If you’re preparing to paint the interior of your Crown Point , Hobart , or Munster home this summer the first question I would ask you is, “What are you painting for?” I don’t mean to suggest you avoid the project, or switch from paint to wallpaper. I’m asking first if you’re painting for yourself, because you want to brighten up the family room; or because you’ve always wanted a lavender bedroom suite. Maybe you’re planning for a move, and you’re painting to clean up the walls before listing your home for sale. Maybe you’re painting the walls in a rental property you own as part of your investment portfolio. What are you painting for? If…
You’re doing it for yourself – You’ve always wanted mango walls in the dining room, chestnut in the study, and yes, lavender in the master bedroom. Ask yourself a few planning questions up front. What’s the scope of your project? Are you doing one room? Two? Ten? I won’t tell you not to use ten colors in ten different rooms, but I will ask you to reconsider. Think less is more. Too many colors can make a home feel chaotic. This video will help you understand the basics of color scheming, line of site combinations (standing in your mango kitchen and looking through the archway into your chestnut study for example), and proper pairing of wall color with a room’s accents and furnishings.
You can spend as much or as little time as you like just deciding colors . One of the best ways I’ve found to help the process is what I call “living with it.” Once you and your spouse have narrowed your choices for any particular room down to, say, your top three, get a sample of each of the choices. Paint a six by six inch square patch of wall, larger if you like, with each of the colors on a section of wall where every time you step into the room you see the choices. Then “live with it” for a few days, or a week, or a month. Try to monitor your initial reaction to the colors each time you step into the room. Which color jumps out and grabs you? Do you find your eyes drawn to one color over the others? How about your spouse, and your children? What do they think?
Next time I’ll have some tips for choosing paint colors when you’re preparing to sell your home and when maintaining rental/income properties.
