REAL SIMPLE - Interior Designers Swear By This Easy Paint Trick For a Truly Custom Room

Choosing the right paint color can be fun, but it can also be a challenge. There are so many different factors at play. Your style, the light in the room, the rest of the home, and the overall design scheme determine what paint color will look best. But what do you do when you've invested considerable time at the store, explored various samples, and there isn't a color that has the exact look you've envisioned?

Turns out the trick to solving this is to create a custom shade of paint, which you can actually do at most paint stores. You can go with something a tad lighter, a little darker, or far more saturated—but basically, the color opportunities are truly endless if you go this route. Here’s what you need to know before you make the mix though.

How to Choose a Color Palette for Your Home

How The Trick Works

Interior designer Amanda Leigh of House of Rolison says, “As for lightening and darkening your colors, we find there are a lot of missing hues when we go to stores.” To get the exact hue you want, ask for the paint to be anywhere between 1% to 100% darker or lighter. So, if you want it just a touch darker, opt for 25%. 100% will be very dark.

This trick is excellent for anyone who absolutely loves the undertones of a specific color, but isn't satisfied with the shades on the color card. Or, they swatch the hue on a wall and find the color they thought was perfect is just a hair too dark (or light).

Just keep in mind this trick can take a little bit of trial and error. “We like to narrow down to one or two colors, then request the percentage change to figure out what we want out of the color richness and brightness. Based on lighting hues (we generally always use warm light) and how much natural light is in a room, the paint color can change drastically. We like to test multiple levels before picking our final color," Leigh says.

Don’t be afraid to ask for a few samples, but it’s important to keep in mind, if this is your first time choosing paint or you don’t always feel confident in your design choices, this trick probably isn’t for you.

7 Mistakes Everyone Makes When Picking Paint Colors

Level It Up

Leigh also tells me if you’re going to darken up your paint, it’s best to use tinted primers that have approximately the same light value as the paint you’re planning to use. She says, “The darker the color, the darker the primer. The tinted primers ensure the paint is also consistent across the surface you’re painting.”

You can also use multiple layers of paint but the designer notes this primer technique is less time-consuming and more affordable because primer is less expensive than paint. Smart!

Alternative Ideas

Consider Pre-Made Options

If you’re considering darkening or lightening your paint to continue a color scheme throughout rooms of the home, or if you like this trick but you aren’t quite sure what percentage to go with, you may want to consider Little Greene’s Color Scales collection. “Our Color Scales collection offers our most popular colors within families of graduated tones, made using the same pigments, but in different strengths," says Ruth Mottershead, creative director of Little Greene. In other words, they've done the lightening and darkening for you.

This option has all of the rewards without any of the risks. “When choosing three colors of tonal similarity, it’s best to go with three colors that you choose three colors of varying strength. “As a rule, select one light, one mid, and one dark as this will provide immediate contrast. Pick your hero color first. This will be the color that will feature as the ground within your scheme, then choose two colors to use in combination,” she explains.

Try This Cool Application

Interior designer Kate Dawson says customizing paint colors can be a great way to create an ombré effect, especially in a nursery or children's room. According to her, you should look into custom gradients "if you're painting a mural on a wall, and you want the colors to fade seamlessly into darker or lighter tones of the same color. You know you’re getting the right color if you don't see a definitive line from one shade to another.”

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