swatches home and hold them up next to our cabinets and chose a red that worked with the wood tones of our cabinets. I purchased paint for the third time and painted the kitchen AGAIN (this time by myself because I was too embarrassed to ask my husband to help me paint it AGAIN) and finally loved it.
Do you know how many hours and dollars I wasted by painting my kitchen without really understanding how to pick paint colors? A LOT. Sigh…
I have since learned so much about design and I can tell you that I now pick paint colors AFTER making a design plan for a room.
I go through this principle in depth in my interior design system, Designer in a Binder®. But here’s the short version. I recommend that everyone always start any room design by choosing something I call a “crucial element.” Ideally, it will have several colors. It could be a rug, a piece of art, a throw pillow or a pair of curtains. Your crucial element should be the ONE THING that you absolutely have to have in the room and love so much that you want it to set the tone for the rest of the space. I also recommend putting together a digital mood board that pictures your crucial element clearly.
Why? Because when you have chosen a crucial element, it will then guide your paint color choice(s) for whatever space you are working on! The hard work has been done for you by the artist or designer who has already chosen colors that work beautifully together in the crucial element!
If you want a neutral wall paint color, look to the pattern’s whites and beiges. If you want a color on your walls, choose a color from your crucial element.
Let me give you a concrete example. Below you can see how the crucial element (the colorful wall mural) in Attley’s old bedroom enabled me to easily choose a paint color for her walls (looking to the neutrals in the mural) and the furniture in her room for her room. A crucial element actually helps establish a design far beyond just choosing paint colors, which is something I teach in Designer in a Binder®.
Tip #2: Understand how to read and interpret paint swatches
The most important paint colors on any given swatch are the darkest hues. Why? Because the darkest hue will give you an idea of the true color undertones that will show up even in the lighter hues when they are on your wall, but are less obvious on a tiny paint swatch.
What the heck is a paint undertone? I’m so glad you asked! Undertones result when more than one paint color is combined. The dominant color (also called an overtone) is the color you see–for example, blue. The color you don’t see is the undertone. Undertones can be warm (think reds, oranges, yellows) or cool (think blues and purples). You can see cool colors vs. warm colors on the color wheel below.
The undertone of a paint color can make or break a design! If you choose a “neutral” paint color that has a warm undertone (like yellow) but everything else in your space have cool undertones, it’s going to look bad.
The problem is that most people don’t know how to tell what the undertone of a paint color is. But it’s REALLY SIMPLE to tell and should be something you think about every single time you choose a paint color.
See how in the photo below all of the light hues on the paint swatch cards look pretty similar? At least similar enough that you could see how it would be hard to choose from those 3 light pink colors?
But now look closely at the darkest hues on those same swatches…
When you look at the darker color hues on the cards, chances are that you will think, “there’s NO WAY I would paint that on my walls!” about some of them. Well, if you react that way to the darkest hue on the card, do not use any of the hues on the card. Trust me. Once lighter hues are painted on a wall, the true undertones, which are most visible in the darker hues, will show up and you won’t like it!
You also need to be very careful with undertones in neutral colors, especially if you are picking a white wall color. Just look at the darkest hues on these paint chips of white colors! Do you see how purple the undertone of darkest hue on the paint swatch on the left is?! You would probably never choose that purple color, so I would avoid all colors on the same paint swatch.
Tip #3: Test paint color samples in your home!
I promise you that even if you LOVE a paint color in someone else’s home, you may not like it in your own home! Even if you are considering colors that look very similar, I recommend getting samples of each and painting sample squares of EACH color on at least two different walls in the same room. Paint colors can look very different depending upon how the light hits them, so you want to be thorough with this step. Be sure to check out how the samples look at different times of the day and in different kinds of light (turn your overhead light on and off, any lamps on and off, etc.). After living with the samples on your wall for a couple of days and looking at them with all the different lighting scenarios, make your final selection and paint your room.
If you are considering the same paint color for adjacent rooms (perhaps because they each have a crucial element that share the same neutral color you are pulling out for your paint color), test the same swatches in all the rooms because the paint colors will be affected by the type of natural light each room receives! South-facing rooms tend to have warmer light filtering into them, which will make colors appear a bit more yellow than they are. North-facing rooms generally have cooler light filtering into them, which can make colors seem more blue or gray than they really are.
Tip #4: Don’t use too many different wall colors in your home.
Aim for about 5 total paint colors in your home. They should consist of the following:
1) A neutral for your trim and ceilings. Most people choose some shade of white for their ceilings and trim. In our current house, we have chosen contrasting trim and ceilings, but we still used a neutral color that is technically a “white.” It is Divine White by Sherwin-Williams.
2) A neutral. This can be tan, grey or even a blue (yes, blue can be neutral–jeans go with everything, don’t they?!). This color will bring everything together in your home and is the perfect color to use when you aren’t sure what else to use. For example, your neutral is a great color to use in spaces that connect other rooms, like hallways. We have used Pure White by Sherwin-Williams is most of the rooms of our current home. You can see it in our entryway below. We love it as a neutral backdrop for lots of pops of color that we add in with colorful artwork and decor.
3) No more than three additional wall colors.
We painted our dining room a dark navy blue (Gale Force by Sherwin-Williams).
And we used the same dark blue color on this accent all in our living room.
In the foyer we use a beautiful light blue, Babbling Brook. That is our second “additional color.”
Our third color is Morning Fog in the master bedroom. (You can also see one of my navy doors! See how well the colors all work together?)
The most important thing to remember is that you should choose colors you love. Don’t overthink it. All of the colors you see in my home are colors I truly love. Just follow these simple tips and you will be on your way to having a color palette in your home that you love!
Find a piece of fabric with several colors THAT YOU LOVE. Since those colors work well together on fabric, they should work well together as paint colors! Buy a yard or so of the fabric so you can have it with you as you choose paint colors. The bonus is that you can use the fabric to make something later (it can be something simple like a pillow cover). That’s it. I told you it was simple!
