I was recently watching Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland perform at the American Country Music Awards on TV. As the camera zoomed in on her beautiful face, I thought to myself, gosh, she looks so great, maybe I'll cut all my hair off and wear it short and funky, just like her. But my girlfriend brought me back to reality when she said don't do it! She has a stylist. She was kind enough not to mention what I would look like in skintight metallic leggings.
The rooms you see in paint advertisements have tons of natural light, or are painted some crazy bright colors that look really good in the photo but would look absolutely heinous in any normal home.
Choosing paint to many people may seem like an impossible art, but I have come up with a strategy for choosing a paint color that has worked very well for me.
1) Assess the features of the room you are going to paint- flooring, tile, wood surfaces, bricks, furniture, bedding, shower curtains, etc. You want your paint to accentuate these things, not hide them or compete with them. If you can't figure out what would look good, go to websites like www.houzz.com, or www.HGTV.com to see if any of those rooms have features like yours and see what they are painted.
2. Based on your research and your gut feeling, narrow it down to two color families. If you can get it down to one, even better. Then determine the shade you want, like blue-green, pastel green, celery green, olive green,... PLEASE don't use neon green unless it's a kids room. If you go with Neutrals, those also have varying tones. Some yellow, some gray, some taupe (which can look purple), gray, or brown.
3.Now you can go to the store and start choosing swatches. First, get a swatch of white. Hold every swatch up to the white. If the store has special lights for florescent, incandescent and natural, use those!!! Paint swatches look completely different in different lighting. If you have little natural light at home, go for lighter swatches. They will look darker at home. If you have lots of light, you can go darker.
4. Narrow down, narrow down. If it's a blueish gray you want, put back the ones that have purple tones in them. Don't even bring them home. If you can't tell what tone is in a color, hold it up to another one and see how it compares.
5. You should have narrowed it down to a few different swatches at this point. Bring those home. Don't buy any samples until you have seen the swatches. You can waste lots of money on these if you aren't careful.
6. Put up the swatches in various spots in the room and look at them in different lighting at different times of the day. Hold them up to the bedding, the flooring, the trim to make sure it goes. You will be able to eliminate the ones that don't look as good.
7. Once you determine which one you like the best, go back to the store and get a sample. When you get home put the sample up in the room and look at it for a couple days to confirm that is the actual color you want. I never choose paint that I don't sample first! If it doesn't come in a sample, find one that does. Sometimes I get down to two and get two samples. If the sample still isn't what you want, go back to the color swatch you had and see what colors are close to it and bring them home to compare.
8. Now you can go buy the paint with confidence, knowing it's what you want.
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