Foolproof Way For Choosing Paint Colors for Your Home

Foolproof Way To Choose Paint Colors
 

February 2, 2015

    Like to know a foolproof way for choosing paint colors for your home?  Well, several years ago, I watched Christopher Lowell on his show, Interior Motives.  I loved that show!  He imparted so much knowledge and encouraged and empowered people to do it for themselves.  His show was clearly the catalyst for many of the home improvement, decorating, cooking, and entertaining shows that followed.  Having attended an art school, working in graphic arts for a while, and loving crafts and so many facets of art, I was an attentive student.
 

Using A Color Fan For Choosing Paint Colors

   On one of his shows, he explained how to take a paint color fan, either purchased from or given to you by your favorite paint store, and use it to coordinate or match the colors you have chosen for everything from paint to fabric and knickknacks.  He explained that if you want to create a pleasing flow from one room to another, just choose the same depth of color in your paint.  If you choose a color from the second row, choose your other colors from the same row, as indicated by the arrows in the photo of the fan.  If you choose a color from the 3rd row, choose all colors from the 3rd row.

Foolproof Way For Choosing Paint Colors
Choosing Paint Colors With Color Fan

      When I first started painting the kitchen, I realized the color had too much white in it.  I immediately went with a tint, with more color and less white in it.  My final choices were all from the first row.  Most paint dealers now have a sample can of paint, which you can purchase inexpensively, and try in a small amount.

   It doesn’t matter what hue (red, yellow, blue, yellow-green, etc.), the amount of white, (tint), or black, (shade) really will make it easy to determine if the colors you choose will go together well.

   Have you been to a home, where the colors were all over the place, some rooms are painted a pastel shade, and the colors of other rooms are so intense and jolting, they are unsettling?  It is unsettling to jump from one extreme to another.  Choosing colors correctly makes a smooth transition from one room to another.

Color Choices For Choosing Paint

   Based on what he said, I chose the paint colors for our new home, which is an open floor plan on the first floor.  I have used blues, greens, and tans, but there is just a calm pleasing flow from one room to another since they were all the same tint, (same amount of white in each hue).  Has anyone ever made it simpler?  These colors work together beautifully. 

   Before choosing paint colors, I went to the fabric store and chose a floral fabric, which I absolutely love.  I love the colors and I love the floral, but even if I tire of the print, I will never tire of these beautiful colors.  From that fabric, I made a tablecloth, pillows, and even bought a bench upholstered in the same fabric.  Then using the fabric, I matched hues and chose the same level of tint for all of them.

Inspiration Fabric for Choosing Paint
Inspiration Fabric for Choosing Paint

Fabric Choices

    You can choose a painting and use the same process, but I think the fabric is more tactile and easy for me to carry around for matching or coordinating everything.  The beauty of this is that matching everything to a fabric means you can move things from one room to another.  They all coordinate beautifully.  If you look at this fabric closely, you will notice there are a lot of different colors, which gives me a lot of options.   (Choose a fabric with lots of colors and you give yourself lots of options!)  Finding the closest color on the color fan, I would then just go to the first row and use that color as my paint color.  

  I could have chosen a darker shade or lighter tint.  But, you know, the first row of colors is what spoke to me.   I have found that those colors have made a beautiful background for my own furnishings.  Isn’t that what your walls should be?  

   Check back next week for more about how to choose paint colors.  Learn how you can be happy with your choices, too!

Choosing Interior Paint Colors

 

 

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