At a time when everyone is finding new ways to be frugal, you don’t have to give up your dreams of decorating your home. Fresh paint makes a dramatic difference and it is something you can do yourself!

Everyone who has ever painted a room has asked themselves at least one of these questions: “Where do I start? How do I decide what colors to use? I know what I like, but I don’t know how to pull it together. The color I picked out in the store looked different when I put it up on my walls!”

Most of us have a favorite color or color hues that make us feel happy or comfortable. But, deciding which colors fit our own space-which colors will make the room feel just right-can be intimidating and even a bit overwhelming. Just as there is never a single perfect color for a room, there is never only one correct place to start. Making the perfect color choices for your personality and lifestyle is a process, not a step-by-step program.

Ask yourself questions

Before you start arbitrarily painting colors everywhere, you’ll need to think about the nature of your space. Ask yourself questions, take notes, and gather important information about the character of the rooms, the architectural features, and the quality of light. Some of the questions to consider are:

• Which colors naturally appeal to you?
• Which colors make you feel relaxed and which seem to give you energy?
• How much natural light does the room get?
• Do you want to make the space feel warm and comfortable or open and airy?

Daytime rooms and Night-time rooms

Consider, too, the function of the particular room. There are basically two “types” of rooms…Daytime rooms and Night-time rooms. Daytime rooms are those that are high-use, and are used primarily during daylight hours, for example, the den/family room, the kitchen, and the playroom. Night-time rooms are those that are less frequently used, or are used primarily at night, such as the dining room, formal living room, and bedrooms. Daytime rooms should be more soft, light, bright, and stimulating. These rooms do best with shades of neutrals, yellows, or soft pastels. Night-time rooms can handle deeper, richer colors that are more saturated, intense, inviting, and romantic, such as deep reds, putty tans and sage greens.

Start with something you love!

Find one object that you love! It could be a porcelain bowl, a piece of artwork, an Oriental rug, or even a picture in a magazine, anything that inspires you. Starting with a fabric you love is one good way to narrow your choices. Use those colors to create the palette for walls, floor, furnishings, and accessories. (It’s always easier to choose the fabric first and match your exact colors to it!) For furnishings and window treatments, look for fabrics that combine your “inspiration-piece” colors in varying amounts of shades and textures.

What mood do you want to create?

Which of the colors in your “inspiration piece” will help you achieve that mood? When choosing a paint color, keep in mind that light colors will reflect light and visually expand the room, while dark colors will absorb the light, making the space feel smaller. Use a tone of that inspiration color for the walls and perhaps a tint of the secondary color for the ceiling and floor. Remember, although most people overlook it when thinking color, the ceiling represents one-sixth of the space in a room. The color atmosphere of a room results not only from whatever hue is on the walls, but from how the walls interact with the ceiling and the floor, with the light coming in through the windows, and with glimpses of other rooms seen through the doorways.

Try it before you buy it!

Just when you think you have everything planned, you bring your wonderful paint sample home and find that it “dies” in your space! Now what? One of the most difficult aspects of choosing the right paint color is knowing how it will behave in different lights. A specific color that may have looked great on a chip in the paint store may look totally different on the walls of your home. Check it out in different light and at different times of the day.

The best way to test your overall color scheme is to hang drapery samples on the wall next to the windows, lay a large piece of carpet on the floor, put a large sample of the actual paint color on the wall so that the samples receive the lighting from the direction that they woul d if they were in place. Walk by the colors in different times of the day; decide whether you like the colors in natural and artificial light. Also, look at them from the vantage point of other rooms to be sure that you have created a nice “flow” of color from room to room.

Worried that this sounds like too much trouble? The results are well worth your time and effort- it is much less expensive and time consuming to move a few paint samples and fabrics throughout the house then to re-do a mistake.

By now you’ve realized that many elements go into the making of a beautiful room. Color is one of the most effective decorating tools you can use to make your home comfortable and beautiful. There are no set rules, so unleash your creative spirit – don’t worry, it’s just paint!