How to Choose a Color Scheme for your Home

 

I LOVE choosing paint colors – the fan decks, the paint store, the paint swatches. It can be a fun process but it can also be frustrating as well. I’ll be doing a house tour on the blog this year and I thought that a paint tour would be a fun way to kick it off. So for those that have asked for specific paint colors in the rooms of my house, I’m excited to share that and some helpful tips for you as well.

All the paint colors I used in our home are from Benjamin Moore – I use the VOC free paints and I only use flat paint throughout the house. Benjamin Moore and Pottery Barn have nothing to do with this post other than I love their products.

I was a part-time employee at my local Pottery Barn for almost 6 years when I was teaching – I loved it and I especially loved when the new paint decks came out. Remember those? The color choices were great but the most valuable part for me was that they had weeded through the colors and picked the best ones. This is really helpful if you are showing color choices to your spouse 😉

When we moved into our home 7 years ago, I had all the colors picked out before me moved in BUT guess what? The colors that I had picked looked horrible in our new home. They clashed with the carpet, were too beige, and just didn’t work. The carpet that our home came with wasn’t our first choice, but considering it was practically brand new and we had other more important things to pay for, we were stuck with it. The paint we chose made the carpet blend in and look so much better.

I pulled out the Pottery Barn paint decks and started searching for neutrals that would be gray and beige – greige if you will and came across the lovely Revere Pewter.

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We used this THROUGHOUT our home – it’s perfectly cool and warm and has plenty of contrast against white woodwork. Here’s where you’ll see Revere Pewter:

  • entryway/foyer
  • living room
  • dining room
  • family room
  • kitchen
  • hallways
  • mud room
  • laundry room

The living room and dining room have a chair rail – we painted Galveston Gray (2 shades darker than Revere Pewter) on the lower portion.

galveston gray

The powder room and my office round out the first floor – they are similar but different colors.

buxton blue

Office – Buxton Blue

kentucky haze

Powder Room – Kentucky Haze

Here’s a look at the 4 colors all together:

First Floor Paint Colors - Clean Mama

The upstairs has been a process and all of the bedrooms have been re-painted at least once as we had a baby in that time, changed rooms, and changed a craft room into a tv room (that’s a story in and of itself).

The hallway and laundry room are Revere Pewter.

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The tv room is Stonington Gray (which is gorgeous!).

stonington gray

Our daughter’s room is Water Drops – of course I love this one!

water drops

Our oldest son’s room is Alaskan Husky – a great soft gray.

alaskan husky

The boys have a shared Jack and Jill bathroom – it’s Mediterranean Sky.

mediterranean sky

The littlest one’s room is this lovely true blue – Athenian Blue.

athenian blue

We painted the Master Bedroom and Bathroom Wedgewood Gray – it’s soft blue green that can appear gray.

wedgewood gray

Here’s a look at all the 2nd floor colors together:

Second Floor Color Scheme - Clean Mama

Tips for choosing a whole house color scheme:

  1. Use pre-picked colors to get started (like the Pottery Barn colors or a brochure from your local paint store).
  2. Go slow – don’t choose everything all at once – it might take years to get to your perfect color scheme and that’s okay!
  3. Start with a NEUTRAL and build on that.
  4. Make sure the paint coordinates/compliments the flooring.
  5. Choose colors based on accessories or items that are in the room.
  6. Have fun!

A Whole House Color Scheme - Clean Mama

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