How to choose a paint colour

Have you ever chosen "the perfect colour" from a paint chip at the hardware store only to find out that you hated it once you painted it on the walls? You might even have bought a little sample can and painted a small section to make sure you liked it but once the entire space was painted, you hated it?

Here area some tips to help you choose the "perfect colour" and end up choosing something you LOVE.

First you need to understand that the lighting at the hardware store is different than the lighting in your own home. The Kelvin rating of the lights used plays a large part in how it appears. Kelvin rating is the scale used to describe how warm or cool your lighting is. Department stores typically have lighting that is on the cool side compared to lighting in your own home which is typically on the warmer side.

Another factor that can change how a colour appears is natural light. Depending on the direct sunlight, indirect sunlight or limited natural light, the colour will display differently. Even within your own home with the same artificial lighting, the wall colour can appear differently depending on the natural light.

Another factor is the existing colours already in your home. The colour of you floor, furniture or adjacent wall colours will all play a part in how your new colour looks.

When you're at the hardware store choosing your paint chips, take a bunch of different options as they will all look different once you're in your own home. Also realize that a colour on a chip will look drastically more colourful when on a full wall and may be too overwhelming. It will also appear a lot darker on the wall than on the chip. So try to choose colours that look a lot more neutral and lighter on the chip. This is most often the biggest mistake people make and why they end up not liking their colour. It looked fabulous on the chip but turns out to be too bold and dark on the wall. A subtle colour in a large area looks much better. This light blue in the image below looks like a very light grey on the paint chip but once painted in the entire room, it looks blue. Note that these rules do not apply to exterior paint which is seen in full outdoor lighting.

Once you have it narrowed down to four or less options, go and get those paint samples made. Do not skip this part because you're just super excited or pressed for time. As I stated before, the existing colour in your home will play a factor in how your new colour will look. Our eyes are tricky little things. Seeing surrounding colours will change how our eyes see other colours. If you hold up a neutral paint chip to a red chip and then to a green chip, your neutral paint chip will appear a completely different colour depending on the colour it is beside.

Because of this, if you painted your new colour directly onto your old colour, it will look differently than when you get the entire wall painted and no longer see the old colour. See the images above? The sample is the same colour in all photos but one was painted on a beige wall and the other on a grey wall. Its impossible to see what the colour really will look like this way. In order to see your colour without having your old colour influence how your eyes see it, its important to work off of a blank, colourless background. Get some cheap white paint and paint a rather large area completely white. Then paint your samples on top leaving a large white border around them. Next, use your hands to frame your paint colour as you're looking at it to block out everything else from your view. Now you can get a much better idea of what you're paint colour will look like. Here is my same sample colour painted on a white background. If you look close, you can see my small sample painted directly on the exsisting colour on both walls and see how different it appears.

Remember how a colour can look differently from room to room? it also looks differently from wall to wall depending on the direction your artificial and natural light is coming from. Its important to paint your sample on multiple walls to get an idea for how it may look differently in other places.

As described above, natural light will make your colour appear differently than with artificial light. This is why its important to look at your sample colour in both the day and night time to see how it will look with different lighting conditions.

Another thing I like to do is have a dark-ish grey sample made as well as a brighter colour sample. That way if I ALMOST love my colour but wish it was a little greyer, darker, more colourful, or lighter, then I can use those paint colours and make a little tweak. Remember you already have white on hand incase you need to lighten it. Use a blow dryer to fully dry it before checking out the results. Latex paint, along with acrylic paint, dries darker so never judge your changes until its completely dry. If you love your tweaked colour, then go ahead and paint it on some cardstock, a white paint chip or something else that is mostly white and sturdy. The paint store will then be able to colour match it for you. If your DIY paint chip starts to curl, paint the backside. This will make it uncurl and lay more flat.

Once you think you have your colour, its always a good idea to use the sample paint and paint an entire small wall. Once you have your old colour completely covered in a large area, you will really see how it will turn out. Its amazing to see how your colour will appear one way but as soon as the old colour is gone, your new colour will suddenly look different.

I actually have three different subtle blues in my home. They all appear to be the same colour, but because the lighting was drastically different in each area of the house (one bath with a tiny window, one bath without a window, and my dinning room filled with natural indirect light), I had to do different colours to make them all look the same. In the day light, one of the blues looks completely grey.

By following these steps, you'll never waste hundreds or thousands of dollars with the wrong paint colour again. After doing all the work to choose the perfect subtle sage for my bathroom, it turned out perfect. If this is all over whelming for you and you just don't feel the confidence raining down, Perfect Contrast is here to help. We do colour consultations and will help you choose the perfect colour for your home.