10 Tips for Picking Paint Colors

Trusst Builder Group’s Wilmington NC home builders provide our customers with beautifully-built homes that serve as blank canvases for their very own creative tastes. One of the most common ways homeowners display their tastes is through the color choices they make for their interiors.

Color plays an important role in the home’s atmosphere. In fact, color psychology research tells us that the color of a room accounts for 60% of our initial response to the space. Therefore, we want to share the following ten tips for picking paint colors for your home’s interior so your home can be exactly as you envision it.

#1: Start Small 

When you are painting the interior of your new home and you are unsure where to begin, it is always a good idea to start small. Pick a small hallway or powder room and pick a color that you think will look good in the space. By starting small, you will see your results quicker and if you don’t happen to like the color, repainting it won’t be that hard.

#2: Consider the Mood of the Room 

Every room has a mood and that mood can be either enhanced or reduced by your choice of color. For example, if you are picking a color for a bedroom, then you should stick to cooler colors and neutrals to give the area a sense of calmness and quiet. Bold colors are actually found to cause unrest and irritability, and that is not something you want to feel in yours or your child’s bedroom.  Meanwhile, warm colors with contrasting neutrals are best served for a dining room because they lend an atmosphere of formality.

#3: Consider the Room’s Lighting

Paint stores are usually lit by bright fluorescent lighting, so the color you see on the paint chip in the store is going to look different on your walls where the lighting is warmer and the room darker. If your paint store has light boxes available, make sure you use them to see more accurately what the color is going to like on your home’s walls.

#4: Learn Color Terminology

Understanding color terminology is not essential to choosing the right paint color, but it can help. There are four primary things you should be aware of:

• The actual color of the paint is the hue.
• Whether the color is light or dark is determined by the value of the hue (i.e., a higher value of blue equals a darker hue)
• Saturation describes how dominant the hue is (i.e., red becomes less dominant as the color goes from red to pink)
• The brilliance of the color is referred to as intensity. The more intense the color, the dominant the hue.

#5: Test Your Color Choices

Test out your color picks by painting a piece of poster board and holding it up against the appropriate wall. If it looks good, paint a large patch on the actual wall. This will give you a better idea of how it will actually look in the space.

#6: Customize with Decorative Finishes

If you painted a space and you love the color but it looks a little flat, then you can spruce it up using a decorative finish. Adding visual texture or breaking up the color using layered color glazes increases the depth of the base color and adds some drama to the room.

#7: Consider Color Flow Through the Home

In order for the home’s overall color scheme to work, the colors need to flow easily through the different spaces. Before deciding on a color for a room, walk from room to room to see how your choices are going to flow in and out of each other.

#8: Rely on the Color Wheel When Necessary

The color wheel is a valuable reference tool that can help you overcome color-picking hurdles. It can be used to find complimentary colors, intensifying or modifying two or more colors, and more. When in trouble, look to the color wheel.

#9: Try a Monochromatic Scheme

Choosing just one color for a room doesn’t mean your options are limited. With so many different variations of a color and contracting paint finishes available, going with a monochromatic color scheme can give a room an elegant look with rich textures and tones. If you want to add some dramatic flair, use bright white trim; it will help the color scheme really stand out.

#10: Try Different Paint Finishes

Different paint finishes can add texture and detail to a room’s aesthetic regardless of whether you are going with a multi-color scheme or a monochromatic one. For instance, using an eggshell finish on the walls and a satin finish on the trim will separate the entities. When using the same color throughout the room, the elements will have a slightly different appearance simply due to the finish.

Contact Trusst’s Wilmington NC Home Builders Today

If you are looking for a new home in the Wilmington area, Trusst Builder Group has an incredible selection of homes and floorplans to choose from. Call us today at 910-371-0304 to schedule a professional consultation with one of our professional home architects. Our Wilmington NC home builders can help you build your new home or show you our existing homes in some of the area’s best communities.