How to Pick Paint Colors- a Step-by-Step Guide

I’ve been promising this blog post for years! It’s embarrassing how many times I’ve been asked to write this and I’m just sitting down to do it now. Perhaps it’s the arrival of my paint sample for a room refresh we are working on here at home. Whatever the case may be, at long last, here is my quick and dirty on picking paint colors.

Painting your interior can be a simple DIY where you paint the walls and call it done, or it can be an elaborate, expensive process where painters are paid to do a significant amount of woodwork, trim, wall, and ceiling prep and paint work.

Regardless of your scope of work, choosing a paint palette is a key part of your home design.

First, I would like to emphasize that there is a big variation in how a paint will look in your space vs. someone elses. For example, Northern East Coast light is different from Southern California light. A south facing room vs. a north facing room, artificial lighting, natural lighting, etc. all affect how paint looks. So you still need a solid means of evaluating your paint selections in your home.

Also, most of these designer guidelines I’m going to share with you are for pale neutrals, so if you’re going for more color, whether a neutral version of a color or more saturated color, these guidelines will still help you in finding a color that you can not only live with, but you actually love.

First Steps

OK so you’ve done your design process including creating a mood board for informing the direction of how you’re going to decorate your space. If not, here’s my step-by-step guide on how to design a room.

So now you’ve arrived at the paint stage. Lucky you.

To color or not to color

That is the question, and the answer’s not nearly as straightforward as you might think. There are as many variations as the paint store has paint swatches… a frightening thought, really.

Are you familiar with research on the paradox of choice which says people experience increased anxiety and dissatisfaction when presented with too many choices? Then my friend, walking into the paint store is the perfect storm. That’s why when you have a color consult with me, I narrow down your choices beforehand so you don’t feel that overwhelm or panic.

But, if you don’t want to hire me for a paint consult, I do have a tool though that can help take some of the pain out of paint samples: Hello Paint- peel-and-stick paint samples made with real paint. (Samplesize for my American Readers)

• Real manufacturer paint flexible enough to show your underlying wall texture

• Samples can wrap around corners and be repositioned

• Try it in different parts of your room and different light conditions

• Sherwin Williams, Benjamin Moore, Farrow & Ball, & PPG paint lines (Samplsize)

• Hello Paint tends to offer samples for Sherwin Williams and Benjamin Moore

Neutral paint colors - off whites & grays

Let’s say you’ve decided on a neutral shade. What kind of neutral?

White? Gray? Taupe? Greige? (Greige is a gray-beige hybrid)

Then, consider the undertones (because the devil is in the undertones!) Do you want a cool white/gray/taupe vs. warm white/gray/taupe, etc?

More often than not, we don’t want any obvious undertones, just a general feel-good neutral, right? The problem is, that neutral has undertones of color in it regardless, so the trick is to find one that doesn’t go all green or lavender out of the blue (pun intended) once you’ve bought the paint and paid to have it painted all over your walls.

Because trust me, the paint swatch more often than not doesn’t reveal the whole colorful truth. Not even close.

Don’t despair though, because help is readily available. In the realm of understated neutrals, I have put together a collection of my favorite whites and favorite greys and discuss how to choose the best tone for your space.

Perhaps you don’t dream in shades of beige or white. You want a neutral with a subtle undertone of a color.

I’m not going to lie to you though, this can get tricky (and expensive) fast. What appears on a paint color swatch to be the most subtle warm gray can be not so subtle lavender gray once it’s up all over the walls, especially where the corners intersect or where light hits it directly causing underlying tones to “glow” (not in a a good way). For more on this, read on:

• Paint can look VASTLY different according to what other color is around it.

• Paint MUST be sampled against a white background.

• The “sum” of paint color is greater than it’s parts. You can paint large separate samples in 5 different places but until it’s up floor to ceiling as a big section including corners (where it reflects on itself) and the sun hits it, you may not be able to see any undesirable colored undertones if it has any.

Paint-picking strategy recap

Neutrals

Tried and true designer recommendations exist for a reason! Save yourself hassle and try one of them instead of winging it if the shade is in the ballpark of what you want!

• Painting on anything other than white won’t give you an accurate representation. Even then, primer white can skew your notion of light and dark.

• At a minimum, paint or Samplize/hello paint peel and stick samples onto large, white poster board. Benjamin Moore sells sample pots for $10.99 CAD and Farrow and Ball you can order their samples online for $8.99 CAD and receive free shipping. It usually arrives the next day. I ordered Farrow and Ball samples for my last two home projects. For my virtual clients, I order and send the hello paint samples direct to their home.

Neutral Color and Saturated Color

If you are going for any sort of “neutral color” or stronger, OR if you have concerns about undertones in any neutral, I recommend putting primer up on a wall and then applying a large section of your test color including corners and in an area where the wall gets direct sun.

Get your money’s worth out of your Samplize /Hello Paint or tester pint! (And save yourself a lot of money and aggravation later by getting it right the first time.)

Even the palest chip on your paint card will have a lot of color once painted everywhere. Always choose the paint chip that looks less colorful than you think you want. Then thoroughly test it on your walls before committing.

Paint color will look more color-saturated on an entire wall than on the swatch or small sample.