Complimentary Color Schemes The procedure of picking paint colors for your home may seem to be totally subjective--you simply pick the colors you prefer. That is only partly true. Although it makes sense to start out with the colors you prefer, other elements come into play. For example, do the colors you've determined work well alongside one another? Do they work with furnishing, carpeting, and draperies already in use? Picking paint colors is really part art and part science. Let's focus on the science part first.
Employing the Color Wheel The color wheel arranges the color spectrum in a circle. It really is a sensible way to see which colors work very well together. It includes primary colors (red, blue, and yellow), secondary colors (green, orange, violet), and tertiary colors (red-blue, blue-red, etc). Secondary colors are made by mixing two primaries together, such as blue and yellow to make green. A primary color such as blue and a secondary color such as green can be merged to produce a tertiary color--in this case, turquoise.
Now that you've got a color wheel in front of you, make use of it to help you envision certain color combinations. An analogous design involves neighboring colors that share an underlying hue.
Complementary colors lie opposing one another on the color wheel and often work well in concert. Say for example a red and green living room in full strength might be hard to stomach, but consider a rosy pink room with sage green accents. Exactly the same complements in varying intensities can make attractive, relaxing combinations. A dual complementary color plan involves an additional group of opposites, such as green-blue and red-orange.
Alternatively, you may opt for a monochromatic scheme which involves using one color in a variety of intensities. This ensures a harmonious color plan. When developing a monochromatic design, lean toward several tints or several shades, but avoid too many contrasting values, that is, combinations of tints and shades. This can make your scheme look uneven.
If you want a more complex palette of three or even more colors, look at the triads formed by three equidistant colors, such as red/yellow/blue or green/purple/orange. A split complement is composed of three colors- one primary or intermediate and two colors on either part of its complete opposite side of the wheel. For example, instead of teaming purple with yellow, move the mix to purple with orange-yellow and yellow-green.
Finally, four colors evenly spaced around the wheel, such as yellow/green/purple/red, form a tetrad. If such combinations seem a bit like Technicolor, understand that colors intended for interiors are almost never undiluted. Thus yellowish might be cream; blue-purple, a dark eggplant; and orange-red, a muted terra-cotta or whisper-pale peach. With less jargon, the color combinations get into both of these basic camps:
Harmonious or analogous; strategies, derived from nearby colors on the wheel less than halfway around.
Contrasting or complementary; techniques, derived from colors that are directly opposite on the wheel.
Interior Paint Schemes Don't just choose one color; think in terms of deciding on a color scheme. Survey your furniture, curtains, window treatments, and floor coverings, and be aware which colors might go with them.
Next, take note of just how many colors you think you may be using. Will the baseboards be a different color than the walls? They usually are unless the trim is in bad shape and you do not want to call attention to it. Exactly the same will additionally apply to other trim, such as window casings and couch rail.
How about the area where the walls meet the ceiling? Will you install crown molding or various other type of cornice treatment there? Or will you be painting the walls and demarcating the ceiling and wall junction with a color change?
In addition to paint colors, you'll also need to determine the level of finish or sheen the paint will have. The options range from the most shiny (high gloss and semi-gloss) to the dullest (eggshell and flat). These designations fluctuate with paint makers, but they are essential because the sheen of paint impacts the color. A guideline states that walls usually receive flat or eggshell finishes whereas ceilings are almost invariably painted with a flat finish. Trim is typically decorated with a semi-gloss or high gloss. These finishes are stronger and simpler to clean than duller coatings.
Think in terms of groups of colors.
Paint manufacturers group like colors together like below:
Color Chips for Interior Walls All paint stores can provide color chips of the paints they sell. Color chips will provide you with a small scale idea of what the actual colors will look like once applied. You will need to do more than take a look at color chips to get a true sense of your colors... however they are a good place to start. In fact, a seasoned sales person at your neighborhood paint store can help you select color chips in a scheme. In the event that you choose a buttercup yellow for the walls, the sales person can suggest color chips that are usually associated with a scheme that has buttercup yellow as its anchor color.
When you have whittled down your color options, go through the color chips or swatches in different types of light including natural light at differing times of the day and in varying degrees of artificial light. Even then, this color chip process is just to get an idea of paints that you will sample in much larger swaths of color. Very few professional designers pick from chips, even though they could start their color selection from chips. If indeed they do examine chips, they examine them one at a time on a white background.
Changing Color Keep in mind that large surface areas make any paint color seem darker than the color chip. The amount of deviation is usually up to two shades. In the event that you select the color chip you desire, step "back" two shades darker for a true representation of what the color will look like when dry. Also, paint always appears darker once it dries. So, when you finally apply the paint, don't worry if the color doesn't look right initially. Wait around until it dries.
When you are zeroing in on your final colors, paint a 2 x 3 foot poster board or cloth material with the anchor color and stick it throughout the house so as to visualize it in different light and near different colored carpeting and rugs and furniture.
Space and Color Colors can affect the way you perceive the size of a room. Warm colors like reds, yellows, and oranges can make a space appear smaller because they provide a cozy feeling to the area. The so called cool colors like blues and greens may actually recede from you, making an area appear bigger than it truly is. If you really want to make an area seem large select an old standby such as a shade of white (there are dozens) or a neutral color.
Estimating Room Size While you get closer to buying paint, determine the square footage of the room you will paint. Multiply the length of each wall by the width. Subtract the area occupied by the doors, home windows, and other openings. Add all of the measurements together to obtain a total square footage of the area you must paint. If you are applying two layers which is normal for some paint jobs, you'll be painting the area twice.
Sound Quality Painting
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