Why is Choosing a Paint Color so Difficult? (And How to Make it Easier)

Recently, my parents decided to repaint several of the rooms on the first floor of their home.  The current color scheme was selected by an interior decorator nearly ten years ago, and they are ready for a change.  My mom, who has a great design sense and eye for color, was struggling a bit and asked for my perspective.  Even armed with multiple fan decks and Samplize samples, choosing new colors proved to be a challenge, and I found myself wondering “why is this so hard?” 

Why Choosing a Paint Color can be Difficult

Choosing a paint color for a completely empty space can be hard enough, but it is complicated further when there are preexisting colors in the space.  Flooring, rugs, furniture, art, and even greenery outside windows all have an impact on your perception of the color on the walls, as the colors of those items are up against or reflected by the walls.

In addition, often we must take into account or coordinate with adjacent spaces when choosing a paint color.  The trickiest are homes that have a flowing floor plan with distinct rooms separated by wide cased openings, like my parents’.  Standing in their family room, you can look around and see 5 other spaces!  If you plan to paint all or even some of the rooms in a flowing floor plan different colors, the challenge increases exponentially as you will want to ensure that the different colors work well together.

Finally, the internet is not necessarily our friend in choosing a paint color.  Although engaging in preliminary research online may be valuable, it should not be the only step in the color selection process.  We can absolutely derive inspiration by browsing through photos online; however, color is not the same on a screen as in real life.  In addition, the influencer effect can come into play when a blogger or designer specifies a color they used in a design, as well as when paint brands or influencers put out “best color” lists.  Just because a color is in the top 10 most popular colors of a particular brand or designer does not make it a color that works universally well in every space.

How to Make the Choice Easier

In order to successfully choose a paint color, we must understand the attributes of our spaces and how we perceive color.  The concepts of light reflective value (LRV), undertones, and room exposure are key in narrowing the choices and choosing a winner.

Understand lrv

It is important to understand how a room’s light affects our perception of the color.  The same exact paint color will look different given different amounts of light – direct vs. indirect light vs. no light at all.  We can talk about how light impacts color by using the LRV scale.  A color’s LRV is a number used to describe the amount of visible light that reflects off of a painted surface. LRV measures the percentage of light a paint color reflects on a scale from 0-100.  A color with an LRV of 0 is a pure black that reflects no light, and a color with an LRV of 100 is a pure white that reflects all the light it receives.

Colors with an LRV above 50 are lighter and will reflect more light than they absorb.  Colors with an LRV lower than 50 will absorb more light than they reflect and appear darker and more saturated.  Any color, even the darkest, will look lighter when hit with lots of natural or artificial light.  If you are trying to brighten a room that doesn’t receive a lot of light, it may be necessary to select a paint with a higher LRV in order to bounce what little light there is around the room most effectively.  On the other hand, if you are aiming for a moody vibe in a sun-drenched space, you will want to select a paint with a very low LRV.

Paint colors in the low end of the LRV range (i.e. dark colors) reflect very little light, so many will appear almost black if not properly lit.  In good lighting, the color and its undertones will be more appreciable.  Medium range colors need a good amount of light to really show their true nature.  Medium LRV paints that have more color to them (as opposed to neutrals) can look better in spaces that receive less light because there is more for your eye to pick up on, while neutrals can look flat.  Colors in the high range of the LRV spectrum (light, off-white, and white) reflect most of the light they receive from light sources.  Like the other ranges, even these light colors will look different depending on the amount of light there is in a space.  Bright, direct light can make some of these colors look washed out.  Furthermore, paint colors with a higher LRV can look brighter on the wall than they do on the paint chip.  There isn’t much space on the chip for light to hit, whereas walls have a much larger surface area to reflect light they receive.

As a result of light’s impact on color, it is important to sample potential colors on all walls, observing them at different times of day and in different types of lighting (direct and indirect, natural and artificial).  Samples need to be large enough to capture and reflect light to give you a true feeling for the color.

Understand undertones

Unless a paint is pure white or black (or pure black lightened by pure white, i.e. gray), or a true primary color, the paint color will have undertones.  This makes sense because paint is made by mixing colors together in various proportions into the paint base.  To create all those shades of blue, white, gray, etc., other colors have to be pulled in to achieve the final color – and this creates undertones.  Except as noted above, all colors will have undertones, so it is important to be able to identify those undertones to determine if a color will work in a space given its exposure (see below) and preexisting elements such as flooring or furnishings.

               As an art class refresher, “warm” colors are those on the red/orange/yellow side of the color wheel, and “cool” colors are those on the green/blue/purple side.  Green and purple can gravitate toward both, because both are made up of a warm and a cool color (yellow and blue in the case of green, and red and blue for purple).  For example, a green that has more yellow in it than blue will be a warmer green, while if it has more blue than yellow, it will be a cooler green.

               Identifying undertones can be tricky, especially in the case of whites and grays.  A “warm” gray could have green undertones, or it could have violet undertones.  A white may look like a very clean white, but put it up next to a true white and you will see that it looks a little more yellow, or blue, or gray.  For this reason, the best way to identify undertones in colors is to compare them to other similar colors.  When selecting paint chips at the store, always grab a strip or two on both sides of your potential color for comparison, or use a fan deck.  Compare your color with other colors with similar LRVs, and place chips  or samples against a white background for best results.

             

  Once you can spot the undertones in a paint color, figuring out if it will work in your space becomes easier.  Let’s say the goal is a clean looking gray that doesn’t swing too warm or cool.  If your potential color has green undertones and your room has large windows with tons of greenery outside, the green will likely really pop, which may not be what you’re going for.  Thinking about the undertones in the context of your room’s exposure and pre-existing elements will help narrow your choices.

understand exposure

Another piece of the paint color puzzle is exposure.  We refer to rooms as North-, South-, East-, or West-facing, with “facing” referring to the direction light is coming from (i.e., where the window is located).  If a room has two or more exposures, we consider the side with larger windows, or where most of the light comes in (not blocked by greenery or overhangs) to be dominant.

The light in North-facing spaces tends to be cool, with fewer shadows than other exposures.  Selecting a paint color that is a bit warm can balance out the cool light.  East-facing rooms experience bright light in the mornings that is slightly warm, while in the afternoon they experience less light that tends to appear a touch gray.  As a result, warmer colors may work better in rooms with Eastern exposures as well.  South-facing rooms receive warm light that gets even warmer later in the day, with a greater potential for shadows.  In these spaces, choosing a cool color will balance out warm light, while a warm color will look a bit warmer than it otherwise would.  Finally, the light in West-facing rooms can appear gray and a little flat in the morning, getting progressively warmer throughout the afternoon.  Cool colors will look warmer in such light, and warm colors will look warmer still.

               Using the principles of LRV, undertones, and effects of exposure, you can eliminate paint colors that will not work in your space and narrow down those that will be more successful.  Then sample, sample, sample.  There is so substitute for seeing large patches of potential color on the walls.  Samplize sells peel-and-stick paint samples, and is an affordable, eco-friendly alternative to sample cans. You can say goodbye to a garage full of ¾ full sample cans (or is that just me?)  Good luck!               

Let us know if you have any additional paint selection tips in the comments!