Picking Colors The process of picking paint colors for your home may appear totally subjective--you simply select the colors you prefer. That is merely partly true. While it makes sense to begin with the colors you prefer, other elements come into play. For instance, do the colors you've selected work well alongside one another? Do they work with furnishing, carpeting, and window treatments already in place? Picking paint colors is really part art and part science. Let's focus on the science part first.
Using 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 mixed to produce a tertiary color--in this circumstance, turquoise.
Now that you've got a color wheel in front of you, utilize it to help you envision certain color combinations. An analogous scheme entails neighboring colors that share an underlying hue.
Complementary colors lie complete opposite each other on the color wheel and frequently 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. The same complements in differing intensities can make attractive, relaxing combinations. A dual complementary color design involves an additional set of opposites, such as green-blue and red-orange.
Alternatively, you can choose a monochromatic scheme which involves using one color in a number of intensities. This ensures a harmonious color design. When creating a monochromatic scheme, lean toward several tints or several shades, but avoid way too many contrasting values, that is, combinations of tints and shades. This may make your plan look uneven.
If you need a more complex palette of three or 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, switch the mix to purple with orange-yellow and yellow-green.
Last but not least, four colors evenly spaced about the wheel, such as yellow/green/purple/red, form a tetrad. If such combinations sound a little bit like Technicolor, understand that colors intended for interiors are almost never undiluted. Thus yellow 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 fall into these two basic camps:
Harmonious or analogous; plans, derived from neighboring colors on the wheel less than halfway around.
Contrasting or complementary; schemes, 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, draperies, and floor coverings, and notice which colors might complement them.
Next, make note of just how many colors you think you might be using. Will the baseboards be a different color than the walls? They usually are unless the trim is in bad shape and you don't want to call attention to it. The same is true of other trim, such as window casings and couch rail.
How about the area where the walls meet up with the ceiling? Do you want to install crown molding or some other kind 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 surface finish or sheen the paint will have. The choices range from the most shiny (high gloss and semi-gloss) to the dullest (eggshell and flat). These designations fluctuate with paint suppliers, but they are essential because the sheen of paint impacts the color. A guideline says that walls usually receive flat or eggshell finishes whereas ceilings are almost invariably coated with a flat finish. Trim is normally painted with a semi-gloss or high gloss. These surface finishes are more durable and simpler to clean than duller coatings.
Think in terms of groups of colors.
Paint manufacturers group like colors together like below:
Interior Color Chips All paint stores can offer color chips of the paints they sell. Color chips will give you a small scale idea of what the colors can look like once applied. You need to do more than check out color chips to get a true sense of your colors... but they are a good place to start. In fact, a seasoned sales rep at your local paint store can help you decide on 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 typically associated with a design that has buttercup yellow as its anchor color.
When you have whittled down your color alternatives, look at the color chips or swatches in different types of light including day light at different 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 bigger 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.
Changes in Color Keep in mind that large surface areas make any paint color appear darker than the color chip. The degree of variant is usually equal to two shades. In the event that you pick the color chip you desire, step "back" two shades darker for a genuine representation of what the color can look like when dried out. Also, paint always looks darker once it dries. So, when you finally apply the paint, don't stress if the color doesn't look right initially. Hold out until it dries.
If you are zeroing in on your final colors, paint a 2 x 3 ft. poster board or fabric with the anchor color and stick it throughout the house so as to see it in different light and near different colored carpeting and rugs and furniture.
Color and Room Size Colors make a difference the way you perceive the size of a room. Warm colors like reds, yellows, and oranges can make a space seem smaller because they can offer a cozy feeling to the area. The so called cool colors like blues and greens appear to recede from you, making an area appear larger than it truly is. If you actually want to make an area seem large go with an old standby such as a shade of white (there are dozens) or a neutral color.
Estimating Room Size When you get nearer to buying paint, determine the square footage of the area you will paint. Multiply the length of each wall by the width. Subtract the area occupied by the entry doors, glass windows, and other openings. Add every one of the measurements together to obtain a total square footage of the surface 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
824 90th Dr SE suite B
Lake Stevens WA 98258
(425) 512-7400
https://sites.google.com/1upserve.com/painter-lake-stevens
