Color Consultations 101: Level Up Your Interior Design
Do you notice when a room feels drab or stiff? How about when a room feels warm and energetic, inviting you to linger for a while longer? Have you paid attention to the color on the walls? What about in your own home?
Over the years, we’ve found that the color of your home is more than a matter of personal preference. Color has the power to shape a room’s energy and atmosphere, as well as the feeling of cohesion throughout the home.
However, we’ve also found that it can feel difficult to come up with a color palette that commands the space, or a scheme that calms it down, all on your own. The good news? A home color consultation provides you with professional guidance to enhance both your home's architecture and the lifestyle of those living in it.
Why Choosing Paint Colors Is Harder Than It Looks
With seemingly endless options and a preset vision for your space, selecting the perfect paint color can feel like an impossible task.
Why Paint Chips Don't Tell the Whole Story
With in-store lighting, paint drying differently, and small sample sizes, paint chips are often unreliable and don’t accurately convey a color's effect across your whole space.
The Cost of Getting Color Wrong
Even a slight shade difference can leave you with an undesired atmosphere. When this occurs, your project is left with a new task, delays, and additional budget costs.
Why Homeowners Often Feel Overwhelmed by Paint Decisions
The vastness of paint options can leave you feeling stuck and afraid to decide, given the potential consequences of choosing the wrong color.
An interior design color consultation prevents these costs and puts the fun back into designing your home. Additionally, 78% of homeowners say they feel more confident in their home’s aesthetic after working with a color consultant.
What Is a Color Consultation?
A color consultation is a design service where a professional designer works with you and your home to select paint colors and create an environment that feels ultra-tailored to you.
Understanding the Purpose of a Color Consultation
A color consultation melds color psychology and consideration of your home’s architecture, lighting, and room functions to intentionally create cohesion and flow throughout every room.
More Than Just Picking Paint Colors
Beyond the hues chosen for your walls, color consultations guide the patterns, materials, and fabrics your designer should bring into your space. They acknowledge undertones, fixed features like brick and stone accents, and the way natural light filters into each room to create a sense of unity throughout your entire property.
How Color Impacts the Entire Home
Color has the power to shape the feeling of space within your home. Certain colors can make it feel more expansive, while others can seemingly lower the ceiling and create a more intimate environment. We’ve found that using color appropriately can create the perfect blend of openness and coziness in your home.
What Happens During a Professional Color Consultation?
Even details like finishes and fabrics can be guided by a professional color consultation, where the designer meets with you in your own home to assess its space and features.
Evaluating Natural and Artificial Light
We know that color appears differently depending on lighting and time of day. During a color consultation, a professional determines each room’s blend of natural light from windows, recessed lighting, and accent lighting to understand how color will respond in your space.
Identifying Existing Finishes and Fixed Elements
There may be elements of your home that you don’t want to change, a beautiful fireplace, custom hardwood floors, or personally chosen finishes. All of these are taken into consideration when a designer begins creating the palette for your home.
Understanding Your Style and Goals
A color consultation is also a conversation. Beyond what a designer initially thinks will work in your space, they also listen to your personal vision and artistry and work to incorporate it into your home’s preexisting architecture.
Building a Cohesive Color Palette
Above all else, a unified color scheme with set dominant and accent colors, ones that factor in your personal interest, is determined during a color consultation.
The Biggest Paint Color Mistakes Homeowners Make
With decision fatigue and the pressure to get your space exactly how you envision it, there are several common, but easily avoidable mistakes you might encounter.
Choosing Colors Based on Tiny Paint Samples
As we’ve mentioned, paint samples have a hard time conveying color with accuracy. When you choose a color based solely on this shaky portrayal, you might not realize its full effect until your project is nearly complete.
Ignoring Undertones
While they may appear unimportant, neutrals and subtle colors are what unify and connect rooms. Ignoring these tones or incorrectly mixing them is one of the most common mistakes you can make, and one of the most noticeable.
Following Trends Without Considering the Home
Your style and your home’s existing features should be considered when deciding on a paint color. Choosing a trendy color can leave you with a space that feels dated or not entirely your own.
Selecting Colors Room by Room Without a Plan
We’ve found over the years that the spaces next to the room you’re painting influence how color is perceived. Having a plan that considers this prevents you from getting unsatisfactory results that bring disconnection and confusion to your home.
Why Undertones Matter More Than Most People Realize
As we’ve mentioned, the beauty of undertones lies in their ability to quietly and seamlessly connect rooms and spaces.
Warm vs Cool Undertones
Warm undertones feature hues of red, yellow, and even brown, while cool undertones feature shades of blue, green, and purple. Picking warm undertones brings your space energy and intimacy, while cool undertones convey calm, relaxation, and a sense of expansion.
How Undertones Affect Flooring, Cabinets, and Countertops
Undertones add depth to and highlight flooring, cabinets, and countertops. For example, if your flooring is wood and your cabinetry features shades of red, you can elevate their colors with warm undertones. As an extra tip, remember that flooring takes up a lot of your home, so it usually tells you the undertone that will best suit your space.
Why Two Whites Can Look Completely Different
Paint is rarely pure white. Undertones, paint texture and finish, and light sources all shape and adjust the perception of a shade labeled “white.”
How Lighting Changes Color Throughout the Day
The sun determines the temperature of a color. During a color consultation, your designer will assess how natural light moves through your space and make a paint color suggestion that balances the lighting of your home.
North-Facing Rooms
North-facing rooms often receive bluish, cool natural light, leading to frequent use of warm undertones in the space.
South-Facing Rooms
These rooms open their arms to the warmth and brightness of yellow sunlight. Cool undertones are used to prevent the space from feeling too yellow.
East-Facing Rooms
East-facing rooms catch the morning sun and gently cool down as the day passes.
West-Facing Rooms
West-facing rooms gradually warm up with the day, welcoming the cool morning light until the early afternoon.
How Professional Designers Build Cohesive Color Palettes
Using the elements of design to consider flow and whole-home coordination, professional designers are experts at creating unified color schemes.
Creating Flow From Room to Room
Your design partner will likely use the 60-30-10 rule to connect your spaces. This means they choose three to five colors for unity, with 60% as base colors, 30% as secondary colors, and 10% as accent colors.
Coordinating Paint With Furniture and Materials
A professional creating a fully realized palette for your home carefully considers the couches, curtains, rugs, and decor to include, based on the paint colors that will best suit the space.
Using Color to Support Architecture
As designers, we’ve learned that archways, vaulted ceilings, low ceilings, and room size are tools for creating your desired atmosphere. Professionals select paint colors that will highlight or minimize these home features based on your preferences.
Balancing Contrast and Harmony
Largely implemented through undertones and accents, professional interior designers know how to blend the hues of your home in a way that is full of depth and interest, rather than muddy or flat.
When Should You Schedule a Color Consultation?
Color consultation services are flexible and accessible, and there are a variety of times you should consider scheduling your own consultation.
Before Repainting
Whether you are updating paint for maintenance or to bring new energy to your space, scheduling a consultation here guarantees you give your home the energy you’ve always wanted.
During a Renovation
An essential part of a renovation is the final artistic design of your home. This is the most common time to schedule a color consultation, and one of the most beneficial.
Before Purchasing New Furniture
Furniture has the power to shape your home’s layout and flow, powers shared by the color of your walls. Here, a designer’s color advice can expand your understanding and ability to use furnishings to fully realize your vision for your space.
When Moving Into a New Home
It may seem surprising, but as you move into a new house, a color consultation can provide the guidance you need to make it feel like your home.
Who Benefits Most From a Color Consultation?
For both first-time homeowners and real estate agents focused on resale value, a paint color consultation provides extensive benefits.
Homeowners Planning a Whole-Home Refresh
If you are planning to update your home to bring in new life and energy, scheduling a color consultation makes the process easy and helps prevent stress and repainting mistakes.
Renovation Clients
Renovations include layout changes, finish selections, and structural upgrades. A color consultation can guarantee your walls match the other features you are choosing for your home, keeping the space fluid, welcoming, and unified.
New Construction Homeowners
As a new construction homeowner, you have a blank slate in front of you. When you’re deciding everything from the basement floor to the roofing tiles, you want to ensure that you’re satisfied with the results. An interior design color consultation offers a second opinion and reassurance that both your interior and exterior convey the atmosphere you’ve envisioned.
People Who Feel Stuck Between Too Many Options
Choice paralysis can leave you afraid to experiment with or start your project. Color advice puts the joy back into designing your home, letting you feel confident in your choices and proud of your results, now customized and tailored to you.
Why a Color Consultation Saves Money
Time and money are delicate when it comes to designing your home. A color consultation offers peace of mind and a job done right the first time.
Avoiding Costly Repainting
Paint looks different in-store vs. on your walls. It can dry darker, grittier, or smoother than you imagined. Professional advice helps you select the right color the first time.
Preventing Material Selection Mistakes
We know that one of the worst realizations comes when you see your most-loved decor pieces clash with one another or with your walls. A color consultation considers this, creating a palette that has no room for contradicting colors.
Making Decisions Faster and More Confidently
Color consultations limit your options in a way that leaves you with more freedom and less overwhelm, so you can confidently keep your project on budget and on timeline.
Seattle Swank's Approach to Color Consultations
Seattle Swank color consultations are thoughtful, thorough, and trustworthy.
Color Selection Guided by Lifestyle and Architecture
We ask about your daily needs and evaluate your home's existing features to recommend the best-quality paints, colors, and materials.
Whole-Home Color Planning
We understand that painting your space isn’t a one-and-done task. We cover the entire home, offering paint guidance and service so you feel comfortable and self-assured.
Creating Timeless Palettes That Age Well
You want to love your home for years to come, so we don’t design for trends, we design for you.
Helping Homeowners Move Forward With Confidence
At Seattle Swank, we leave each of our clients with a design-driven plan that encourages confidence and eliminates guesswork.
Home Color Consultation: Frequently Asked Questions
What is included in a color consultation?
A home color consultation involves an expert evaluating your space and style goals to recommend a range of color options best suited to your needs.
How long does a color consultation take?
Small projects and individual rooms usually take between 45 minutes and an hour, while larger, whole-home guidance can take between one and three hours.
Is a color consultation worth it?
Yes! No matter how big or small your project is, color consultations save you time, money, and stress.
Can a color consultant help with exterior paint colors?
Some interior designers, such as those at Seattle Swank, can also provide guidance for the exterior coloring of your home.
Should I schedule a color consultation before a renovation?
Having a professional offer design advice before you begin your renovation can help you solidify your design direction and feel more confident throughout your home project.
How do I prepare for a home color consultation?
To help your color consultant, evaluating your space yourself can help you communicate which feature you personally want to highlight. It also helps to prepare your personal style and inspiration to guarantee you select the right color.
Where can I find a color consultant?
In Seattle, WA, color consultants and interior designers are available at Seattle Swank.
Should I test color recommendations myself?
Yes! While consultants offer you professional advice, your opinion of your space matters most at the end of the day.
Schedule a Color Consultation With Seattle Swank
Whether you're choosing paint for a single room or planning a whole-home transformation, Seattle Swank helps you create a color palette that feels cohesive, intentional, and uniquely yours. Contact Seattle Swank to discover how color can bring your home to life.