Bright wall colors are all the rage.  It takes a certain confidence to pull it off and it takes a bold personality to live with this much color.

All images House Beautiful.

An easy way to live with strong color is to surround it with a lot of white.  The bathroom and kitchen above have plenty of clean, white space for the “eye to rest”.

Blues are typically restful but the bedroom above is playful as well.  A great guest room, teenager’s room, or even perhaps a single woman’s room.  I wouldn’t use it in a couple’s master bedroom.

Pink is quite chic right now.  The pink in the dining room above has a touch of raspberry in it, meaning it has a slightly bluish hue.

This dining room is rather plum or mauve, a color right out of the 80’s (egad, don’t want to go back to the 80’s again), made fresh with modern touches like the side board, lamp, and hanging fixture.

This dining room is red but it reads orange in the image above.  Orange has never been more livable than it is right now.  It is also said to be an appetite stimulant.

To test and use strong colors on walls be aware of a few things:


1- Paint colors visually change throughout the day, and under different lighting circumstances such as overhead lights, lamp light, and natural light.


2- Test colors against pieces of pure white paper and purchase a tester quart first before investing in gallons.


3- Remember that the more pigment in a paint, the harder it is to work with.  Pigment is heavy and darker colors of paint tend to “drip”, creating wavy surfaces when drying.


4- The whiter the paint base a manufacturer uses, the better quality the paint is because it requires more pigment than paints with a gray base.


5- Look at a paint color for at least a week before committing to it and look at your tester sample at different times of the day. 


6- You may or may not be aware of this but designers are usually available on a consultative basis for paint selections.  Just make it clear to him or her that you only want paint consultation so they can plan their calendar accordingly.