Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Creating a Color Scheme for the Whole House (part 2)

Okay, so I knew a few colors that I wanted in our new home, but now I had to tie those together and add a few more colors. It just so happens that while this was going on Young House Love (my favorite blog to read) posted this. See the picture with the napkin and the swatches on top? Yeah, the second one is my bedroom color and the forth one is the color I had in mind for the office. And see the green color on the napkin - that's the color of my back splash tile! How crazy is that?

So from this I knew all of these colors would look good together. And this just shows you how anything can be inspiration -like a napkin. I still needed to pick a color for our living room, kitchen/dining room, and both bathrooms. We are not counting our son's room in the color scheme process. His room will be whatever color he decides (with our help because he's only 2!). I wanted the living room to be a kind of neutral and kind of green color -if that makes sense. I liked the third swatch, but more green. :Enters Sherwin Williams:

I have fallen in love with the Sherwin Williams color visualizer. If you are going to use it, you will want to set up an account so you can save your favorite colors. Also, you will probably want to write down any colors you decide on because I had a little scare where my favorites didn't show up for a few hours. Lesson learned! So, the color visualizer is great for several reasons.


1. You can see the small color swatches in an actual room. Even your room if you want to upload pictures. It's great to see them on a larger scale.


2. You can view different color groups at one time (warm neutrals, cool neutrals, blues, etc.).


3. When you select a color it will show you 3 options of each: Lighter, darker, brighter, less bright, more of one color, more of another color. It will also show you 2-4 coordinating colors.


So for an example of how I used it. I knew I wanted a green tint for the living room so I selected a picture of a living room and made the couches gray. Then I changed to only view greens. I tried out tons of colors looking for a wheaty green color and finally found Sassy Green!


For the dining room/kitchen I knew what color I wanted my back splash so I found a color similar to that. Then I picked one of their coordinating colors - warm stone. It was a little too dark for me, so I went with a color mentioned as lighter. I ended up with Hammered Silver.


Also, every color I really liked I added to my favorite colors. Then you can see them all next to each other at the top. You can really tell if they go together that way. And when you have a color saved, you can add a description like the room you want to use it in!

Now I just have to go by Sherwin Williams and pick out the swatches to view them in person. As soon as I do, I will take pictures and report back!

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