Changing the colors for your room can have a big impact on the overall feel of the space; however, choosing the right paint can be a tricky task. A good place to start is the furniture. What if you don’t have furniture yet? Even better! Start decorating your room by choosing the furniture first. Let it serve as the starting point for your design and work around it. If you plan your colors right, you won’t have to go for the safe option but can instead choose a more bold approach and create a truly unique living environment where you feel at home. Here are a few tips that might come in handy.

Getting started

So, why start with the furniture? The furniture has a few things going for it that makes it uniquely qualified to serve as the opening feature for your design. First of all, it usually involves the biggest pieces in the room. It’s impossible to ignore; wherever you might look a piece of furniture will most likely be in your line of sight. It’s impossible to ignore and therefore it must fit in. Very large pieces of furniture, like sofas, are also the central points of activity in the room. Movement is usually designated towards, or around the sitting area. For that reason, sofas are a good starting point when it comes to choosing the design of your room, and with it the basics for your colors. For example, you could choose a calming King Living driftwood colored sofa, and paint your walls a custom seaport color.

Custom colors

A good way to start any project in the 21st century is to ask yourself, “Can technology help me out?”, and the answer is usually “yes”. The same is true when it comes to painting your rooms. With modern technology, you can mix your own colors to make sure they fit perfectly with your furniture and your vision. It’s as easy as taking a piece of fabric or an item from your house to the paint store and putting it under a spectrophotometer. The machine analyzes the wavelengths of the colors reflected from your samples and can mix paint together to create an exact duplicate of the color. Keep in mind that the point is to have colors that match your furniture, but don’t go overboard and have all the furniture and walls the same color. Instead, use the result from the spectrophotometer as a starting point and build your color palette around it.

Color matching

Once you have found a color that you like, it’s time to start matching it with other colors. Matching colors together can be a bit tricky; it requires the right mixture of knowledge and sense. Sometimes you look at some perfectly balanced color patterns and it can feel almost magical, but there is a science behind it and there are a few rules that can help you get a better understanding. Start off with observation. Use the internet to find rooms with colors that you like, study them and try to incorporate the ones that you like into your design. The second thing to look out for is the proportions. Don’t focus only on what colors to use together, but also how much of each. Just like your room has a certain architecture and proportions, so should your colors. Matching the same amount of two colors can be effective, but very often you will get a better balance by including more of one color and less of another.

Buying paint

You can always repaint if you are unhappy with your choice, but that can be expensive and takes a lot of time and energy. So take the time to find the right paint and don’t rush this step. A good way to choose a color is to take a few samples and paint large portions of your wall. Make sure the portions are large enough to be noticeable and have an impact. Let the paint dry out. Very often the color will be much different once it’s dry, so give it time. Also, take the lighting into consideration. If your room doesn’t have much natural light, then get your lighting set up before you paint so you could see the effect of artificial lighting on your paint.

Keep these tips in mind when painting your room and you will be sure to achieve the perfect balance between your furniture and the colors of your room. But also allow yourself a little creativity and add a little bit of individuality to your design.