Design by Knight

 

Choosing Interior Paint Colors

I have been working on a new home construction project with my colleague, Gail Levine, for a delightful client who hired us to help her navigate through all of the design decisions one is faced when building a new home along with sorting through which items of furniture she will be keeping and which pieces will be purchased new to transform her new house into a home.

When building a new home or remodeling an existing one,  choosing the interior paint colors are one of the hardest decisions to make.  With countless numbers of paint companies to choose from each having their own color wheels with literally thousands of color choices just how does one go about choosing the perfect color for a space?

There are several methods that designers use to select a color palate such as choosing colors from nature, choosing colors from a selection of fabrics or choosing colors that you just love.

With this project, Gail and I started with the fact that our client did not like brown and she did not want the same colors that she used in her old house. The house was designed in a Georgian style with a Florida twist in that Hardee Board siding was used instead of brick facade.

After you choose the basic color palette, you can sort through design magazines and look for rooms that you like that are decorated in the color palette of your choice.  Most of these design magazines have the name of the paint color listed either in the article or towards the back of the magazine listing in depth details about the rooms they feature.  Most of the colors used in these decorated rooms are tried and true or new and discovered which makes it easy for you to narrow down your color choices without flipping through hundreds of paint swatches.  Often times you can find a design magazine that lists different designers and their favorite shades of wall color.

After you narrow down your color choices, pick up the larger color swatches from your local paint store in the colors that you are considering so you can make sure the colors flow together, especially if you are selecting paint for more than one room.

When you finalize your color(s) then it”s off to the paint store to get actual paint samples.  Many paint stores have ready made tester pots in a wide variety of colors.  It is OK to test the paint colors in the small pots to see if the color works for you but you will eventually want to test the paint color in the actual paint finish that you will be using.  Paint color looks different in the various finishes because they absorb or reflect light differently. Just go ahead and paint some samples on the walls, even experts need to test because of the difference in light and texture and other variables. Don’t be afraid to make a mistake, but don’t buy 80 gallons and then realize it is not right.

Tags: choosing paint colors, inter design atlanta, Paint color chocie