I LOVE the colors of my walls.
But…..
This has not always been the case.
Have you ever loved a color in store but when you got it home and painted your entire wall or dare I say an entire room and realized that you hated it!!?
I have been there too.
Let me share with you a few tips that I learned, when deciding what is the best color for your space, so that painting an entire wall or room in a color you hate will never happen again.
If you have NO IDEA there is still hope for you, don’t worry!
Keep reading!!
I have gone to my local paint store before and had no idea what color I wanted to paint my walls. I just knew it needed to be changed! In this case what I did was start choosing colors I thought might look good. I at least had an idea of how bright I wanted my wall color to be so I chose colors that were in that range. I literally walked out of there with 20-30 different color cards.
If you are in the same boat as me, my first recommendation would be to go grab a bunch of sample cards, like a lot!!
If you still have absolutely no clue what color to go with, there is a book that I use all the time when figuring out what colors go well together. I not only use it for painting but also for choosing accents for my home or when making printables. It really can be used for so many things.
The book is called Color Index 2 by Jim Krause. This book is sort of geared toward graphic design/ photography/interior design and I love it! It gives good ideas for what colors look great
together.
Now that you have all of your pretty color cards, bring them into the room that you want to paint. Use some painters tape to tape them all up to your wall.
I would recommend using a white background, if possible, to tape the paint sample too. In the picture below I taped a bunch of 8.5×11 pages together to make a big sheet. You could also pick up a poster board.
What I have also done in the past is actually paint primer right onto the wall and then tape my samples directly to the wall. I think a white background really gives you the best idea of how the color will look in the space.
Also I updated the color of this turquoise wall over here!!
I would bet that pretty soon after you get those sample cards up on your wall you will be able to immediately rule out some of them. Lighting plays such a big role in how a color looks. You might like a color in one room and hate it in another.
I usually let these samples sit on my wall for a few days before I make a decision. I know it is so hard to be patient and wait but it will pay off in the end because you will have a color that you absolutely love!
After a few days of looking at my paint samples and narrowing down my choices I will usually decide on 2-3 possible colors.
This next step is probably the most important!
Hawthorne & Main is all about finding your style for your space! It should be a reflection of you! 
Really great tips! Hopefully we can get into a house this year and I will be able live in a place that doesn’t have eggshell walls. This will be helpful 🙂
what color is that in the wall makeover? i want to paint my dining room these exacr colors?
They paint color I ended up going with is called Creamy Mushroom by BEHR. Happy painting!
That would be awesome for you guys to get your place! Hopeful this can help you.
We're paining the whole basement/playroom in a month or two. I'm going to do as you suggest and tape swatches to the walls. I wasn't even thinking of the different lighting during the different times of day.. until now.
It really did help me out a ton to use those color cards. I would also really recommend using the paint samples. It made a difference for me. Thanks for your comment!
Can you share the names of the three color swatches pictured above? The color on the bottom looks exactly like what I'm looking for. Thanks!! 🙂
Sarah great question!! All of these paint samples are from the Behr paint line. I got them from Home depot. The colors are ( starting from top left going clockwise) Mesa Taupe, Studio Taupe, and Creamy Mushroom. I ended up painting the entire interior of my house Creamy Mushroom and I love it!! It is definitely a good gre-beige.
Good suggestions. I agree that getting the Behr paint sample jars is a must do. I had in my mind a certain color of green I wanted my kitchen. I ended up with 7 different colors of paint & still none of them was “the” color I desired. I took the two colors I liked the best & blended the three colors in different ways until I created “the” color. Love my walls. Did the same thing in my dinning room with 5 paint samples.
Way to go Pam! I totally agree that paint samples make all the difference. I love that you came up with your own color too. Sometimes you have in your head what you want and if the store doesn’t have it you have to make it yourself. I love that!
This is how we should do it, I learned a lot from your blog will paint my wall on up coming Summer 🙂
This was our story just yesterday. I picked the color & hubby started to do the cutting in around the trim. I walked in & saw the paint color… it was HORRIBLE!! I was literally ready to cry because the color was SO LIGHT it would have looked all mucked up from our big family in a matter of a few days since it was in a stairwell to the bedrooms.
The paint swatch did match the can, but NOT the walls… the shade it dried to was near white, & the color I chose was far from white. My best suggestion is to actually paint the WALL with the sample colors you are going to paint because you never know how much the previous wall color & type of paint previously used will impact what the new color looks like.
I found the old paint in our basement from the previous owner & I think the issue came up because they used paint WITH primer all together. We have NEVER had a paint swatch look so dramatically different on the walls as we have in our new house… & we have owned a lot of houses over the years…. that is the first time we have ever painted over ALL IN ONE paint before too, so I think that had at least something to do with the dramatic color difference. I would never have guessed it would EVER look 3 shades lighter when it dried… especially when it was going over a color that was fairly dark to begin with… our minds were blown!
Hubby went & got a new color & I went 2 shades darker to make sure some pigment showed up… and it worked this time, though I will say that the replacement paint color still looks different on the wall than on the can….even though it absolutely matches the paint color card. At least the walls won’t look filthy in 2 days now though.
The ironic thing about this is that the same thing happened with our family room… we chose a color that was kind of grayish-greenish. The walls look GRAY… just GRAY… no green at all. Now we know why that happened… we were painting over the AIO paint with the primer in it, so it must have made the color look different like it did in the hallway.
Lesson learned for sure! No holding up paint cards… we will paint actual paint samples ON THE WALL itself because using white paper, cardboard, drywall, etc. still won’t look the same unless the wall was never oainted before… & even then… we have painted brand new drywall before & the color is always darker on it being the first time it was painted. The best bet is to paint the ACTUAL wall you will be painting unless you don’t mind a possible huge SURPRISE & color that you hate…lesson learned!
We have painted our guest room and office with the same mushroom color paint. Please let me know the name/brand of the white you have used. We would like to paint our adjoining hallway, but in a complimentary color…avoiding any pink (previous mistake). Thanks.
Best suggestion ever and can’t believe I didn’t think of it put color swatches on a white plasterboard! BAM it took about 60 seconds to see what I didn’t want. I’ve been looking at these swatches for a month. Thank you so much!! However I’m back to get more swatches….no big deal.
Grateful
Hello I want to thank and first congratulate I loved your information and brought us news we are always following the news thank you and even more successes.
parabéns pessoal pela postagem. 🙂
parabéns pessoal pela postagem, sensacional. 🙂
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