The least expensive thing you can do to change a room, says Whitney Stewart, principal of Whitney Stewart Interior Design, is repaint. Dee Thornton, principal and senior designer of Houseworks Interiors, agrees: “How else can you overhaul a room for $50?”
Affording the paint is one thing, choosing the colors is a thoroughly different story. Color can dampen or enhance your everyday mood (a lamp may irk you, but it’s not going to give you the same headache as a goldenrod kitchen), so you want to get it right. Something you can live with, but not something so quiet as to be nondescript. Here are some tips we’ve culled from designers, color forecasters, and paint experts from all around.
Plan Before You Paint
Revisit your choices several times, in several lights, and in different mindsets before you make a decision. Having an initially strong attraction to a color is a good sign, but it may just be a passing whim.
You needn’t bend your preferences to whatever hue you see on runways or in showrooms – these are meant to be provocative, to get you thinking. Eggplant may happen to be “the” color one year, but that doesn’t mean everyone can (or should) put up with it in the living room.
Your ideal palette can come from anywhere. When you go to shop for paint, bring samples of what might be called “genres” of color that you respond to positively. It could be anything: a Florentine postcard … a photo of a startling red cactus flower against a soft blue sky … a cobalt and lavender china cup … a snip of silver and yellow gift wrapping. These are all excellent starting places, and show what color combinations feel appropriate to you.
“Color can change the shape of a room,” says Sarah Cole, director, Farrow & Ball. Darker colors shrink a space and lighter ones have an enlarging effect. By having dark surfaces on the floor and ceiling, for example, you may bring balance to a long, narrow room.
Throw away your definition of the word “neutral” – the colors in this category tend to be toward the center of the warm/cool scale, but that doesn’t mean they are devoid of nuance. As Stewart says, “A neutral is a color that transcends into a classic in that many different objects and colors look good with it. A difficult color is not a neutral.”
A trick from the pros: If you like the temperature of a color but you’re worried about using it full strength, ask for the shade at 50 percent rather than dismissing it for something lighter that may have a less-than-ideal balance of pigments.
Don’t overdo the faux. Most designers favor a subtle texture, either faux in the form of a wall covering or upholstery, over more literal murals because subtelty plays better with strong design elements. That said, there are plenty of ways to add depth and interest to a room with, say, a non-literal motif that resembles wallpaper.
Think outside the boxes defined by your crown molding. You can paint the molding too, says Cole, and this could be an easy update for an old-fashioned home. Seeing contrast everywhere stops the eye – a more seamless look could make the space seem larger and more modern.
