Any couple that has decided to re-paint a room knows that agreeing on a new color often requires as much diplomatic give-and-take as negotiating a peace treaty. So let me offer a few pointers on how to make your living room fresh again, while not jeopardizing your marital harmony or your bank account. Color is a funny thing – some people see it while others don’t. Some may see green where others see blue – and some are colorblind altogether. It is a genetic fact that women are better at identifying colors than men, although men are better at spatial visualization.
Over the years, I’ve overheard many conversations that follow a strikingly similar chord:
She: “Oh, our living room is so drab. I want some color!”
He: “What’s wrong with it?! It’s fine.”
Or
She: “I really want to bring out the different colors in our furniture. See that orange and that purple? The walls are just so dull it makes all the furniture look dull, too.”
He: “I thought the couch was brown. It’s orange and purple? What other colors are in our furniture?”
And that is where the real conversation starts.
One way to decide on your color is to take a look at the largest pieces of furniture and window treatments in your home from a distance. Is there a dominant color theme? You may first say brown, beige, khaki and sage if your fabrics are in the muted mixed family. Or maybe you see red, blue, green, yellow, gray, black, or white. If the colors are solid, take a seat cushion and bring it into different light sources in the room such as a window or under a lamp. You may see subtle shifts in color. Take your cue from those shifts when you choose your wall colors – keeping in mind that you have to decide if you like contrast or if you lean more towards keeping colors in the same family, hue, and tone.
If your furniture seems disparate and not pulled together, as if it all hails from different planets, you may try to find the one or two colors that are present in all the fabrics – even if they are not readily visible to the naked eye.
If you have a mixed thread weave that from a distance looks like a mottled color of “something,” there are two ways to arrive at a color. First, stand away a bit and squint. The color that melts together is usually the dominant color of the fabric or what the weave creates as the overall color. By choosing a color that matches your “squint-color,” you bind together the furniture with the walls. This is a safe way to go and may be what you need to choose in order to bring the room together especially if you have many different fabrics, weaves and patterns in the space.
The other method is to go close-up on the fabric. Use a magnifying glass to see the different thread colors. You may see orange, red, or purple that all together create a visual effect of a soft warm brown, terra cotta or burgundy. By taking one of these purer colors and bringing it out in throw pillows or in a value on the wall you are creating a contrast which is anchored in the colors the eye doesn’t readily see.
To find the right unifying colors use both the squint and the magnifying methods.
The next step is a stop at the paint store. Bring a cushion so you can check your color choice against it. If you want an exact match to a solid cushion find the color chip you think comes closest. Hold the color chip over the cushion under the different light bulbs provided in the paint store. Look intently at the chip for 30 seconds, remove the chip quickly but keep your eyes on the same spot the chip was covering. In the brief moment your eyes adjust, you will “see” a shift – both in color and hue. If you are trying to get a perfect match there should be no shift at all. If the cushion looks lighter – the color you chose is too dark and vice versa. If the cushion color shifted to red or green, blue or yellow, purple or orange, you have to find a color that brings out less of the color you see in the shift. If this is hard to figure out, start with a color that is obviously different but in the same family, where you clearly can see the shift just by holding the chip to the cushion. You can then train your eye to catch the subtler differences as you choose colors that come closer.
Hopefully you will find a color that appeals to you and your spouse. Once you do, the only thing left to do is to buy your paint and get rolling!
To see examples of how we have used paint color in our design, check out the Personal Rooms on our website.