Picking Colors The process of picking paint colors for your home may seem to be totally subjective--you simply pick the colors you like. That is only partly true. While it makes sense to get started on with the colors you like, other elements come into play. For instance, do the colors you've picked work well alongside one another? Do they work with furnishing, carpeting, and draperies already in use? Picking paint colors is really part art and part science. Let's focus on the science part first.
Using the Color Wheel The color wheel arranges the color spectrum in a circle. It really is a good way to see which colors work very well together. It includes primary colors (red, blue, and yellow), secondary colors (green, orange, violet), and tertiary colors (red-blue, blue-red, and so on). 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 merged to produce a tertiary color--in this case, turquoise.
Now that there is a color wheel in front of you, make use of it to help you envision certain color combinations. An analogous plan includes neighboring colors that share an underlying hue.
Complementary colors lie opposing one another on the color wheel and frequently work well in concert. For instance a red and green living room in full intensity might be hard to stomach, but look at a rosy pink room with sage green accents. Exactly the same complements in varying intensities can make attractive, calming combinations. A dual complementary color plan involves yet another set of opposites, such as green-blue and red-orange.
Alternatively, you might select a monochromatic scheme that involves using one color in a variety of intensities. This ensures a harmonious color scheme. When creating a monochromatic plan, 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 want 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 comprises 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, switch the mix to purple with orange-yellow and yellow-green.
Finally, four colors equally spaced around the wheel, such as yellow/green/purple/red, form a tetrad. If such combinations seem a bit like Technicolor, understand that colors intended for interiors are seldom undiluted. Thus yellowish 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 fall into these two basic camps:
Harmonious or analogous; schemes, derived from close by colors on the wheel less than halfway around.
Contrasting or complementary; schemes, derived from colors that are directly opposite on the wheel.
Interior Paint Schemes Don't just choose one color; think in terms of picking a color scheme. Survey your furniture, curtains, draperies, and carpeting and rugs, and be aware which colors might supplement them.
Next, make note of just how many colors you think you may be using. Will the baseboards be considered a different color than the walls? They usually are unless the trim is in bad shape and you don't want to call attention to it. Exactly the same is true of other trim, such as window casings and chair rail.
How about the area where the walls meet the ceiling? Will you install crown molding or various other kind of cornice treatment there? Or will you be painting the walls and demarcating the ceiling and wall junction with a color change?
In addition to paint colors, you'll also need to determine 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 fluctuate with paint companies, but they are important because the sheen of paint affects the color. A guideline claims that walls usually get flat or eggshell surface finishes whereas ceilings are almost invariably painted with a flat finish. Trim is normally painted with a semi-gloss or high gloss. These surface finishes are more durable and simpler to clean than duller surface finishes.
Think in terms of groups of colors.
Paint manufacturers group like colors together like below:
Color Chips for Interior Walls All paint stores can provide color chips of the paints they sell. Color chips will provide you with a small scale idea of what the specific colors can look like once applied. You will need to do more than look at color chips to obtain a true sense of your colors... nonetheless 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 rep can suggest color chips that are typically associated with a scheme that has buttercup yellow as its anchor color.
When you yourself have whittled down your color choices, go through the color chips or swatches in various types of light including day light at different times of the day and in varying levels of artificial light. Even then, this color chip process is just to get a concept of paints that you'll sample in greater swaths of color. Very few professional designers select from chips, even though they may start their color selection from chips. If indeed they do examine chips, they examine them one at a time over a white background.
Color Changes Take into account that large surface areas make any paint color seem darker than the color chip. The degree of variant is usually equal to two shades. If you pick the color chip you want, step "back" two shades darker for a genuine representation of what the color will look like when dry. Also, paint always appears darker once it dries. So, when you finally apply the paint, don't stress if the color doesn't look right initially. Wait around until it dries.
If you are zeroing in on your final colors, paint a 2 x 3 ft. poster board or fabric material with the anchor color and stick it throughout the house so that you can view it in different light and near different colored rugs and furniture.
Color and Room Size Colors can affect the way you perceive the size of a room. Warm colors like reds, yellows, and oranges can make a space seem to be smaller because they can provide a cozy feeling to the area. The so called cool colors like blues and greens appear to recede from you, making an area appear larger than it really is. If you actually want to make an area seem large select a vintage standby such as a shade of white (there are dozens) or a neutral color.
Estimating Area Size When you get closer 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 entrance doors, house windows, and other openings. Add every one of the measurements together to get a total square footage of the surface you must paint. If you are applying two layers which is normal for some paint jobs, you'll be painting the area twice.
Sound Quality Painting
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