Colour me happy.
Choosing paint colours with confidence.
Lately I’ve been looking at ways to steer clients away from safe colour palates and into something more adventurous. This is usually greeted with some trepidation and I get that, I really do….especially when talking wall colour.
There’s a lot of “rules” around this. Don’t use dark colours in a small rooms, it will make it look smaller. Play it safe for open living areas and stick with a light neutral so it’s not too overwhelming or clashes bla bla. No wonder people get spooked and yes, some are certainly valid.
The thing is though, paint is a relatively cheap thing in the grand scheme of renovating and is one of those elements that makes a HUGE impact on the final result. I’m not sure why people don’t mix it up and change this more often as it’s one part of decorating you can easily do yourself without the expense of a trade professional.
One of things I’m really loving at the moment is using multiple shades of the one colour. This is proving to be quite the hit with my more nervous clients. Doing a feature wall in the darkest shade and then the other walls in a lighter version delivers the drama and excitement without the full commitment. I guess it harks back to the bold feature wall of the 90’s. The difference here, the other shades help temper that impact rather than having a feature wall stand boldly (and garishly) on it’s own as the rest of the room cringes away.
A good place to start choosing the colours is to look for a main colour, and then grabbing the 2 shades on either side. Taubmans paint samples are great for this as they have 3-4 variants of the one colour on the one sample chip. You can see straight up how they sit together. I would probably not do the darkest and lightest together. Darkest and middle. Or middle and lightest. Basically, you don’t the difference to be too severe and jarring. Make sense?
The next step is getting sample pots of all 3 and start painting! Make sure you do a larger sample (say 50x50cm square) and do that in various points in the room to see how the colour reacts to ambient and natural light. You’d be amazed how the colour can change from one part of the room to the next, from one time of day to the next. It’s also important to remember, the existing wall colour will influence the new paint samples so a couple of coats and waiting for it to dry is best before deciding. If that all sounds too hard, Dulux have A4 sized paint samples you can blu-tac to the walls which is super easy and quick.
Now you’ve made the decision, go forth and create your dream space!
Check out my insta feed to see some experiments in colour and materials…and hopefully some inspiration!
Dave xx