How to choose paint colours for your home – Top 5 Tips

How to choose paint colours for your home

I might be alone in this, but every time I start thinking about redecorating a room in my house I head to various sources for inspiration and quickly become overwhelmed with “the latest colour trend” or “the must use colour this season”

This got me thinking about not only how important the use of colour is but how personal it is to us as individuals. I am a great believer in filling my life with colour as I feel that it reflects who I am and it is a great way to enhance my mood, surroundings and atmosphere.

As a starting point, I did look at the latest trends but then I decided to drill down on what colours I felt really suit my personality because after all, it is so important to create a beautiful and warm space to call your own and fundamentally that is what I feel is most important, not necessarily following a colour trend to the letter or should I say shade but actually discovering how to adapt the latest trend to best suit my style, my home and my lifestyle. So rather than creating something completely trend-led that will go out of fashion in a minute, I thought how can I adapt this to suit my needs?

So here are my top 5 tips for using colour in your home

HOW TO CHOOSE PAINT COLOURS FOR YOUR HOME..

1.  COLOUR PERSONALITY

Think about the colours that you are drawn to, what colours do you like to wear, what about the things that you love doing and colours that are associated with them. Find out what your colour personality is. If you are unsure as I was you can find a quick go-to guide on your colour personality here.

2.    COLOUR SELECTION

Choose 5 colours that you are drawn to, for whatever reason, even if it is something you wouldn’t normally go for, keep it in your top 5 as it evokes a feeling and mood that you are drawn to. Just because you are drawn to vibrant yellow it doesn’t mean that will necessarily go straight on all your walls, there are ways to introduce colours to create a more subtle effect.

 

3.    MOODBOARD YOUR IDEAS

Collate a few images that you are drawn to along with your top 5 colours, creating a moodboard of your ideas. This can take any form, images torn from magazines or your own Pinterest board.

 

 

4.   ANALYZE THE SPACE

Analyze the space you want to redecorate, what furniture and existing pieces do you have and will they sit well with your chosen colours. By now you should have 3-5 colours you would like to try. Head to your local DIY shop and get some tester pots for your chosen colours. To really get an idea of the colour try to paint quite a large section of the wall. (You could do this on sheets of A4 paper if you like but to get a real sense of the colour and texture it is best to paint directly on to the wall to see how the colour takes). Try to space the colours out so they are not right next to each other and you are not distracted by all the colours together at once. Live with the colours for a day at least so you can see how different light throughout the day impacts the colour and the space. Both artificial and natural light can greatly affect how the colour looks.

5.    GO FOR IT!

Having done your research and tested your colours hopefully you have chosen your favourite. Now is the time to be brave, your home is your space and you should feel completely comfortable with you choices as they are unique to you and your personality. So just go for it and get to decorating!

Have a little look here for other ideas on colour schemes that work well together and fine moodboard inspiration here.