Colors for Your Home

The process of picking paint colors for your home may appear totally subjective--you simply select the colors you prefer. That is merely partly true. Although it makes sense to get started on with the colors you like, other elements come into play. For example, do the colors you've decided on work well collectively? Do they compliment furnishing, carpeting, and window treatments already in place? Picking paint colors is really part art and part science. Let's start with the science part first.

Features of the Color Wheel

The color wheel arranges the color spectrum in a circle. It really is a good 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 case, turquoise.

Now that you've got a color wheel in front of you, put it to use to help you envision certain color combinations. An analogous plan consists of neighboring colors that share an underlying hue.

Complementary colors lie opposite one another on the color wheel and often work well together. Say for example a red and green living room in full strength might be hard to stomach, but look at a rosy pink room with sage green accents. Similar complements in varying intensities can make attractive, comforting combinations. A dual complementary color design involves an additional group of opposites, such as green-blue and red-orange.

Alternatively, you may go with a monochromatic scheme which involves using one color in a variety of intensities. This ensures a harmonious color scheme. When developing a monochromatic design, lean toward several tints or several shades, but avoid way too many contrasting values, that is, combinations of tints and shades. This may make your design look uneven.

If you need a more complex palette of three or more colors, look at the triads formed by three equidistant colors, such as red/yellow/blue or green/purple/orange. A split complement is composed of three colors- one primary or intermediate and two colors on either side of its opposite side of the wheel. For example, rather than teaming purple with yellow, shift the mix to purple with orange-yellow and yellow-green.

Finally, four colors evenly spaced round the wheel, such as yellow/green/purple/red, form a tetrad. If such combinations sound a bit like Technicolor, remember that colors designed 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 get into both of these basic camps:

Harmonious or analogous; schemes, derived from neighboring colors on the wheel less than halfway around.

Contrasting or complementary; schemes, derived from colors that are directly opposite on the wheel.

Interior Colors

Don't just choose one color; think in terms of picking a color scheme. Review your furniture, curtains, window treatments, and carpeting and rugs, and word which colors might complement them.

Next, make note of how many colors you think you may be using. Will the baseboards be a different color than the walls? They usually are unless the trim is in bad condition and you do not want to call attention to it. Similarly it will additionally apply to other trim, such as windows casings and chair rail.

How about the area where the walls meet up with the ceiling? Will you install crown molding or some other kind 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 will 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 change with paint suppliers, but they are essential because the sheen of paint impacts the color. A rule of thumb claims that walls usually get flat or eggshell finishes whereas ceilings are almost invariably decorated with a flat finish. Trim is normally painted with a semi-gloss or high gloss. These finishes are stronger and much easier to clean than duller surface finishes.

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 give you a small scale idea of what the specific colors can look like once applied. You will need to do more than take a look at color chips to obtain a true sense of your colors... nevertheless they are a good place to start. In fact, a seasoned sales rep at your local paint store can help you decide on color chips in a scheme. If you choose a buttercup yellow for the walls, the sales person can suggest color chips that are usually associated with a scheme that has buttercup yellow as its anchor color.

When you have whittled down your color alternatives, go through the color chips or swatches in several 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 just to get an idea of paints that you'll sample in bigger swaths of color. Very few professional designers pick from chips, even though they could start their color selection from chips. If indeed they do examine chips, they examine them individually on a white background.

Color Changes

Take into account that large surface areas make any paint color appear darker than the color chip. The degree of variance is usually equal to two shades. If you select the color chip you want, step "back" two shades darker for a true representation of what the color can look like when dry. Also, paint always looks darker once it dries. So, when you finally apply the paint, don't worry if the color doesn't look right at first. Wait around until it dries.

If you are zeroing in on your final colors, paint a 2 x 3 ft. poster board or cloth with the anchor color and stick it throughout the house so that you can see it in different light and near different colored floor coverings and furniture.

Color and Room Size

Colors make a difference how you perceive the size of a room. Warm colors like reds, yellows, and oranges will make a space seem smaller because they can offer a cozy feeling to the area. The so called cool colors like blues and greens may actually recede from you, making an area appear bigger than it really is. If you actually want to make a room seem large go with an old standby like a shade of white (there are dozens) or a neutral color.

Sizing the Area

When 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 doors, glass windows, and other openings. Add all the measurements together to get a total square footage of the area you must paint. If you're applying two layers which is normal for most paint jobs, you will be painting the surface twice.

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