Choosing Interior Colors: How to Create a Story in Your Home

Choosing an interior color or colors is a perfect opportunity to shape the space you want to change. Now there are a plethora of colors to choose from, with each brand containing specified colors that are unique to their company. It can feel like an overwhelming process if not done delicately. Many factors influence the decision. The shape of the actual space plays a huge role in how deep or light a color should be. How much natural light comes in throughout the day can be a determining factor in the degree of shade that is chosen. Warm versus cool artificial light can influence or alter a color’s depth. North facing rooms south facing rooms east and west facing rooms all can determine the right shade. Floor, color, furniture, finishes, tile, design, hardware, appliances – All play a pivotal role in picking the right color and how it reflects your experience. A color is not viewed by itself; it is constantly interacting with everything around it. A gray that looks soft and neutral against white trim may suddenly appear blue next to a particular tile. A warm beige can look almost pink beside certain flooring. All indicate how a color is perceived.

The beauty of choosing colors, is the ability to link them consistently throughout a home or space. Connecting shades of colors to create a story in your own space from a calm blue that feels refreshing to wake up to, to a pop of bright orange in the kids room to stimulate the options are vast. Even going off the standard and painting your doors a dark, deep, rich, brown color or highlighting crown molding in gold speckled paint can truly create a world of your own vision. Now there are some basics to start with and going in through a certain process to help achieve this, it can sometimes even be a process of elimination, selecting a trim color that you want to be consistent throughout the home usually ends up also being your ceiling color, but in a flat version and that creates fluidity throughout the space and ties in each room as you walk in through it. Each color chosen carries its own identity, giving you far-reaching ability to cast your canvas, which is your space.

Colors are not limited just paint. Stain can give a lot of options if there are wood elements in the space adding another dimension to the overall look and feel. Stain can give a modern twist to an old classic being able to bring out the grain of wood, which is such a beautiful natural-occurring product. There are even different degrees, apparently, when it comes to stain and how much wood grain one would like to see or one would like not to see. Species of wood can dictate how that stain is absorbed and the color that shows, from mahogany to Douglas fir to redwood all have their own distinct characteristics so sampling pieces is the best way before choosing one without knowing the outcome. Even if there are not natural raw wood elements in a home, we have the ability to make a painted piece of wood look like trim. to find out more. This is detailed in our other blog "Inside a 1929 McGregor home restoration: how we matched original wood stain on new baseboards”.

Selecting colors can be a very personal choice, dependent on what you like or what you like to see. We recommend spending time in the space to see the movement of light and to feel what speaks to you. Sometimes that might even being seeing a color in a friend's home or an associate’s workspace that you bond to, and want to re-create in your own home. I often recommend to clients that some of the best way to see a color is to see it in person and that inspiration can come from any space that you walk into. Now moving into your own space it might not be that exact same shade that has landed on as being able to tweak to accommodate your own environment is necessary. Then the fine tuning happens, shuffling through options to find the range of color to settle in. One thing that we offer as a help and a benefit of hiring Cutting Edge Painting is a free hour color consultation with our Personal Color Consultant. We have done numerous projects together, her eyes. See colors and ears in ways that it's hard for others to see. Her understanding of each houses, unique structure, and look all player role in accenting or hiding parts of a space or home. She helps our clients find a path to help selecting colors and creating a world they want to live in.

Looking at colors online can give you a taste of what a color may be, but will never live up to expectations unless seen in person. The little sample pieces of paper that you can get from paint stores are only a small portion of what should be done. They give you a small idea of what the color is but not the full experience. There are multiple ways to put colors on walls. There are larger samples that can be ordered that are peel and stick samples so they can be placed in different locations of the home or space allowing you to feel it without committing to a color. Then we recommend actual samples to be placed in selected locations to help visualize the colors chosen for the spaces. This allows you to see the colors on the textured surfaces or smooth surfaces creating a realistic idea of the outcome. Whether you have a craftsman home in Albany, California, a bungalow in Berkeley, California or a Victorian in the Temescal Neighborhood of Oakland, there are the right options for every situation in every style.

In part three, will look at exterior color selection-how to balance aesthetics, environment, and the architectural character of your to make the right first impression.