Tips When Selecting Paint Colours For Your Home

Tips When Selecting Paint Colours For Your Home

20 February 2020
 Categories: , Blog


While walking around a freshly painted, sparkling house is a joy, deciding on what colours to choose in the first place can be tricky. After mixing and matching different paints, you can virtually create any palette you desire. Here are some tips for picking the best hues for your home's interior and narrowing down your options.

What Colours Are In Other Rooms?

You might not be able to see through walls and doors, but don't take this as a cue to paint a distinct colour in each room. People usually remember what they've seen in previous areas when walking throughout a building—without some consistency, a house can feel jarring and mismatched. So plan an overall palette. Vary the wall and ceiling hues in selected rooms while being mindful of the overarching effect as you walk from room to room. A repeating neutral shade on wood trim and ceilings will help hold everything together.

What About Daylight?

Some rooms bask in sunshine all day long, while others barely see the light of day. Consider this lighting factor when picking wall paint colours. In a dark room that lacks natural light, avoid both pale and dark shades. Pale hues need light to showcase their subtle tones. In a light-starved room, pale green, for instance, will appear grey or muddy. At the other extreme, dark walls can transform an already dim room into a cave-like den. 

Mid-tones flatter dim rooms the most, with enough vividness of colour not to fade to grey and without creating a dungeon-like feel. Rich green, orange or yellow walls bring warmth and personality into such spaces.   

On the other side of the spectrum, a room in your home might be bright and sunny, which tends to intensify the impact of brilliant hues. To calm down such a space, get your painters to cover the walls in pale cool tones, such as greens and blues. Alternatively, take the opportunity to use striking dark charcoal or navy—the room's sunny disposition will protect it from dullness.  

Have You Tweaked Your Hues?

When selecting a colour palette, you might focus on the various hues: blue, green, red and so on. But don't forget about how other factors—such as a colour's value and intensity—can change its feeling and character. A hue's value refers to its lightness or darkness, and its intensity is about how vivid or subdued it is. A blue, for instance, can be pale and dreamy or dark and moody. It can be a bright cobalt blue or a slate-grey tone. If a wall colour doesn't seem quite right, try tweaking its darkness or vividness. To create a nuanced effect in a room, repeat one hue in various shades and intensities across all the elements such as the walls, furnishings and accent pieces.  

For more tips, contact painters near you.