Ample Sample

Selecting paint colors can be a very intimidating process, even for experienced designers. Simply taping paint chips to the wall does not cut it in my opinion. photo 1 (5)Excuse the rotting banana.

Taping samples is a good start but narrow it down and take a trip to the local hardware store to buy a small sample (all brands offer samples nowadays). Purchase some bright, white foam board and paint the sample directly. Once it dries, you can move it around a room and see what it looks like in different lights (natural, incandescent, fluorescent etc). Look at it during different times of day to see if the color changes. A color can look great in the daylight but once the sun goes down and you are relying on that 1980’s framed ceiling light to illuminate the space, you might realize the paint looks like vom. No bueno.

photo 2 (6)

Here is a sample board showing two paint samples I am considering for our living/dining/kitchen (see design board here).

Painting sample boards is something I always recommend. It is a safe, easy, non-committal way to test paint colors. If you are lucky, you live by an Ace Hardware and you can purchase small foam boards for a song.

Happy Painting

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