Paint color is the last thing you choose when decorating a space so "they" say and I totally agree.
It's best to have a jumping off point like a fabric, carpet, a piece of art or better yet all of the upholstered pieces or bedding in a space before selecting a wall color.
But in some cases it's just not possible as in the case of my client who is renovating an entire house and taking everything down to the studs.
Here are some pictures after the drywall and trim went up. Fireplace still needs new trim.
With the construction going on and major decisions to be made like flooring, cabinetry, countertops etc. it's hard to decide what furniture will stay in your house and what will go. In a perfect world we would have every new piece of furniture selected prior to reno but that just ain't happenin.
In this case the client will be purchasing all new furniture for the first floor but she wants to take her time and make smart decisions on the purchase of these new pieces especially her sofa... the workhorse of the first floor family room.
We know we want a sectional that has spring down cushions (usually an upgrade found on custom sofas) because it's important that her sofa won't be "mushy" and she won't have to constantly "fluff" up the cushions so the sofa looks presentable. This is a complaint I hear often from clients who have all down cushions.
We also know we want a performance fabric one that will stand up to her two small children and "someday" dog:) So a good sofa is a smart investment in her mind and I whole-heartedly agree
"Buy the best and you'll only cry once" -- Miles Redd
The builder however can not wait for us to try out every sofa in town and select the most perfect fabric and he wants to keep on schedule so we are selecting paint colors now.
So how do you go about selecting paint when you don't have everything in place?
Take the fixed items in the room that won't be changing anytime soon and pick a neutral from there. For example for the kitchen we used the flooring, countertops, backsplash and cabinetry and kept in mind our potential feel for the space.
Also the whole first floor is open so we decided to carry the same color all the way through the first floor.
Now my client knows she wants to use purple in some of her furniture on the first floor and was looking at selecting a pale lilac paint color. I actually discouraged her from doing this because every room she paints a different color would be an upcharge and who knows what shade of purple her furniture/fabric will be and lord only knows that there are so many pretty pale purple wall colors out there and also who wants to match there furniture to their wall color??? Your better off paying to get the room painted the exact shade of purple you want when you have the other elements in place. And who knows purple may be passé by then or maybe pale purple walls will not be the right decision if she falls in love with purple chairs... get my drift?
So what did we select? For the first floor we selected Nimbus taking into consideration the dark hardwood floors, white high-gloss trim, marble, white cabinetry and grayish backsplash, it will be a stunner!
For her son's room we used the furniture and bedding in selecting our paint color. We were definitely thinking blue so we tried palladian blue, woodlawn blue as well as a few other paler blues but felt they were too babyish or too much like her son's current pale blue. In the end we decided to go with a color he can grow with which was Hale Navy. And it matched the current bedding perfectly.
And for her daughter's room we chose raindrops on roses by Benjamin Moore. In this space it was the perfect combination of pale pinky/purple that will go with her current bedding and furniture. Here it is on the wall which brings me to my final point on paint colors... you must put them on the wall in your space and look at them at different times of day and different light. Just because raindrops on roses takes on a lilac feel in this room it doesn't mean it will in your space too!!
So there you have it ... keep checking back as this project gets completed!!
