How to Choose a Paint Color

Choosing a color is one of the most personal parts of a paint job. It is also where a little patience pays off the most, because the color is the part of the work you will look at every day for years. Ebenezer has a good eye for color, and these are the habits that help a homeowner land on one they still like long after the drop cloths are gone.

Look at the light first

A color changes through the day. The same wall can look warm at breakfast and cool by dinner, and a room that faces one direction will never look like a room that faces another. Before you decide, look at the space in the morning, at midday and in the evening, with the lamps you actually use switched on.

San Diego adds its own twist. A morning marine layer near the coast flattens and cools a color for hours, while an inland afternoon can push the same color warm and bright. There is more on this in how San Diego light changes a color.

Read the undertone, not just the color

Most of the trouble people have with color is not the color they chose but the undertone hiding in it. A “white” can lean yellow, pink, green or blue. A “gray” can lean warm toward beige or cool toward blue. Beige can carry pink that only shows up next to a white trim.

The way to see an undertone is by comparison. Hold your sample next to a plain white sheet of paper, then next to two or three other samples in the same family. The lean that was invisible on its own becomes obvious when there is something beside it. Pick the undertone first, then the depth.

Test it on the wall, not just on a card

A small card in your hand tells you very little. Put a sample on the wall itself, in more than one spot, and live with it for a few days. It is the most reliable way to find out whether you still like it once the novelty wears off.

A few rules make a test worth trusting:

1. Go large. Paint a board or a large patch, not a stripe the width of a brush.
2. Give it two coats. One coat of sample over an old color is a blend of the two, not the new color.
3. Test on more than one wall. The wall beside the window and the wall facing it can look like two different colors.
4. Isolate it. A sample painted straight onto an old color is influenced by the color around it. A white board, or a patch with a white border, gives an honest read.
5. Wait for it to dry. Wet paint is darker and glossier than it will be. Judge the dry sample only.

Think about what does not change

Floors, counters, cabinets, tile, stone, roof tiles and large furniture all have colors of their own, and the new paint has to work with them. Hold your sample right next to those things, since they will not be changing. A gray that looked crisp on the chip can turn muddy beside a warm oak floor; a warm white can look dingy next to bright white quartz.

If a room is being repainted around a kitchen or bathroom that is staying, start the color search from the counter or the tile, not from the paint fan deck.

Expect the color to grow on four walls

A color gets stronger on a whole room than it looks on a chip, because every wall reflects it back onto the others. Saturated colors in particular can feel far more intense at full scale. If you are torn between two neighboring chips on the strip, the lighter one is often the one you will be happier with once it is up. Sheen plays a part too: a higher sheen reflects more light and makes the same color look a touch lighter and livelier than it does in a flat finish.

Let the rooms talk to each other

In an open-plan home, or anywhere you can stand in one room and see into the next, colors are seen together. They do not have to match, but they look calmer when they share an undertone. One approach many people find helpful is a single wall color for the connected living spaces and more freedom in the rooms with doors: bedrooms, a study, a powder room. Ceilings and trim tie it together when they stay consistent from room to room.

Use the color to say something about the room

A color can make a room feel calm, warm, cozy or bright. Decide how you want the room to feel, then look for the color that does that, rather than beginning with a color you liked somewhere else. A bedroom you want to rest in asks for something different from a kitchen you want to wake up in.

Exteriors ask a little more

An exterior color has to sit well with the neighborhood, the landscaping, the roof and the light outside. Look at it from the street, in full sun and in shade. In much of the county there is also a homeowners’ association to consider: in communities like Eastlake and Otay Ranch, the exterior color often has to come from an approved palette, or be approved by the association, before anyone opens a can. Check your HOA’s rules first. Exterior painting is planned around exactly these questions.

Ask the person who will paint it

Ebenezer talks colors through with every client, and he uses Dunn-Edwards and Sherwin-Williams for the finish they give. In his words, “Paint to me is an art”, and choosing the color is where that starts. Whether you arrive with a fan deck full of marked chips or with no idea at all, the answer is the same: absolutely, it’s possible. You work it out together, room by room, in the light your home actually has.

If you would like his eye on your rooms, ask for a free estimate and bring the samples you have been living with. You can also read about interior painting, see how a job runs from start to finish, or look at how color decisions play out across San Diego homes.