10 Color Mistakes Everyone Makes

The colors you live with everyday need to be colors you love, not simply whatever happens to be all the rage in fashion and product design. "Even if you absolutely love the current trend colors, they are best used in small doses, like throw pillows or fabric patterns—not for repainting your entire home," confirms color consultant Barbara Jacobs, of Barbara Jacobs Color and Design.

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"Never paint your walls first and then try to add furnishings and fabrics that coordinate with that color," advises Carla Aston, principal of Designed with Carla Aston. "You should always start with the items that occupy a room, like a rug or sofa, and then choose a paint color that works with them."

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Some colors will look just as you'd imagined when viewed in bright sunlight, but not as expected when lit by a lamp in the evening. Before committing to a color on all four walls, always put up a sample swatch and live with it for some time to check the color in the space, advises Lauren Muse, principal of Muse Interiors. "Leave it up and observe it at different times of day."

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When you're working with a two-color scheme, don't try to use an equal amount of both hues in the space. Instead, allow one hue to be the dominant force in the room and the other to be the accent color, says Joni Spear, of Joni Spear Interior Design. "Add yellow tones to a blue space or vice versa," she explains.

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"Ceilings are a large expanse of space that are sometimes overlooked when developing a room's overall palette," says Sara McLean, color specialist for Dunn-Edwards Paints. To maximize your ceiling's impact on a room, you might choose a pale shade that complements the walls, a high-gloss white, or a bold hue that acts as a room's main source of color.

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When choosing paint colors for multiple rooms—especially ones that offer a view from one into the next—homeowners sometimes select favorite shades that don't necessarily work together. For a more cohesive look, plan ahead and pick shades close together on the color spectrum, like yellow, green, and blue.

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"I like to compare five to seven values of the same tone, eliminating them one by one until we have the best two," says Sharon Radovich, principal designer at Panache Interior Designs. Compare both for slight differences at all hours of the day, "and typically one trumps the other," she says. If not, test them both with a sample swatch before proceeding.

So you've found a favorite color. But simply splashing it up on the walls makes it done. Every hue available at the paint store comes with a family of many shades and tints, so pick up a few extra swatches to identify what those might be for your color of choice. Sharon Radovich of Panache Interior Designs suggests mixing in a few of these on your cabinets, walls, trim, even furniture for a more monochromatic scheme. The extra contrast will make any space more interesting.

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