Home Décor: Choosing Paint Colors - as part of the home design series by GeoBeats.

Here are some suggestions on picking paint colors for your home. What not to do, and what you should definitely do. The first thing to do is start out with the color that you have in mind. So, a lot of people are afraid of color, but you should not be. Color looks great on walls, and once you paint an entire room a color, it tends to fade a little bit into the background. It is not as pronounced as you would normally think it would be. For example, in benjamin moore, the colors are ranging from lightest to darkest. So a failproof way of picking an accent wall color, is to simply choose an accent wall that is on the same strip as the color you are selecting. If you wanted to paint your entire room cameo rose, you may wanna do an accent wall in the Sausalito Sunset. Or, if you wanted to paint your room gray, you can do all the walls in 1 color, and an accent wall in a darker gray. Or you can choose a totally different complementary color. For example, if you had a room that was all gray, and did an accent wall in the neon green, it would really create quite a statement.

Many manufacturers sell small sample jars of paint, that you can paint on either some foam board, or on a little patch in your room. That way, you can see what it looks like on your wall without having to commit to the entire paint job. What I tell all my clients to do is go ahead, and keep these out for about 2 or 3 days. And every time you walk by, you go ahead and mark which one you like best at that time of day. So, for example, you wake up in the morning, getting your cup of coffee. And you say, wow, I really like how this looks in the morning light. You would just make a note that this looks best in the morning. The key to picking the best paint color is to find the swatch that looks the best in your room at varying points in the day. And those are some suggestions for picking paint for your home.