hello i’m paul the painter from trusted

house painter and on today’s show we’ve

got carla hedman she’s a professional

color consultant

from victoria bc carla welcome to the

show how are you

hi paul i’m doing great thank you for

having me here

cool well you created a document called

how to choose the perfect painting color

for your home it’s seven professional

color design tips

to help for people that uh

understand the color process and

actually choose the colors properly

and in today’s show what we’re going to

do is we’re going to talk about all

seven of those

tips the first tip is all about neutrals

what would you say about neutrals why is

this a tip what do you mean about that

neutrals are something that isn’t

obviously

a color and the beauty of neutrals is

that they

go with a lot of things so if you’re

really confused about does this go in my

house does this go in my house

sticking with neutrals is a safer way

for most people to pick colors

it’s you know easy a lot of people think

resale

that’s a lot of things that you don’t

have to put too much personality into a

space often when you’re using neutrals

if you’re worried about having something

that’s going to be

longer lasting neutrals are great ways

to go as well

neutrals always change as far as

what’s in style sometimes grays are more

popular

sometimes beiges and taupes are more

popular

sometimes whites are more popular but

the reality is

a neutral is always a neutral it works

all the time it might not be to your

taste sometimes

or that it might be that you’re tired of

having that neutral

but otherwise neutrals are if it counts

for anything

the safer way to go when you’re choosing

colors

yeah absolutely so i will get onto the

second point which is strong colors and

i think we’ll

identify what uh the tips you give about

strong colors and then we’ll identify

the contrast between the two which might

help the listeners understand a little

bit more about this step too or this tip

too which is

strong colors tell us about strong

colors now strong colors can have a

great deal of impact and sometimes

that’s what you want you want to direct

the eye you want to focus the eye on

something

great idea to do that if you want to

have something that actually

you know the thing about neutrals if i’m

going to go back a little bit about

neutrals

is that neutrals don’t always

give a lot of personality to a space so

if you don’t know how to decorate around

a space sometimes

you know adding colors in on your walls

actually adds part of the decor

so you’re not relying on your deck your

decor around the house

to give you influence or

let’s say a feel to a space

color can give it more personality

you can go blues like a navy blue

hard strong color but the thing about

that is that cool colors

even though it might be strong recede

and so it might not advance at you the

same way

that a warm color like a red will do

they both have a great deal of impact

it’s just whether you want to have

stronger energy

or softer energy that’s good info that’s

good info so give us an example give

give the viewer here an example of when

you would use a neutral for example with

interiors

uh well the beauty of using neutrals in

an interior

uh say you’re going in a hallway or an

entryway or something that you want to

have

sort of a continuity something that

maybe you want to change colors in each

room

having a neutral in the middle is a

great way to meet these colors together

in case you’re you know wanting to put a

different color in each room or

three different colors in the house and

having one as your main color to drive

you through or pull your eye

all the way through the spike through

the space and

uh you know the beauty of having

neutrals is

mixing it with color your color becomes

more apparent and your neutral becomes

more neutral if that makes any sense at

all

yeah well as painting as a house painter

what i notice is that when you paint a

house an exterior of a house for example

in neutral tones

you can add you can add hanging flower

baskets

red and pink flower baskets and you see

you know a rose garden in the front

that’s just makes it pop

or they’ve got specific kind of brick

work in the front that just makes it pop

because it has that that that contrast

to it so i know exactly what you’re

talking about maybe give another example

of when you’d use a strong color when

what’s

when would you use a strong color for

example in an interior for example

so using a strong color in an interior

can do some really interesting things

you could do it on say a front door on

the inside

it focuses your eye on the front door

gives your entryway just a little bit

more interest

you could use it in a powder room a

powder room is a small little room it’s

going to be

small no matter what you do why don’t

you use it as a little jewel in the

middle of the house

and add some color in it like there are

some options to do it you do not have to

use strong color everywhere

if you use it everywhere it’s just it’s

definitely a bold statement

so it’s really up to you as far as how

you want your space to feel

the neutrals will emphasize the color

as well so you’ve got that nice contrast

just like you were saying about the

flowerpots

against the neutral of the background

what do you see you see the neutral of

the background and it’s lovely

but then you also get that little pop of

color

yeah and so your third point on the pdf

the free pdf

um how to choose the perfect paint color

for your home

is undertones and neutrals or i should

say neutrals and undertones so maybe

what do you mean by

selecting undertones and neutrals so

because a neutral

is essentially a neutral if you pair it

with a color

but as soon as you start pairing

neutrals with neutrals then your

neutrals start having colors

to them so don’t if you’ve ever put a

beige with a gray

and sometimes your beige looks yellow

and sometimes your gray looks blue

that’s where you’re coming out with your

undertones so

putting neutrals with neutrals that’s

how you can really pull out the

undertone

and it just comes down to what’s most

important in your space if you’re

decorating with yellow

and yellow looks good in your space but

you’re done with yellow

you know that an undertone of yellow in

a color will always work in that space

same idea with blue if you decorate and

the decorating with the blue looks good

in there you can make a blue

undertone work in your space it’s just

about

finding that you just don’t necessarily

want them to fight

so if you’re putting you know a gray

that you think is gray

but ends up looking blue next to

something that is a beige that looks

very yellow you get blue and yellow in

your room

instead of gray and beige so don’t add

neutrals together in other words

sometimes you can it’s just

the easier way to do it is to stick to

the same

undertones if you’re worried and you

don’t have enough experience to do those

things

pick an undertone and roll with it

okay that’s good advice well the uh the

fourth tip that you give in the free pdf

is um things you cannot change maybe

mention what you mean by that

what i mean like that say you’ve bought

a new place and

you love the new space but the reality

is

you know maybe you don’t have enough

money to redo everything but you can

you know you can have enough money to

repaint and make the space feel a little

bit more

yours but say you have new carpeting

and it’s in really good shape but it’s

kind of pink

and you don’t really like pink what do

you do with it

you know what most people will end up

doing is they’ll actually end up picking

colors

try to ignore it and what it end up

doing is it actually emphasizes the

paint

so one of the things that you want to do

with that if you don’t

want to make the pink stand out stronger

is to actually pull something that has

some red in it which i know

like i mentioned in the tips that it

seems counterintuitive

but it really is something that will

help camouflage or tone down

a color that you really don’t like so if

you have a base carpet

you don’t want to be going at anything

that is green based

they do work together but all it does is

it emphasizes your carpet

so if you have a pink carpet you’re

better off

with going something that has more into

the pink beiges

taupes that have more of a red undertone

in them just to

tone everything down doesn’t mean that

you

have to do pink in there i mean you

certainly could there’s no harm in doing

that

if if you don’t want it to be everywhere

pink you still need to have something

that has some red in

it that’s how they blend together

yeah when i’m giving some of my

professional color consultation which is

very

uh minimal to uh clients specifically

with exteriors

i often tell them look at things you

cannot change like your roof you

generally can’t change the color if

you’ve got a red roof

you know you’ve got a little bad if

you’ve got white gutters or white window

frames

like you see some people have brick work

red brick in the front of their house

so there’s things you can’t change and

you gotta kind of start with that and

then in other words that way

that’s what you’re trying to say start

with what you you’re kind of stuck with

and then go from there yeah

it always if you include it in your

color scheme

it’s more intentional and it always

looks way better if you do that

okay that’s that’s cool what brings us

to our next point which is

lighting lighting in color is so

important

what is the purpose of lighting well

basically color really is when we see it

through our eyes it’s all

relative to light available light

and what it’s next to lighting and

relativity

really pushes or pulls on colors

so you know the reality is color is

going to change

all the time because lighting changes

all the time sunrises sun sets it goes

all the way around you have sunny days

you don’t have sunny days

it’s going to change and sometimes

that’s why it’s hard to pick a color

because

you’re looking at a color you know at

noon

in the middle of the summer and then in

the middle of winter when it’s

you know five o’clock in the afternoon

and dark why does this color look so

gross

it’s because the lighting has made it

look that way

so sometimes you want to look at when

you’re choosing colors look at them

throughout the day

i don’t expect you to look all

throughout the year that’s a little bit

much for people having to wait that long

to choose colors to wait through the

year and see what they actually do

but give it a day see look at it all

through the day

see what it does for you do you like it

and also another thing that i like to

point out too for people

is when are you home most of the time

you know if you’re home

all the time well then that’s really

important if you’re only home in the

evenings

maybe you know looking at the evening

time is probably your best time to check

it

you know it’s just where do you like it

because the reality is sometimes

you’re not going to love that color 100

of the time

you might like it 98 of the time but

there might be a day or two where you’re

like

i don’t know about this and it might

even only just be in a corner

that you don’t like it yes because

it’s all about lighting and we’ll get

into that yeah we’ll get in the next two

points after this quick tip a lot of

the times i tell clients of mine when

i’m painting is when they’re putting it

on the outside of the house the color

i tell them to put them on two or three

different sides of the house so that

they get to see what

the backside the west side looks like

morning

and at night and you can see the east

side on the morning and at night so it

kind of gives you a different

perspective

of way the way the the the sun moves

through the sky throughout the day so

that’s another little tip that i do

with respect to lighting so the last two

points uh

of this free pdf which is how to choose

the

paint color uh for your home is the

difference between

natural light which is point number six

natural light tell us a little bit more

about natural light how does that affect

color

so natural light what you’re gonna get

on that it basically is

are you getting the sunshine on it or is

it ambient daylight so the sun isn’t on

it the sun

might be up and it might be a sunshiny

day but the actual sun

is not shining into your window right

now or shining on that side of the house

what you’re gonna get with with sunlight

is warmth right you think of the yellow

of the sun or the gold

of the sun that color comes and

shows you the warm yellow note so you’re

gonna get

warmer color because you have warmer

light

when you’ve got ambient daylight so that

means that the sun

is not actually shining in you just have

daylight coming in

daylight tends to be on the blue side

and you know if it’s overcast

it’s gray blue good way to think about

it is what does the sky look like

if the sky looks like that that color is

coming into your house or it’s on your

house when you’re looking at an exterior

so yeah yeah the biggest thing when it

comes down to what does the sky look

like

that color is coming in your house that

color is on your house so basically

look at the sky that blue that’s why a

lot of the time when people pick colors

and they’re

tend to be bluer than they thought they

were going to be

it’s because daylight is doing that for

you yeah it’s interesting i know from

photography um

like for example when the sun is going

down sunset you can get

brilliant warm pictures uh because the

sun is low on the horizon whereas it’s

probably best to take wedding photos

when it’s

somewhat overcast because then you get

the diffusion of the light of the sun

which creates a different less shadows

for example so

um that’s a perfect that’s a perfect

example of what that does

yeah and i know with recent forest fires

here in the bc where we are sometimes we

get the summer haze

and that turns out to be orange or

bronze and it can totally distort the

color of the of

your home right yeah 100 well that’s

something that a lot of people forget

about

i mean we could get into other things

too about you know windows

windows always have uv protection if

there are newer windows they have uv

protection so that uv protection

is adding some color as well so when you

have the light coming through that it

is actually filtering the light in a

different way than if you had clear

glass

yeah who knew it would be so complicated

eh

it can be complicated but it doesn’t

have to be

too difficult that’s right exactly well

it is a science and that’s why there’s

people like you

serving you know many homeowners and

people that want their colors

which brings us to our last point which

is artificial colors

um now there’s different color

temperatures there’s

like you mentioned yellows blues you can

get light bulbs that are all these

different temperatures and different

temperatures are good for reading

tell us a little bit more about our how

artificial lighting

can affect colors well it’s just like i

was saying about daylight and how

daylight can be blue and sunlight can be

warm

you can buy bulbs that are trying to

emulate

basically the light that comes off the

sun it’s just in a much

muted and uh softer way obviously we

don’t want to

burn our houses down but it’s uh it

really comes down to uh you know

if you’re wanting to have uh like if

you’re choosing a color in the south

side of the house that’s going to be a

warm light

south-facing rooms west facing rooms

tend to be hotter light that comes in

them so

you know sometimes it’s a good rule of

thumb to choose cooler colors in the

warmer rooms

and conversely in the cooler side of the

house with the east and the north side

facing spaces

to choose warmer ones so that in the

reality of the scheme of things

is that the temperature value seems

similar in the end so that they’re a

little bit more cohesive

just to work with what the lighting is

doing whether

where the sun is and then also

considering what sort of artificial

lighting you’re

you’re choosing to put in your space

well those are great seven tips yeah

those are great seven tips

um carl it’s always awesome talking with

you about color we should cut this

okay i short appreciate all the

information that he talks choosing a

color is a science

it’s not that easy it’s very quite

complicated because we’re dealing with

emotions and human beings right

a hundred percent yes yeah thank you

paul

so if you want a copy of this just

download it on the page on the blog page

it’s a free pdf and it’s seven

practical tips uh that’ll guide you to

choosing the perfect painting color for

your home

my name is paul from trusted l’s painter

thank you carla for being on the show

today and check out our other videos

follow us on facebook and on youtube

um and have a great day