How Not To Regret The Paint Color You Choose

It’s an exciting time when you decide to update a drab bedroom or gloomy living room. Bringing a fresh look to these rooms can come from adding a few new accessories, but more often than not a new paint job will do wonders. How do you pick the right color though? One that you won’t regret or make you question your personal aesthetic. While the color that you choose is a very personal decision, we’ve got a few tips to help you make the best choice that you won’t regret.

Selecting the Best Type of Paint for the Room

When picking the right colors for your room, it’s important to consider how the paint will be used. Are you painting walls or trim? For walls, you’ll generally use latex based paint and oil-based paint for the trim. You will also need to think about where the paint is going. For areas more prone to messes, high traffic, and grease stains it would be best to go with a paint color with a higher gloss to it. High gloss paint is easier to clean up since they can be easily wiped down with a sponge. The unfortunate thing is that this type of paint is quite shiny and might not be ideal for the living room or dining room.

You could instead go for a semi-gloss or flat matte, which is better to give the room a little less shine. A semi-gloss is also good for kitchens as well and is also easy to clean. However, a matte finish tends to show off more unsightly marks and smudges. Matte paint is normally best for rooms that won’t have a lot of use such as the bedroom or office.

Pick the Color(s) for the Room

While you can never go wrong with a lighter, neutral color such as white, cream, or taupe you might want to add a little more vibrancy to the room. Before you go out and pick your favorite color, remember that every hue will not work well in every room. In fact, you may have to think back to when you learned about colors in school. The primary and secondary colors from the color wheel will give you a good idea as to which ones will complement each other.

One of the most important things to consider is how the eye perceives color in relation to space. While you might love a deep, rich purple it will make a small room look even smaller. On the other hand, lighter colors will make a room appear larger and airier.

Using the same shades of color—blue for example—will create a more cohesive and subtle look. On the other hand, when combined with another color such as green, the room can become more calming and soothing. You can also pick different shades of the same color. For example, you can paint a room with a darker blue focal wall and have the other walls in a lighter shade of blue. This same method, you can create a lot of different options using darker colors.

On the flip side, if you want to punch up the color consider going for reds, golds, and oranges. The thing is that a little goes a long way. If you paint an entire room in these color schemes, they can seem extremely overpowering. However, you can always use different shades of the colors to create visual interest without going overboard.

Try Before You Buy

Now that you have some idea as to how to pick your colors, it’s time to go and buy some paint. First things first though, you’ll need to get some paint chips. These are free paint swatches that you can take with you to put up in your home to make sure that the color will work in the room before you purchase an entire bucket of paint. It’s advised to pick a few different ones so that you can compare. Once you pick the best color for the room, you’re now ready to give your room a fresh, new look.

Conclusion

When looking for the right color for your room, it helps to take a step back and think about exactly which area of the house it’s going in. The size of the room along how it is normally used is also a factor in determining which paint to choose. For areas with higher traffic or if you have children picking a darker color can help hide scuff marks. However, for a more elegant look, consider going for a lighter color. No matter which color you pick, make sure that you take these factors into consideration so that you don’t end up with a color that you are not absolutely in love with.