Painter’s hack for choosing a colour you won’t regret once it’s on your walls

Deciding what colour to paint your walls and ceiling can be tricky with so many different options available – not just for white but every hue in the rainbow. But once you’ve picked something and got it home, you’ll likely find it doesn’t look quite how you thought it would.

Painter Glen Hare told nine.com.au the sample swatches in paint and hardware stores look very different to how they appear when on the walls of your home because you’re seeing them under bright LED store lights, not natural light.

“The mistake people make when they’re choosing their colour is they go in there, they see it on the sample card and they like it, but then when they get it home, in different light on the walls, up against your furnishings, like your carpet, your tiles, your kitchen cabinets, and it’s a totally different looking colour,” Hare said.

“People will pick a nice white, and then get home and the white will throw off reflection from their flooring that could make it make their white walls look yellow, or it could make it look like a tan colour.

“It all depends on the lighting in your house.”

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The Gold Coast tradie demonstrated in an Instagram reel how different the sample cards can look to the paint on the wall with a colour called pepperberry.

The sample card appeared to be a light dusky pink when held close to the camera, while the wall a couple of metres behind it painted in the same shade looked more of a dark berry colour.

But when Hare held the sample card up against the wall while standing right next to it, the colours looked the same.

However, the solution to that isn’t painting swatches of the colours we’re considering on the wall. Hare said this is a “no-no”, because those patches will still be visible once you’ve painted over them with your chosen colour.

“After I go in there and roll [paint] over the top of that… if you look on the side, you’ll actually still see those squares. You won’t see the colour, but you’ll see those squares because it’s already got a brush coat on it, it’s got a different texture,” he explained.

The best way to figure out how your preferred paint colour looks in your home, according to Hare, is to get a few sample pots and paint each of the shades you’re considering on an A4 sheet of paper.

“Then put those [pieces of paper] around the house in different areas, like up against your kitchen cabinets, up against flooring, different lighting that you get, and then pick your colour,” he said.

Lighting is the main factor that influences how paint colour looks in a home, but it’s not just sunlight and shade, it’s also artificial lighting you need to consider.

“It all comes down to the lighting when choosing your colour. Some people have LED lights or lamps that throw off different colours as well. So you really have to get your colour spot on; you need to take that time and just check with lighting to pick it, and it works out perfectly once you do that,” he said.