Finding the right paint colour for your Woodbridge home or office can be tricky. With literally thousands of colours to choose from at our paint store, the sea of samples can be overwhelming.
Knowing your lighting is the best way to whittle it down. It’s the single most important factor when it comes to paint colour—saving your cornflower white from turning into dishwater grey.
So we’ve got our paint store professionals here at Centropaint to show you how to avoid buyer’s regret by knowing your lighting.
Lighting Advice from our Woodbridge Paint Store Pros
- Samples: Effective sampling will make your choices much simpler. Once you’ve got your sample pots from the paint store, apply two coats to primed dry wall. It’s best to try this in various areas of your room, as the light will fall differently throughout. Observe how they look over the course of a day or at the time of day when you’re most likely to use the space. Natural and artificial light will bring out very different shades in your samples.
- Natural light: Anything but consistent, natural light changes depending on the time of day and year. Knowing what direction your room faces is the best guide. North and East facing rooms have a cooler, bluer light—offering a great opportunity to use warm, bolder colours. Whereas South and West facing rooms get warmer rays, calling for cooler colours.
- Artificial light: The type of lighting you use in your Woodbridge home will have a massive effect on colour. So if you’re decorating from scratch, it’s vital to get your lighting plan finalised before going to the paint store for colours. Yes, it’s that important! Incandescent bulbs draw out yellows and warm tones. Whereas blues and greens do well under Fluorescent light. Halogens most closely resemble natural light, making all colours more vibrant. And LEDs are the most flexible—try warmer or cooler depending on your taste.
- Light Reflectance Value (LRV): This is a key consideration when buying paint for your Woodbridge It’s written as a percentage on every colour swatch, indicating how much light a colour reflects and thus how light or dark it will look on your wall. So 0% LRV would reflect no light (and appear black) and 100% LRV would reflect all light (and appear bright white). For home interiors, 50% LRV is the guideline. But you can experiment with this according to how much light your room attracts. Paint sheen will also affect how much light is reflected – glossy will reflect more light than matte.
Follow these steps, and your home will be everything you envisioned, rather than a best guess.
Here at Centropaint, we want your project to be a success—we’re always on hand to help. Come visit our Woodbridge paint store, or call us on 905-832-0870 for more decorating advice from our friendly experts.
