At the Winter 2019 Las Vegas Market earlier this year, bold colors were trending for 2019. Rust tones, mustard and jewel tones were featured as upcoming trends in interior design. I for one am happy to see that color is making a comeback after years of almost exclusively neutral interiors.
While it’s important to pay attention to trends and what’s current, it’s equally important not to get hung up on selecting a color that is “in”. What is “in” today will be “out” tomorrow. Instead focus on creating a timeless look that will look beautiful for years to come. The goal is to create a canvas that will work with any décor you bring into your home.
are talking about when they are designing with rust and mustard tones.
Color trends come and go so it’s a smart idea to use new trending colors as accents to update your home, and not as the main colors on your walls.
A few months ago we painted the exterior of our home, it was the third time in 30 years, and we finally nailed it! Yes it took us 3 tries to get it right. Over the years we made our choices by what was trendy at the time. We drove around our neighborhood to see what our neighbors homes looked like and made our final selection using just tiny little paint chips.
Overall our choices weren’t horrible, a freshly painted house always looks better than before it’s painted, it’s fresh, clean and updates the look of your home. But every time we were done I felt like we just hadn’t quite gotten it right. Have you had a similar experience?
It can be stressful when you are choosing the color for a large job like painting the entire exterior of your home. It can cost several thousand dollars, depending on the size of your home, so you definitely feel the pressure to get it right. If you get it wrong you won’t be able to afford to plunk down several thousand dollars to repaint it right away. You will need to live with your choice until the paint looks tired and worn and you can afford to paint it again.
We are currently picking new paint colors for the interior of our new home; because of the tall ceilings in the house, this time we are hiring a professional to do it instead of doing it ourselves. Today I’m sharing the tips I used that will help you pick the perfect paint colors for your home a lot easier.
Pick up tons of samples from the paint store. Take them home and lay them all out on the floor in the rooms you are going to paint. Take a good look at them during different times of the day and pull out the ones that you can tell right off the bat are not going to work or that you don’t like. They will look very different in the light of you home than they did in the paint store under fluorescent lights.
Take a good look at the darkest color on the paint chips. It will let you see most easily what the undertones of the colors on that entire sample are. You want to make sure all the colors you choose have the same undertones, otherwise they just won’t look good together on the walls. A nice greige with blue undertones next to a creamy white with yellow undertones will make the white look dingy and dirty. You will need to look for a white with blue undertones so it will work with the blue undertones of your wall color. It’s ok to take your time with this.
Pick your favorites and purchase paint samples. You may not want to spend the money to do this, but this step is crucial in helping you pick the right color! Each sample will cost you less than $5 and in the long run will save you from having to repaint an entire room, or living with a choice you are not happy with. Paint large swatches on several different walls throughout your home, and be sure to label the colors. This step alone will really help you make the right choice!
Over the next several days take a good look at what the swatches look like during different times of the day. Take your time making a decision. Color changes significantly with light, it will look different on a cloudy overcast day versus a bright sunny day. Color will reflect light differently on your walls than it will on your ceilings. It will vary from room to room so be sure to paint swatches in each room you will be painting so you can see how it will look throughout your home.
TIP: If you are still unsure of which paint color to choose; paint the smallest room with the color you think you want to use. Our painter suggested we do this since we weren’t sure about the main color for the house. It’s a brilliant idea actually! If we hate it we’ve only invested in painting one room and can easily select something else. Not so easy after you have painted your entire house and then decide you don’t care for it.
Our current home is painted in warm sage greens, rich browns, and beige tones. I love the color pallet! The colors are relaxing and have been easy to live with but they have limited my decorating choices. Cool colors like blue or gray do not work well with my current color scheme. Our home looks fabulous with fall colors and really shines at Thanksgiving, but the soft pastels of spring do not look as good with the autumnal color pallet in my home.
Choosing neutral colors for the walls will afford you the most flexibility in decorating. Think of the walls of your home as the backdrop for anything you place in front of it. Going with a neutral color will give you the most flexibility and decorating options. You can change out the entire look of the room just by changing the pillows on the sofa, and tossing on a throw. Much easier and less expensive than painting an entire room.
Add a pop of color with a pitcher of fresh flowers. Set out a bowl of lemons on your kitchen table in a pretty bowl to brighten up the room. Change up a few decorative accessories with the seasons, switch up the bedspread on your bed; with neutral walls these simple changes will completely transform the look and feel of a room. It allows you to change up the look of a room, easily and affordably.
Something else to consider, using the same or similar neutral colors throughout your home creates a cohesive flow. It will also make it easy to do any touch ups if you have the same color on all the walls of your house. No more sorting through old cans of paint for the right color. Gotta love that!
provide a rich neutral backdrop to any decor we bring into our home.
Taking a picture will really help you see what you don’t always see with your eye when you are looking at something in your home. I don’t know why this trick works so well, but it’s like voo-doo magic or something. After looking at the picture above we decided that the Virtual Taupe was just too brown and decided on Sienne instead. I’m so glad we took the pictures and discovered this before we purchased gallons and gallons of paint.
Here are the paint colors we finally chose for Nature Way.
Ceilings: Dunn Edwards “White Sand” in flat finish, to match existing trim, casings and doors.
All trim and interior doors: Dunn Edwards “White Sand” in a semigloss finish. This is a creamy soft white that works well with the neutral colors we chose. This is the existing color of all the trim and casings throughout the house. To cut costs, and because the paint was still in great condition, we decided not to change out this color but to work with what was already there in the house and just touch up areas on the baseboards that needed some love.
We chose Freshly Baked in an eggshell finish (Valspar) for the main wall color throughout the entire house. This is a chameleon color, it changes from a warm soft taupe/beige to a soft light gray the has just a tiny hint of green to it, depending on the light. A very sophisticated color, one that will be easy to live with and one that will not go out of style anytime soon. The perfect neutral backdrop to any decor we choose.
For the accent walls, in various rooms we chose Sienne (Valspar) in an eggshell finish. It’s a lovely deeper taupe with a touch more gray than brown. It’s a nod towards what’s trending and since grey colors are so hot, hot, hot right now we chose to go with a color that leaned more towards the grey’s than the brown’s. It pulls more of the grey undertones out of the main wall color which we like and it’s a good neutral that will make our wood furniture really pop. It’s quite a bit darker than the Freshly Baked main color, and it will be a dramatic contrasting complimentary color, so we are using it in small doses for a dramatic effect.
I hope you found these tips helpful, so that when you finally walk into your freshly painted room, you will say to yourself, “I nailed it”!
Please share your pictures and let me know what colors you have chosen to use in your home, I would love to see your color choices. It may help someone else out there that is stuck and feeling overwhelmed. Even if you ended up picking a color that didn’t work for you it will help others, because we really do learn best from our mistakes. It took me years, and several misses to finally master the art of picking the perfect paint colors but hopefully these tips will make the process a whole lot easier for you!
Picking the perfect paint color for your home can be a challenge but if you take your time and select a good neutral base as your foundation, you will be happy with your choices for years to come.
Happy painting!!!