Choosing the right color for your home’s interior has always been a challenging decision. Colors can set the mood, transform the size and shape of rooms, and change the aura of a place. Therefore, the color you choose for a room’s interior is a subtle yet impactful factor that can make or break its design and utility.
If you’re still indecisive about what color to pick for your home’s interior, here are some insightful tips:
1- Decide the purpose and mood of the room
Just as every room has a different function, colors also evoke diverse feelings like excitement, relaxation, mystery, and serenity. Colors are one of the most useful elements of design you can use to create specific vibes for specific rooms. You need to decide the purpose of your room so that you know what mood you want to create in that space. Is it a dining area, a living room, a bedroom, or a children’s playroom? What is it?
Lighter tones like Sherwin Williams Sea Salt are a good choice for living rooms to make them look spacious. As for the bedrooms, warm neutrals like beige and tan would work fine since they evoke coziness. For your children’s room, relatively livelier paint colors like blue and pink will make the area enjoyable.
2- Match the color scheme with the furniture
There are thousands of colors you can pick from. You can spend half of your day flipping paint swatches, but if you don’t know the tip of the trade, you’ll be unable to choose the right color for your rooms.
Matching the color scheme with your furniture is imperative to create balance among various design elements in the decor. Especially if you have an open-plan kitchen, you must create a palette that complements your décor items and separates your connected areas.
Start by picking two or three colors from your furniture or décor items like a sofa, shelf, rug, or kitchen countertop. Get a few sample strips with those colors, and now you’ll have a variety of shades because each sample strip generally has six paint colors.
From those colors, choose the one for the living room that matches your sofas and complements the rugs. Pick one for the kitchen that matches the slabs and cabinets.
3- Consider sunlight
According to an article in Forbes, sunlight contributes to changing the tone of a color. It not only lights up the room but also affects the colors of the walls. North or south-facing rooms are relatively cooler than west or east-facing ones because they get direct sunlight. Therefore, consider applying cooler or warmer undertones to compensate for this difference.
To check this, paint a small portion of the wall and monitor how it changes throughout the day as sunlight enters and leaves the room.
4- Choose neutrals to play safe
Neutrals are colors that do not have undertones and are therefore considered pure. Black, white, grey, and brown are the four most common neutrals. You can also use tints and shades of these as neutrals.
But no one wants to pick a drab or neutral color for walls when you have an infinite variety of modern colors. Everyone wants to bring the best out of those shades and choose a bold one that catches attention. Yet here are some sensible reasons why choosing neutrals for walls has more benefits than drawbacks.
- When your walls are neutral, the furniture and other accents become prominent. Obviously, you want your furniture and décor items to gain attention instead of the walls, right?
- Neutral walls give you the liberty to change the color of your accents and to relocate furniture from one room to another for a change.
- If you have children in your family, neutral walls are more practical as they do not make dirt marks visible.
5- Choose the right paint finish
Paint comes with different finishes, which can impact how the final result turns out. Gloss or semi-gloss paint finishes are relatively easier to clean and are wipeable, but they show imperfections and flaws in the paint and reflect the light hitting the surface directly.
Satin and eggshell paint finishes are more durable. A satin finish is easily wipeable, while the eggshell finish is even scrubbable. These paint finishes reveal fewer imperfections and are stain resistant to some extent.
Matte and flat finishes have low to no shine. These paint finishes do not reflect light and hide all the imperfections. Matte and flat paint finishes are recommended for areas with low traffic.
6- Choose a color that you like
Generally, people neglect their personal preferences and choose colors that are trending. This might turn into an unpleasant and uncomfortable experience in the long run. Your home depicts your personality, so you should choose colors you are comfortable with.
Moreover, you’ll be living in your home for years. Don’t just go with the flow and pick a color that is in vogue since you can’t replace it often.
Conclusion
Many people dream of living in the ideal home. If you’re getting a chance to fulfill yours, you should give it your best shot. Choose colors that appeal to you, colors that make you love coming back home from work.
Take your time, browse through hundreds of paint swatches, and select the one that goes right to your heart! Onboard a designer to give your rooms a better visual appeal and pick color combinations that match your furniture pieces and accents.
