Top tips for picking a living room paint color

Considering how much time we spend in our living room, choosing the right color can be tough. It has to be inviting during the day, not too dark at night and deliver the aesthetics you’re looking for regardless of the weather or your furniture.

Picking a living room paint color is one of the toughest parts of interior painting, which is why we’re discussing it here. As we have decorated many hundreds of homes in the area, we thought we should share some of the tips we have learned over the years.

By the end, you should find it easier than ever to decide on the perfect color for your home!

Take inspiration from a piece of furniture

If you have a piece of furniture you love or has particular character, use that as inspiration.

Choose a complementing or contrast color using that piece as inspiration and build your paint scheme around that.

It won’t work in every situation but if you have an antique, heirloom, characterful or colorful piece of furniture, it can help bring a scheme together.

Consider the feeling you want to create

Do you want to feel cozy? Need to add light in the living room? Want it to be grown up or intimate? Consider the feeling you want to create in that room and select colors that help.

Choose darker or richer colors for cozy, whites and lights for adding light, darker colors like navy for grown up or intimate spaces and so on.

Learn the different whites

There are thousands of versions of white and it pays to learn a few of them. Pure white is great for certain areas but off-whites can be very useful for adding tone, warmth, cool, light and more.

You won’t need the vast majority of white tones but if you look at a few and the atmosphere they can create, you’ll soon begin appreciating just how flexible a simple white can be.

Combine colors for effect

The feature wall may be a thing of the past, but there’s nothing wrong with using a couple of signature colors to make a statement.

Use a color wheel to check contrasting and complementing colors and experiment a little. Divide the room in half with a pair of colors. Use one on walls one on the ceiling. Use one on walls and one on crown molding or paneling.

It’s entirely up to you how you use them. Paint is cheap so don’t be afraid to experiment!

Ceilings don’t have to be white

One secret of interior decorating is to treat ceilings as another wall. While they work well in white, you can use color to completely change the look and feel of a room.

Dark colors bring ceilings down and make spaces more intimate. Lighter colors can take the ceiling up and add light. Those lighter colors don’t have to be white or even off white either!

If in doubt, neutrals always work

As we said at the top, choosing a color for living rooms is tough. Sometimes impossible. If there’s more than one of you and you’re having to agree a color, it’s even tougher!

If in doubt or you just can’t agree, choose neutrals. They are inoffensive, most people can get along with them and, as long as you choose a good combination, they still add color and character to a room.

They are also easy to paint over once you do agree a color!