How to Choose a Paint Color & Transform Your Living Room with Less Time and Money

[richardr]

Do you have furniture that doesn’t seem to go with the rest of your house? Try a fresh coat of paint before you change your living room’s décor.

Let me guess, you’re cringing right now at the thought of painting your living room. You’re not alone.

Even though most homeowners know painting is the most inexpensive and quickest way to transform their living rooms from drab to fabulous, they still express reluctance in vivid hues. They feel selecting the right paint colors is an intimidating task not easily achieved by amateurs.

However, finding and living with colors you really love can be easy, fun and a lot lighter on your budget.

Here Are My Top 4 Tips for Choosing the Right Paint Color & Turning Your Living Room into the Room of Your Dreams

1. Collect Decorating Samples From Your Home

The best way to begin choosing the right paint color for your living room is to let fabric lead the way. Fabric provides inspiration for a room’s color scheme. It’s also a more prudent starting point since painting your living room is much easier and costs a lot less than to change furniture and window treatments.

2. Study Color Schemes You Admire in Home Decorating Magazines

Turn your magazine flipping into a treasure hunt. Mark or rip out pages with rooms that you like. This will become your decorating portfolio and will come in handy when its time to pick a mood and feel for your room.

You may even see a room with the same structure as your space that you can use as a template for your wall color and furniture placement. See how the pros do it, copy them and then add your own personality twist for a fresh, new look.

3. Keep Paint Tones in Mind – and Instantly Change the Mood of your Living Room

You want to use colors appropriate to the natural setting lighting. To create the prefect place to curl up by, you must understand the psychology of color. The color wheel has two sides: warm and cool.

Just like the group name connotes, warm colors add coziness and warmth to a space while cool colors add a smooth airiness that can translate an atmosphere of peace and relaxation. Warm colors range from red to orange and cool colors range from blue to violet.

Knowing how color will affect your emotional response will come in handy when choosing the mood of your living room.

4. Notice Architectural Features

Highlighting window casements, columns, staircases, crown moldings and other architectural features with shades of white can instantly turn your living room into a true showcase admired by friends, family and yourself.

If you’re feeling brave, instead of painting your living room’s architectural features white or off-white, consider the palest shade of color to coordinate with the walls.

Your Home Interior Decoration Bottom Line:

Painting your living room can be fun, easy and cheap. You may already have the framework for a showroom hiding in your carpets, curtains and furniture.

Choosing a living room’s feel can be as simple as flipping through your favorite magazine and cutting out a picture. Paying a little attention to details, especially architectural ones can give your living room that custom touch. This is a secret that most do-it-yourselfers overlook.

If you follow these tips, you will pick a paint to please your palette and give your home the quality it deserves.

The American Homeowners Association (AHA) ®

Richard Roll, Founder and President of the American Homeowners Association (AHA), is dedicated to providing over 1 million homeowners with the information, tools and resources that will help them save money and make the right decisions about their homes. For more information go to http://www.ahahomenew.org and Click Here for a Special Offer.

[Distinctivescenes]

BEFORE PAINTING THE ROOM, READ BELOW.

One problem I find in picking the color you like is that once it is up on the walls it may not look the same as it did on the small paint sample card. Lighting is typically the reason for this.

To solve this problem, before painting on the wall, try buying a paint sample(s) of the color(s) you think you want. Paint it on a sample board that is available at hardware stores or you can even use poster board. After it has dried, place your sample on your wall. Look at it during the day, evening, low light, bright light, sunlignt or none. Move it to each wall. You will note it will probably look different depending on how the light is hitting it. Make sure the color is something you like in all light settings. It may take a couple colors before you find one you really like.

It is better to have painted a small piece of cardboard and decided you don't like the color than an entire room. I had a customer just this week that had a blue they loved, but in certain lighting found it looked liked purple! Thank goodness it was on just a piece of cardboard!