Living Well

4 Tips For Selecting the Perfect Paint Color

Is being quarantined at home giving you the urge to paint a room or two?  If so, here are a few tips for selecting the perfect paint color.  

Choosing the right color can be overwhelming, but if you follow this process, it will ensure the color on your walls is what you thought you selected.

Top tips to selecting the perfect paint color:

  1. The most important first step in choosing a paint color is to take the sample out of the store.  Choose a handful of hues or borrow the fan deck of colors and bring the paint samples home.

 

 

Trying out a few gray paint samples for a client’s library.
 
 
2. Take the samples home and brush them on the walls of your room. Nothing will help you choose a color better than seeing the actual color applied to the wall.  If your walls are dark, paint the samples on a white piece of poster board so the current color doesn’t interfere with the new ones.
 
From bright morning light to golden afternoon light to lamp-lit darkness, look at the colors at different times of day.  Sun, or lack thereof, can make a huge difference in how a color reads.
 
3. Paint two good coats to get a good idea of what the color is going to look like in the room.  Once the test sections are dry, hang artwork over them, push furniture in front of them, and stand back in the room to see how they look.
 
 
 
paint1
This image shows the difference between one and two coats.

 

After the perfect gray paint color selection, Dana Wolter Interiors, Graham Yelton Photography.  To see more of this home featured in Traditional Home, click here.

 

4. When choosing a sheen, remember that flat paint gives you color closest to the original cardboard paint chip where semigloss paint will have a moderate reflective quality.
 
Be careful painting a surface with imperfections with a semi or high gloss paint because these imperfections will show even more.  
 
 
paint4
A few Sherwin Williams and Benjamin Moore paint colors we tested for a recent project.

 

Good luck choosing your next paint color as I feel confident these tips will help.  Let me know how it goes.

 
Happy painting,
 
dana
 
 
 
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