So you’ve decided to repaint a room or two—fantastic. Chosen a color yet? No? You’re sure to wind up in a position that’s both thrilling and terrifying: standing in front of the wall of color chips at the paint or hardware store. Knowing this position bewilders many would-be Picassos, I enlisted an expert to walk me through the process. Caroline Andersson-Henri is a local interior designer and owner of Upstairs-Downstairs Interiors; she met me at the sample wall of Paint Plus in Woodbrook Shopping Center. Here’s her wisdom on tackling the color-chip task.
 Caroline Andersson-Henri showed ABODE how to tap the resources of the paint chip panoply. One big secret: Put that chip on a wall! |
1. Think ahead. Even before going to the store, Andersson-Henri said, it’s important to envision the finished room. “You have to look at the end result, then back up toward the baseline,” she said. “You need to know what you want to do with that room, how it’s going to feel.” Look at books and magazines, she said; find examples of rooms you like.
2. At the store, scan the chips for tones that attract you. Say I want light green, I asked; how do I choose just one from the dozens of light greens? “These are lemony and citrusy,” said Andersson-Henri, gesturing toward one area of the sample wall, “these are more blue, these are gray-greens.” My eye kept landing on the yellower tones, so Andersson-Henri pulled out three cards, each with seven different colors.
3. Choose the hue. Each card runs from dark, intense colors at the bottom to near-whites at the top. My guide warned that any color will seem stronger when it covers a larger area. “When in doubt, take the muted tone,” she says. “I’d go with the second least intense.” Now, instead of comparing 21 tones, we were sizing up just three—the second row on each card.
4. Put it on the wall. Andersson-Henri folded back the cards to hide the hues we’d already ruled out, then held them up to a wall. “The color is going on the wall,” she said, “so that’s where you should look at it; don’t stand over it and look.” Standing back about 10 paces, I again scanned my options and realized I had a favorite: Honeydew Melon! Yum.
5. Compare to other paints. For my theoretical light-green room, I wanted another color for areas like chair rails or window trim. We picked three possible accent colors, all off-white: one muted and nearly yellow, one crisp and cool, and one cheerful and buttery. Andersson-Henri held them to the wall around the Honeydew Melon chip and pointed out how it seemed to change depending on what was next to it. I liked what happened when Honeydew Melon met the buttery accent color, Wicker Mat; Andersson-Henri called this a “playful, cottagey look.” Perfect.
6. Compare to other objects. What if I needed to match other elements in a room? A sample brought to the store would help: a scrap of wallpaper, an arm sleeve from a sofa. Andersson-Henri opened a wallpaper book to a stucco-look paper with a stencilled vine pattern in green and red. We tried to find a matching green on the sample wall, but none seemed just right. “There’s nothing wrong with doing a custom color,” she suggested (though it is, of course, more expensive). One caveat: Save the formula. “If years later you want to go back [to touch up] and you can’t find the formula, you’re in trouble,” she said.
7. Take it home. “You should never pick color from a little chip,” says Andersson-Henri. Here’s another of her axioms: “Don’t trust any light but the light that is in your space.” I’d already seen how chips seemed to transform as we carried them around the store, near windows, under sample-wall spot lighting. Were I really preparing to paint a room, now would be the time to purchase a small amount of Honeydew Melon and put it onto a posterboard, then tape to the wall. Only then, said Andersson-Henri, “you’ll know whether you can live with it.”
8. Choose your finish. “The more glossy the paint, the more it’ll stand out,” Andersson-Henri explained. Glossy finishes will emphasize any imperfections in the wall. How smooth are the walls in my soon-to-be Honeydew Melon room? And how much tolerance do I have for looking at nicks? “If you want it to look slick and perfect,” said Andersson-Henri, glossy paint on older walls would not be the way to go. Since I myself am neither slick nor perfect, I figure my walls needn’t be. A medium-gloss finish should do just fine.