We spend hours & sometimes days agonising over a colour for our walls.
“Is that too cold, should it be more brown-ish, and do we run this colour all throughout the home?”
As a designer I know there are no wrong questions & very few wrong answers – its all about trying to achieve the end look for your home. However one of the biggest issues with choosing paint colours is LIGHT.
Take it home
It is massively important to look at the paint colour in the room you will have it in. Liking it in the shop doesn’t make it right for your home. Take it home & put it on the wall & give it at least 24 hours of your scrutiny. Colours will look different under artificial light at night as well as natural sunlight.
Think of when you will use the room
If the room you are painting is East facing, it will get the morning light & may look quite dull in the afternoon. So consider when you will be seeing it the most & what the colour will look like at that time of day.
Playing with shades
If you like the colour, but in some rooms there is more light, perhaps go for the same colour but in double strength for that room. This means it is the same just slightly darker to account for the extra light. Likewise, if the room is dark, like a South facing room, perhaps a half-strength of the colour will be ideal.
Paint it
The only way to really know if the colour is right is to use a sample pot. Looking at a small paint chip or card will not give you the overall concept. Sample pots are an inexpensive way to be sure. Paint a large sample (you’ve paid for the pot anyway!) & preferably above your head. This is where colours tend to become dominating if darker or fresher if lighter. A $10 sample pot could save you thousands in repainting if you don’t get it right.
Change your Globes
You may have inherited a house with varied types of light globes. Even in the supermarkets now you can see a range including Cool Whites, Warm Whites & Daylight Globes, as well as old incandescent, fluorescents, halogen & now LEDs. All of these give off a slightly different coloured light. This is what affects paint colours & the colours of everything else in the room. Your choice of globes is a personal preference. You may look a cool, white look, or especially for lamps, you may prefer the warmer, old-fashioned glow. However some like the Daylight globe in the walk-in-robe to help you see the difference between black & navy pants. Consider what you need for the room you have & the amount of lights you use a multiple downlights will give a lot more light than just one single globe.
I know this makes the colour selection more difficult in some ways, but at least you can understand what is happening instead of being unhappy with the result. And who knows – maybe the colour you want is already the colour on your walls, and it’s just the change of light globes to fix it!
For more informative blog posts, click on the following links –
Styling to Sell your home – https://www.interiordesigneralbury.com.au/styling-to-sell/
The Top Interior Design Elements – https://www.interiordesigneralbury.com.au/the-top-interior-design-elements/
Colour Proportions in your home – https://www.interiordesigneralbury.com.au/colour-proportions/
