Color Choices For Your Interior Painting Project
There are many choices you will need to make if you are going to remodel your bathroom. One of the main choices you will have to decide upon is the color scheme.
Instead of giving you a lesson on color theory and defining some terminology, we can skip all that and get down to the real root of picking colors that will please you.
Painting your bathroom isn't that complicated. But choosing paint colors can be pretty scary because most of us know that when the wrong colors are used, the area just doesn't seem right or look right and the whole project just seems to fall apart.
Better than to advise someone on what color is perfect for their bathroom, is to advise them on ways to figure out what is perfect for them. To figure out what is right for you, the best road to success is to answer some questions and get to know your likes and dislikes. Every person is different, which is represented by the design in their homes.
Color choices are often as original as the individuals making them. Soon after answering some questions, you can begin to figure out and narrow down what colors you should at least start looking at as options.
A color scheme is just a set of colors that go together. If you take a look at nature, there are all the colors in the world put together. It seems that even though there are so many colors, they all go together pretty well.
Have you seen any colors in nature that look ugly? There are a few, but not many.
This should put your mind at ease, because you know then that there really are only a few ways you can mess up the paint color scheme and if you avoid doing them you will likely get good results out of your favorite picks.
One way to mess up your scheme is to choose too many colors. Think of a really ugly thing in nature that looks gross. Now that you have the image in your mind, what's a characteristic of it that might add to the fact that it looks gross?
A few reasons things can look really bad because of color:
- One, like we said, is too many colors in the mix.
- Two, there are too few colors with too little contrast between the colors.
When too many colors are thrown in, there is nothing to focus on and it triggers our minds to be unfocused and busy looking around for some shape or something to center on, something to grab onto or to help ground us.
When there's too little contrast between the paint colors, especially in too few, the space or area is too bland and unappealing and tends to just go away or be uninteresting. And for some reason this can make our minds think it's gross.
So with this we can conclude that there seems to be a right number or range of numbers of colors we should use that will be most likely to succeed.
The best thing to do is keep in mind that simpler is better when it comes to designing your new look, especially if you have little design experience.
To keep it simple and have the best chance of successfully choosing the right colors the first time, narrow your limit of color choices down to three colors at most. Picking three colors that go together is a lot easier than picking five or more.
So, what is the simplest way to pick three colors?
- One, pick one color you really like and go both up three shades for the lighter pick and down three shades for the darker pick.
- Pick two colors that will go well together. Be sure there is enough contrast but not too much between them. You want them to look good enough to be put on the same wall, even though you likely won't do that. Let your trim be the third choice, which you will choose to paint either a shade of white or shade of wood.
- Pick two colors that look good together for all the walls and one color you use only in accessorizing that will make a pop of color.
But, how do you even choose just those few colors? Next on the agenda is to ask those hard questions of yourself. The first one is easy however.
- What colors do you know you don't like? Just avoid those.
- Do you enjoy being outdoors? Then consider whether you would like mountains, forests in a lush valley, or beaches better.
- Do you enjoy being indoors? What is your favorite area of the home?
- What time of year is your favorite. Do you prefer winter, summer, fall or spring?
For question #2, if you like mountains, you are probably drawn to earthy colors of rock, hills, orange-red clays, blues, purples. Forests in a lush valley would mean you are drawn to thriving greens and darker blues. Oceans bring to mind mixes of blues and greens and reds and oranges and yellows of sunsets, the peaches of sea animals, the off whites of sand and weathered, dry wood.
In Question #3, thinking about your home and what your favorite room is will give you insight into what type of activity level you prefer.
Do you enjoy most your corner by the fireplace where you can read a good book? Or maybe your living room where you watch a movie or play on the computer. Or perhaps you enjoy most your exercise area where you walk your treadmill and have your home office.
If you're the kind of person who has the patience and loves to sit and read, you will probably be the kind of person who also would rather take a nice, hot bath than a quick shower and shave. The person who enjoys a quick shower, is drawn toward more activity and would be better suited to try brighter paint colors while the other would be better off picking from the softer colors.
The times of year in the last question bring to mind the white of snow, the wet dark woods, and the dark greens and reds of the holidays. Fall, the burnt oranges, golds, yellows, and rich browns.
Envisioning these favorite things of yours will tell you what colors you are drawn too. With this method, you can come closer and closer to narrowing down your choices. Once you have your choices narrowed down, then it's time to get a bucket or two of paint and give it a try.
Your best method of trying out the colors is to take a blank wall in the space and paint a large area with the first color and the darker color just below it to see if they look good in the space.
Keep going, you should find something pretty quickly! Just be true to the feeling you want to achieve for your bathroom and stick to the choices that would make you happy in the space. When its time, don't hesitate to call an interior painting contractor because they can help you along the way!