How to Select the Interior Paint Scheme for Your House
- 1). Decide which rooms you'll be painting and whether you want a continuous color scheme throughout the house or would rather change colors from room to room. For a continuous color scheme, choose one color or one set of colors and work those into various rooms. Change the shade slightly by using a lighter or darker tone of the same color, or change how much of that color is used in each room. It could be the main color in the living room, but just an accent color in the bedroom.
- 2). Select the same color scheme for rooms that are neutral in function if you don't want to use the same colors in every room but would like some unity. Neutral rooms include hallways and extra rooms that do not serve a specific purpose, such as a bedroom or kitchen.
- 3). Keep in mind the purpose of each room when selecting colors. Choose a cool, relaxing color scheme for areas where you want to unwind. For instance, blues and lavenders with shades of white work well in the bedroom. If you choose warmer colors for the bedroom, pick soft hues instead of primary colors like bright red. Instead, try bright colors, such as red, in high traffic areas. Red is often used in the kitchen to wake you up in the morning and encourage a healthy appetite. Painting a single focal wall a bright color will give you a charge every time you look at it.
- 4). Choose three colors for your color scheme - or three shades of the same color. Follow the 60-30-10 rule which says that one color should cover 60 percent of the room, the second should cover 30 percent and the last color, 10 percent. As an example, if blue is your 60 percent, use it on the walls, brown or dark blue furniture might account for 30 percent of the room's color with white as the 10 percent color in small accessories like lamps or on trim.
- 5). Find fabric or other accessories and use colors from those for your color scheme. A striped pillow, couch or drapery fabric will give you two, often three, different colors to draw from.
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