How To Choose Interior Paint Colors For Your Home

It’s time to have the kitchen and living area repainted at our house! Our builder grade yellow-beige from 2012 is looking rough after all the years of wear and tear.

Once I had some inspiration photos from Pinterest and Instagram featuring homes with similar decor styles and colors that I liked, I had to tackle the daunting task of choosing a color.

There were two things I knew I didn’t want to do:

• Walk into Lowes and pick out a paint chip from the millions of options – always such an overwhelming choice!
• Paint test strips directly on my wall – what happens if the paint shortage goes on for months or our painter is super busy and I’m stuck with those random paint blotches all summer?

Instead, I checked with our contractor to find out what brand of paint he uses. I didn’t want to pick out the perfect Benjamin Moore shade only to find out after the fact that he used a “close” match from Sherwin Williams. I learned that the hard way.

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Once I knew he would indeed use Sherwin Williams paint, I went to the website and explored the options until I found four shades that I thought might work. I kind of just went with my gut here, choosing all cool shades but with a couple different undertones.

I picked up all four samples at Lowes (it cost about $15) and a package of poster board from Target. After labeling each poster board with the names of my sample colors, I painted each one and let them dry overnight.

It’s amazing how quickly you can tell if something will work in your space! Comparing the shades side by side immediately gave me clues on the undertones, ruling out one very quickly.

I placed the test boards around the rooms and judged how they looked against cabinets, floors and at different times of day.

If you’re having the trim painted, it’s a good idea to paint a sample board with that shade as well so you can see how it looks next to your wall color. As you can see from the picture above – we’re definitely having our trim painted!

You might be surprised that a frugal person like me is hiring someone to do this job. I learned from our experience painting our bathrooms and my experience painting the laundry room last summer that it’s a worthwhile investment. 🙂

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A post shared by Whitney Pendell || Homemaker (@homeforcomfort)

Using this method really made the process of choosing paint colors as easy as it seems in my Reel! 🙂

I tested these four shades:

• Ice Cube
• Pure White
• Crushed Ice
• On The Rocks

I chose Ice Cube for the walls and Pure White for the trim. Once this project is complete I’ll be sure to share an update!

Read More:

• How To Choose Exterior Paint Colors For Your Home
• How To Have Good Results Working With A Contractor