Decorators' Tips on Paint Colors

Room Environment

• When choosing a paint color, consider the physical environment of the area that you plan on painting. Examining elements of the room, such as size, structure, furniture and texture will give you a direction for the color choice. For instance, you won't want to paint a room the same color as your furniture, fireplace or floor. You can also study the paint colors traditionally used in the style of your house. A Victorian style house has bold interior colors while a Colonial style house typically has muted tones.

Tests and Trials

• Using caution and patience when deciding on a paint color can spare you from extra work in the future. A color may look perfect on a small swatch and have a different impact once it covers an entire wall. Testing colors first by painting small samples on your wall will show you how the paint looks on the wall before you go through the trouble of painting the whole room. By creating a design board with color swatches and sample fabrics, you can visualize the whole scheme of the room and swap out various colors until you find the right one.

Color Combinations

• When choosing paint colors, decorators reference the color wheel to determine which colors will complement each other. The color schemes, monochromatic, adjacent, complementary and triadic, offer different ways to use more than one color in design. Monochromatic design allows you to use two shades of one color, such as light and dark green, while adjacent color schemes involve two colors next to each other on the color wheel, such as blue-green. Complementary colors, which are colors on opposite sides of the color wheel, will clash when both dominant or subtle. When using a triadic color scheme with three colors, choose one dominant color and two subtle ones.

Mood and Lighting

• Paint colors should agree with the room in which they appear and can help to set a mood for that room. Before choosing a color, decide on the way you want to feel while in that particular room. A blue bedroom can inspire a calm and peaceful state of mind while dark red walls inspire romance and passion. The lighting in the room can also help to tone down a paint color or add focus on it depending on its intensity. Incandescent lights work with warm, yellow tones while fluorescent lightning better suits blue tones.