A freshly painted room can breathe new life into your home. When painting a room, proper color matching can help convey a particular mood, complement a particular style of decor, and highlight unique features of your home, such as a built-in shelf or extensive crown moldings and baseboards.

Since painting is a project that requires both time and labor, you want to choose a color that you can be happy with before you even start the painting process. After all, as Dallas-based Home Inspection Solutions points out, “a perfectly painted room is a failure if you are unhappy with the color.” But while color matching can seem like a daunting task — having so many color combinations to choose from can be overwhelming — DFW homeowners can make the process easier by following these simple tips.

Learn How Color Affects Mood

Many designers attest to how colors have a psychological effect on people. For example, Design Guide Texas suggests that blues can convey a sense of serenity and connection to water, while reds are typically associated with passion. Ideally, you want to choose a color that both suits your chosen decor and reflects the ambiance or mood you’d like to create for a room. Keeping this in mind can help you select the best color family to work with, and from there, you can start narrowing down your options.

Find Inspiration in Magazines or Online

When it comes to color matching, you’ll find plenty of resources at your fingertips. Home improvement and interior design magazines often discuss the latest color trends and tips for pairing complementary colors. You may also want to surf the Web for inspiration. For starters, hgtv.com is a great resource for interior design tips. Sherwin-Williams — which has scores of stores throughout the DFW Metroplex — also offers a wealth of online resources on paint techniques and color matching.

Collect Paint Swatches

In addition to dedicated paint stores like Sherwin-Williams, your local hardware store can also be a great resource. Nearly every paint company produces free booklets and swatches with color schemes. Take advantage of this free resource and bring these swatches home with you.

Hold the swatches up against the walls of the room you’re planning to paint. Evaluate how the colors look in both natural light and lamplight. Don’t forget to consider the color of neighboring rooms as well, especially if your home has an open floor plan. Any new paint colors should blend well with existing color schemes. You can also use swatches to easily match up colors with accent decor such as throw pillows and wall art.

Once you’ve narrowed down your options to two or three colors, you can buy small sample quantity of each. Paint each sample onto a wall, keeping these swaths of test paint near each other for easy comparison. Once you’ve selected a color, make sure that it works well with the existing color of your trim and baseboards — but if you need to paint these areas, too, consider using a recommended trim color from the color swatch’s palette to ensure that you are happy with the result.

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