How To Choose the Right Colors for Your Rooms

By: Jill Connors, This Old House magazine (Page 4 of 4)

Photo: Karin Melvin

Interior designer Natalie Riesselman used three walls of color throughout the house shown on these and the following pages. They include a blue-gray (Sherwin-Williams 6200 Link Gray), a reddish brown (Benjamin Moore HC-64 Townsend Harbor Brown), a buttery yellow (Sherwin-Williams 6387 Compatible Cream). Millwork and built-ins painted Benjamin Moore White Dove provide crisp boundaries for the wall colors.

Photo: Karin Melvin

Reddish browns provide a visual connection from the dining room to the front door (Sherman-Williams 2801 Rookwood Dark Red) through a series of cased and uncased openings, which allow a glimpse of the entry’s sunny walls.

Photo: Karin Melvin

The interior of the living room’s uncased square arch is wrapped with the entry’s warm yellow, leading the eye from the front door through the house.

Photo: Karin Melvin

Using the same gray in the open-plan adjoining living room unifies the two spaces. The simplicity of archways with no casework pulls in the view of the next room rather than framing it.

Photo: Karin Melvin

In the gray-walled mudroom, red-and-black flooring with the look of vintage linoleum adds to the interior’s interesting color play.

Photo: Karin Melvin

The master bedroom’s peaked ceiling creates graphic sloping lines against the dark walls. The dark floor tile in the adjoining yellow bath ties the two rooms together.

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5 Common Color Mistakes

1. Being afraid.
"The world is divided into two groups—the color courageous and the color cowardly," says New York color marketing consultant Ken Charbonneau. "People who live in colorful interiors have gotten over the fear of making a mistake." The best way to get over that fear is to always start with a color you love—from a rug, a painting, a fabric. Then test it on the wall. If it's too strong, consider asking your paint store to formulate it at "half-strength" to lighten it or to tone it down by adding more gray.

2. Putting too much on the walls.
Be aware of the intensity of the colors in a room. "If you have an Oriental rug with five or six strong colors, don't paint the walls in equally strong hues. Let the rug be the focal point and the walls a lighter color," says Sherwin-Williams's Sheri Thompson.

3. Putting too little on the walls.
If you think your room is boring, look at it in terms of the 60?30?10 rule that designers employ: Sixty percent of the color in a space generally comes from the walls; 30 percent from upholstery, floor covering, or window treatments; and 10 percent from accent pieces, accessories, and artwork. Translation: Liven up those white walls.

4. Rushing the process.
The best way to find a color you can live with is to paint a 4-by-4-foot swatch on the wall and live with it for at least 24 to 48 hours so you can see it in natural and artificial light. "Taking the extra time to do the swatch test is worth it to find a color you'll love living with for years," says Benjamin Moore's Doty Horn.

5. Forgetting about primer.
When changing the color of a wall, primer (white or tinted) is vital to getting the actual color you picked out. Michael Baillie, paint sales associate at The Home Depot, says, "Priming ensures there will be no interference from the previous wall color."