Selecting a Whole-House Color Palette

 

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.

1. Pick two main colors and a neutral (generally speaking: gray, beige, or white) that all coordinate
2. Select  a light/dark version of each color
3. Select a trim color
4. 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!