One of the biggest lessons I learned from House #1 was how
not to pick paint colors. I painted that house one room at a time, selecting colors on an as needed basis. It went well until the last
room and I couldn't find a color that fit both of my requirements: 1) be
a color I like and 2) match the other colors in the house. I ended up
with a turquoise master bedroom (why did I save my personal room for last???) that I never liked.
When
we moved into House #2, I knew I needed to do something different so I
wouldn't paint myself into a hypothetical corner of color selection.
Our townhome is pretty standard for this area, but the layout presents
some interesting challenges when it comes to painting. Although our
living space is spread between four (yes, FOUR) levels, each level kind
of flows into one or two others through the stairs so I wanted a
cohesive color scheme through the entire house, especially for the halls
and stairwells that connect all the levels.* I imagine a house with an open floor plan would present a similar challenge.
Here's the color selection
scheme I came up with: We have two bedrooms, so I wanted two main colors
and, of course, ya gotta have a neutral. The Hubs loves blue and we
already had a navy wall in the master bedroom (which we liked!) so that was easy. My
favorite color is green, so I selected a green that would coordinate with
the navy. I'm totally digging all the gray walls happening right now
and
really wanted our neutral to be gray. However, we also had
some beige walls in the master bedroom (which we also liked) and I just
couldn't make the cool gray and warm beige of the master bedroom get
along so I opted for a beige, very similar to the one already on the bedroom walls, instead. I was really quite sad about nixing the gray. During the process of
picking colors I even had an unusually vivid dream about a beautiful
gray and white kitchen... *sigh*... House #3?
So at
this point, we had navy blue, a sage green, and a light beige. We're
not done quite yet. I wanted a second shade of each color so I would
have six options in total to mix and match through the entire house. The
next part was easy. I simply took the paint swatch of each of the
original colors (I was using one of those giant paint swatch deck things
- so handy to have around!) and picked a second shade that was a shade
or two lighter/darker than the first. Since the blue was dark I picked a
lighter coordinating color. The green was light so I picked an
additional darker shade from that swatch. Same with the beige. Easy
peasy!
Finally, I selected a white for trim. (Thanks,
Dad, for making me a white paint snob who can't just go pick up the can
of "bright white" trim paint and be satisfied...)
Eventually
I will also pick a stain color, but that will be a project for another day!
In summary, this was process for coming up with our color palette house #2.
- Pick two main colors and a neutral (generally speaking: gray, beige, or white) that all coordinate
- Select a light/dark version of each color
- Select a trim color
- Select a stain color (if needed)
Naturally, we may come up with other items that need painting (furniture, cabinets, etc.) which may require more paint colors choices, but this should take care of the walls. I'll share the colors we decided on in my next post!
Do you have any wisdom to share on how to pick a whole house color palette? I'd love to hear it!
*Note: having so many stairs also makes it difficult to pick a place to
stop
painting because you either have to stop before you get to the stairs,
leaving the area incomplete, or go up the stairs, thereby starting in on
another level that you're not ready to work on yet. Thankfully, I like
painting!
