Looking for an in-expensive way to completely change a room? Paint can be one of your biggest bangs for your buck. Whether you just want to freshen up the current color, or completely change a rooms look. Here are some tips for painting success.....
1. Know Your Space. Ask yourself why you want to make a change. Are you planning to sell your home? Do you want to make the space more personal or more functional? The answers will determine what and how much you do.
2. Trends. While people often shy away from putting color on their walls, the opposite is true of our furniture.
Many people are selecting bold furniture these days. If you already have a lot of color in your room, then you may consider doing something that has in the past been considered a boring and unimaginative choice: Go white.
White walls are fresh and bright and can complement your colorful furnishings by not competing with them.
Get those images of the dull, dingy white walls of most rentals out of your mind and think of the white as a canvas for your art.
3. Stencil. An inexpensive and personal way of stenciling is to create your own using poster board and tracing paper. Sketch your design on the tracing paper, refine it and when you’re satisfied, flip it over and trace it onto the poster board. Then cut it out with a utility or craft knife and stencil away.
4. Consider Your Mood. Spend some time in the room you’re going to paint and think about how you want to feel when you’re there. Will this be a space to spend time with the children, or is this a quiet place to write that novel you’ve been planning? Are you going to turn it into an exercise room, or is it a place for quiet reflection?
Then think about how color affects the plan for the room. You might not accomplish much if you paint your home gym in cool greens and blues, but vibrant yellows and oranges could keep you on the treadmill longer.
And while red is a romantic color, if you paint your entire bedroom in scarlet, you might never get any sleep.
5. Finding Inspiration. If you want to give your room a paint makeover but are unsure of what color to use- take a clue from your furnishings.
Take something from the room for your inspiration. It could be a pillow, piece of artwork etc.
Take it to the paint store or grab some paint strips and bring them home. Hold them up to the item and see how the color works.
For example, with a floral pillow, a green shade could bring out hidden greens in the pillow; orange could highlight other colors.
Try to avoid being too matchy-matchy.
6. Color Carefully. Too much color in one room can be overwhelming. Be sure and safe by using tones from nature. Experiment a bit, bit stay away from candy colors. Too much of these kind of colors in one room can be overwhelming.
7. Color Test. Pick two or four colors that you like and then pick up some relatively inexpensive sample-size paints.
Paint patches on each wall of the room. Live with it for a few days, looking at it from different angles, at different times of the day and in different light. See how it works with your furnishings and how it looks from other rooms.
8. Accent? Maybe. The trend not too long ago was to create an accent wall- typically in red. But you need to be careful and use accent walls sparingly.
Often, the darker color only makes the other walls appear dull or dingy. And the deeper the contrast, the easier it is to see flaws in the paint job-splashes on crown molding or imperfect lines.
Whatever you decide to do. Don't afraid of color! Its fun to create a brand new room with fresh paint, new wall decor and some new pillows. Its inexpensive too!
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