Why is Picking a Paint Color So Hard?

Sometimes the choices that seem like they should be the easiest are actually the hardest. For instance, you want to paint your bedroom a beautiful robin's egg blue, just like the inspiration picture you found on Pinterest. That should be pretty simple, right? And yet, you have now painted that room three times and have gone through twenty paint samples and you still can't seem to find the perfect shade of blue-green.

The first color seemed like it would be a serene spa-like blue but ended up being a blaring in-your-face turquoise. "Great," you thought. "I just need to go with a lighter shade of the colors on the chip." So you run back to Home Depot for another few gallons ($$$). The second round of paint ended up being a pale icy blue that looked calm and relaxing on the chip but gave you the shivers the minute it was up on the wall. Not at all the warm, rejuvenating oasis you were hoping for. Before your next attempt, you researched all the popular colors, you stuffed an entire booklet of paint swatch cards into your purse and took them home to tape all your walls, you bought ten small paint sample cans and brushed them in patches all over every wall of the room, you consulted every friend, neighbor, co-worker, cousin, and random passerby, but you still couldn't decide between three of the paint colors that looked virtually identical to you. You closed your eyes and picked one of the three finalists at random, committed to another few gallons of paint (more $$$) and when you got it up on the wall, it was way more green than blue and still not what you were hoping for. By this point, you have spent a few hundred dollars on paint and supplies, hour and hours comparing and fretting and worrying and painting (which is pretty exhausting if you do it yourself) and yet you feel no closer to achieving your dream room than you were when you started.

It can often seem like picking the right paint color is a gamble. Is there any way to avoid all this wasted time and money? First of all, take a deep breath and stop kicking yourself. Color is tricky for everyone. The way we perceive color can be affected by so many different factors, from the time of day to the direction your windows face. While extensively studying color theory or finding a good designer who already has is probably the best way to improve your odds of bringing color nirvana to your home, you can come a lot closer to finding your color soulmate by avoiding the following common DIY-er mistakes.

Mistake #1: Choosing a paint color from an itty-bitty sample card in the paint store.

Please, for the love of all that is beautiful, do not do this. This is the absolute worst mistake you can make when picking a paint color. There is approximately an 8% chance (#madeupstatistic) that you will get the color you want if this is the way that you select it. Color is affected by light--its direction, intensity, color, and type--and the main source of light in a big box home store is fluorescent lights about thirty feet above your head with no natural sunlight anywhere to be found. Unless your bedroom duplicates these cozy lighting conditions, you should not choose a paint color for it while standing in front of the rainbow-colored display rack in a warehouse. And don't think you can get around this lighting issue by sticking the swatch card under those different colored bulbs that supposedly simulate various lighting conditions. That's like trying to choose a color by shining a pocket flashlight on it. You should always, always, ALWAYS select your paint color under similar lighting conditions to those in which your paint will be seen.

Additionally, the undertones and intensity of a color are difficult to judge in a 1" x 1.5" rectangle. Think of the smaller color samples you see on sample cards or in paint decks as a starting point to help you narrow down the field of choices to a manageable number. Once you have a few variants of the color you're interested in, you want to get as big a sample of your selections as you can in order to get a truer representation as you compare them to each other. The bigger the sample, the better. Most designers can get large color sample swatches from the paint companies. Sometimes I get several 8" x 10" samples of each color and combine them into a 16" x 20" board. I might mount them to a piece of cardboard so that I can move the large sample anywhere I like in the room or compare it to fabrics or other finishes. It makes the selection process ten times easier.

Mistake #2: ​Painting color samples on a pre-existing wall color.

"Well, ok," you think, "if I want to get the biggest possible sample of my color options, I should probably buy one of those small sample cans and paint it on my wall, right? I can paint a huge swatch and see how it looks on all the different walls." This is actually a mistake I used to make a lot. If your walls are recently primed or a clean pure white, this technique would actually not be a bad idea. However, most of us already have some kind of color on our walls that we are painting over, and it's a good chance we don't like that color since we are choosing to paint over it! The problem is that you won't see a true representation of your new color options because the way they look will be influenced by the old color right next to them. They might look bolder or muddier or more yellow or more blue depending on what color you are painting on top of. You might be even more thrown off if you only paint one coat and the old color actually slightly shows through the new one. This is why using a portable board for your paint sample works much better than painting directly on the wall. You can move the piece around close to the fabric, flooring, or tiles that you are coordinating with, away from the old wall color you are trying to cover up, but still in the room where you plan on using it. If you do need to place your sample on a wall in order to compare it with, say, a backsplash or fireplace tile, you may want to put a large piece of butcher paper or a white sheet behind in order to block the distraction of the old color.

Mistake #3: Not considering trim or carpet color.

This mistake is in a similar vein as the previous mistake. Adjacent colors influence each other. We often tend to think that carpet and trim are neutral colors that should go with everything. While they often go with a lot of different color schemes, neutral colors still have strong undertones of red, blue, green, etc. and if you put colors next to them that don't relate, they will clash. I once designed a model home that had the paint colors perfectly coordinated with the carpet. The construction super called to tell me the carpet I had selected was on backorder and they needed me to specify a different product--ASAP! I was unable to get into their design center at such short notice and get samples of the different carpets available for this builder. I was very uncomfortable choosing a carpet without a physical sample in hand, but I had no choice. I picked a similar carpet from the online catalog and crossed my fingers. Unfortunately, this new carpet was just enough of a different color IRL that when I saw it installed, I cringed. While the carpet on its own was actually a very beautiful color, it was too warm to coordinate well with the rest of the home. No one else said anything or complained, but to me it distracted from the rest of the design, and I'm a little embarrassed about it to this day!

Trim colors are the same thing--you have to coordinate them with your wall color. Cool grays should be trimmed with cooler-toned whites. Bright colors need a pure white. Softer, muddier colors, like autumn tones, should have creamier trim colors. It might be a headache to repaint the trim as well as the rest of the wall, but if you get the combination wrong, the rest of the wall will never look right, even if the main wall color is otherwise perfect.

Mistake #4: Not allowing for the amount of light in a room or the size of the area to be painted.

Have you ever painted a wall and said to yourself, "That can't be the same color as the one I ordered! It looks completely different from the sample chip!" Then you hold the sample chip up to the wall, and yes indeed, they are a match after all. This is because the intensity of color looks different in small doses vs. large walls. A darker color actually can feel less intense when painted on a very large wall, especially if there is a lot of light shining in that room. Try this. If you have a room painted all one color, look at the wall facing the window, then look at the color of the wall that holds that window. The color on the same wall as the window doesn't have the light shining directly on it--it is in a shadow. The wall with the natural light shining on it will appear much lighter than the wall facing it. Be careful not to use too light of a color in a room with a lot of natural light or it will feel far too pale and probably kind of icy cold. On the other hand, if you have a small dark space like a bathroom with very little natural light, a pale color can brighten up the room without additional lighting. Some people actually love the idea of dark colors in small rooms, and these can be beautiful, BUT you need to have some sort of light-colored contrast or metallic surface to bounce the light around or you will feel like you are in a small dark box. That contrast can be the trim color, the floor or backsplash tile, plumbing fixtures, etc. I have seen a trend toward painting rooms black lately, but they are almost always paired with a lot of bright white trim, gold or polished nickel finishes, and warm wood tones to provide the warmth and light every room needs to feel cozy.

This is of course a very basic list of things to consider when choosing your paint color. These are just some of the first things that interior designers consider when choosing colors. If your head is still spinning from frustration, don't be embarrassed to ask a designer for help! My Color Consultation package is specifically designed to help you pick out paint colors. Over the course of our one-time, 2-hour appointment, we will consider issues like the ones mentioned above, in addition to many others, in order to create a perfect palette of up to three paint colors for your home. Trying to update a Tuscan-style home with gold-toned tile and alder cabinets without remodeling? We can do that. Need help selecting colors for an open floor plan that will add some variety but still feel in harmony with each other? We can do that too. Give me a call, it's quick, it's relatively inexpensive, and it's absolutely worth the time and frustration you will save from trying to figure it out yourself!

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