How to Choose the Right Paint Color for Each Space

When you own a house, or you're one of the renters lucky enough to make more significant changes to your space, a coat of paint on the walls can really make the place feel more like home. The decision as to what color to paint the walls is never easy, as it can completely transform the look and feel of the space in a variety of ways.

Fortunately, with a few basic principles in mind, you can select the perfect paint color for any room. Read on for helpful tips to assist you in the decision process.

1. Mood
If you've ever wondered why yellow is associated with happiness and red with anger, there's a scientific reason for these attributions. Colors are more than just visual traits. Different hues impact the way you feel. Color psychology is very real, and different visual tones each carry an emotional tone, too.

Bright colors, such as yellow and orange, can energize and invigorate your household, for example, which can be excellent choices for an office, bathroom, or dining area. For a clean, calm space, you may want to go for a soft gray, white, cream, pink, or blue.

Keep in mind that each color, regardless of its psychological meaning, can be as muted or as bright as you choose. For example, a color like green, which is typically associated with feelings of positivity, can be used to animate a space with a bright, nearly fluorescent hue or tone a space down with a soft, mossy shade.

2. Decor
Unless you intend to build your room's decor around your new choice of paint color, you should take a few cues from the items, patterns, and colors you already have in your space.

It can be helpful to bring in a throw pillow or a few photographs of your furniture to the hardware store when you select paint samples to take home to ensure you choose a shade that will complement the existing decor in your space.

3. Trends
Some wall colors are timeless, while others rise and fall in popularity. Trendy colors can add a lot of personality to a space, and they can be great options for a bedroom, bathroom, living room, or kitchen - especially if the space already incorporates other trendy colors in furniture or household accouterments.

If trendy wall colors aren't your thing, opt for warm gray, soft white, navy, grayish-green, and tinted cream hues. The neutral colors are more timeless and can complement any trends you choose to incorporate.

4. Budget
If you've opted to paint your space as a budget-friendly refresh in lieu of other more expensive home improvement options, you may want to consider some colors over others. As a rule, one gallon of paint will cover about 400 square feet of wall space, but you could need more if you need to paint over an intense existing color, if you will need a second coat, or if the color you choose will require even more coverage to achieve the look you're after.

To maximize your paint budget, choose colors for larger rooms that can be applied with one or two coats and save more labor and resource-intensive jobs for rooms with less coverage area.

5. Professional Consultation
You may know you want to paint the walls of your hallway a greige color, but the sheer number of paint chips at the store can become easily daunting. Sometimes, the decision to select the perfect wall color may call for a second opinion. Paint experts at your local hardware store can help you to find the best color for your walls, and they can also advise you with regard to the right sheen, paint type, and formula for your space.

For assistance on color selection, the professionals at Koontz Hardware can help. Stop in today for a consultation and choose the best color for your space.