Expert Tip: Choosing Interior Wall Paint Colors

There is something magical about painting your house. First, it is incredibly inexpensive. You can almost completely transform the way guests feel when they walk through your front door for an investment of less than $ 100 in paint and supplies.

And secondly, paint is powerful. When you choose the right color, everything in your home sings. But that’s the hard part. Choosing interior wall paint colors is difficult, and you often feel like you’re flying blind in front of a large number of swatches at the hardware store.

To help you make the best decision for your home, here is a guide to choosing interior wall paint colors in different rooms.

Oh one final note: different houses open to different rooms. Keep this in mind when choosing interior wall paint colors. Whichever room your visitors first walk into, you want it to be bold and beautiful without being over the top. That room is usually the living room, so that’s where we’ll start, but pay more attention to the room than the first impression of your home.

Living room

What matters when choosing a paint color for your living room? Start with these three things:

  1. Natural light

  2. Furniture color

  3. Spacing

If your room is filled with natural light, you can get away with earthier tones that add a dark complement to the sun’s rays coming through the windows during the day. If you have almost no natural light, opt for something lighter.

Also, use your living room paint to balance with your furniture. You want your living room to include one primary color and two accent colors. For example, you can have a large, eye-catching rug that creates the primary color. Next, use your furniture and walls as accents. Or you can have a beautiful painting on the mantel that creates a nice accent. Then you can use furniture as another accent and wall paint as your main color. No matter how you divide things up, balance is the key.

Also, consider the spacing. A lighter paint color can make a small, compact living room feel bigger. You definitely don’t want a narrow living room with little natural light to also have dark, earthy paint colors.

Kitchen

You have plenty of opportunities to provide pops of color in your kitchen: tapestries, curtains, tea towels, granite, and even a fun mixer. This is why I generally prefer a nice neutral gray for my kitchen. (I’ve always been in love with Dorian Gray, but that’s just me.) Find the right gray and you have a nice palette to add fun pops of color to.

Are you not neutral? Okay, that’s totally understandable. The most daring options for the kitchen can include yellow, green or blue. Green is quite versatile when pairing brighter accent colors, and yellow is like bringing sunshine into your home. Blue is good if your kitchen is filled with neutral tea towels, granite, curtains, etc.

Looking to be really daring in the kitchen? Pass the painting and participate in the return of the wallpaper. I haven’t gotten to that point yet, but …

Bedroom

If you’re like me, you don’t do much in the bedroom other than read a book, get ready for work, and rest. (Okay, there’s something else too, but let’s stay on topic.) With that in mind, make your bedroom the perfect place to rest by using soothing and calming paint colors.

What colors are calming and relaxing? Try lavender, a soft green, or an icy blue. I know that many homeowners just can’t help but put a bolder stamp on their walls. If you are tempted to go for a stronger bedroom color, go for it in a guest room or a child’s room. These are the perfect space to be a little more adventurous.

Bath

Bathrooms often have little or no natural light. If anything, you might have a frosted window, but most bathrooms don’t have a window at all.

With that in mind, go to the hardware store and stock up on lighter colors from the blue-gray family; this is the best range of colors for the bathroom. Take the swatches home and place them on the floor to see how they work with the lighting and your tile, wood, or vinyl floor.

I have used this method in the past, and one sample always caught my eye. We wish you the same success! But again, along with the kitchen, the bathroom is another place where you can get away with trying a fun wallpaper, especially a half bathroom.

Final thoughts on choosing interior wall paint colors

I say this a lot, but: The rules are bound to be broken. Throw everything I’ve written here out the window if it leads you to paint colors you just don’t like. Always stay true to your personal taste and you won’t go wrong.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *