5 Tips For Choosing Colors To Paint A Room

Any real estate investor who has served enough time dealing with buyers and tenants will tell you that one of the best ways to stage a house in order to raise it’s perceived value is to give it a fresh new coat of paint.

This is one of those little nuggets of wisdom that sound so simple yet can have a huge impact.

I’ve seen for myself houses and rooms landlorded by others that are fully furnished but just looks so dull and cheap.

And I can tell that the landlords and agents showing these places are flabbergasted as well with the puzzle of why it is so.

The air-conditioning units are new, the furniture is nowhere near condemnation, even the flooring is swept.

What they don’t realize is that a new coat of paint is needed to spruce it up.

I’m definitely not one who you could call a home design expert. But here are some tips about painting a room or the whole house for that matter, that can help you prevent a bad result coming out of your good intention to start a paint job.

1) Put serious thought into recommended color combinations

Paint companies spend millions of dollars on research and marketing.

And a lot of that budget goes into the glossy brochures they give out to consumers.

They have already tried and tested thousands of color combinations so that they can show it to us in magazines and print ads.

So unless you have a creative brain that enables you to visualize you own choice of color combinations, the safe bet is to go with combinations suggested by the manufacturers.

Take a look at interior design magazines and books, browse the websites of design companies, and take pictures of color combinations you see in real life.

You can also find a lot of material depicting color combinations in the paint store.

Once you find a paint color combination you like, note down the manufacturer’s label and tint color to purchase them at the store.

2) Bring examples to the paint store

Should you find a design you like in a magazine, it is best not to just take a picture of it to bring down to the paint store.

Firstly, because the printing process can display a tint that is unlike what it really is.

So purchasing a tint number just from what a magazine indicates can sometimes be disastrous.

Secondly, the cameras of smart phones these days apply filters that skew the actual colors being photographed.

A picture from a phone can be misleading.

The best way to approach this is to bring the magazine or just that page down to the store.

A staff should be able to tell what colors the page is displaying and recommend accordingly.

3) Glossy vs flat

While the glossy look can be appealing due to classy nature, paint that are flat are proven to be best for walls due to irregularities with walls.

A glossy finish can only look good on surfaces that are totally smooth.

Even though interior trim tend to look good with glossy paint, they tend to magnify imperfections like a stain.

When in doubt, going with flat paint is a safer choice.

4) Consistency

There should be a dominant color in the house for consistency.

For example, many homes go with earth based color themes. So the homeowners use a lot of soft shades with trims in dark brown.

The consistency around the house gives it character.

While it is common for rooms to be painted in different colors due to different personal preferences, giving something like the interior trims a consistent color will just help everything blend together.

5) 60-30-10 rule

A rule that is often used by interior designers is the 60-30-10 rule.

This basically means that the dominant color should take up 60%, followed by 30% secondary color, and 10% on decorative furnishing.

Finally, don’t forget to be mindful with lead paint.

Even though that are uncommon these days, there is still a chance that you might come across them when selecting colors for your house.

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