How to choose interior paint colors

By The T.A.P. Team · February 2024 · 6 min read

Paint is the cheapest way to transform a home and the easiest place to go wrong, because a color that looks perfect on a chip can look completely different on your walls. Choosing colors well comes down to a few habits: plan a cohesive flow through the home, understand undertones (the number-one source of paint regret), and always test large samples in your own light before buying gallons. Here's how to choose interior paint colors you'll love once they're on the wall.

Start with a whole-home flow

Rather than picking each room in isolation, plan a cohesive palette for the whole home — usually one main neutral for the connected living spaces, with coordinated accent colors branching off it. Because rooms are visible from one another, especially in open floor plans, a planned flow makes the home feel calm and larger, while a patchwork of unrelated colors feels chaotic. Pick your dominant neutral first, then build around it.

Understand undertones

Here's where most paint mistakes happen. Every "neutral" has an undertone — a gray can lean blue, green, or purple; a white can lean warm or cool. That hidden undertone is why a beautiful gray can suddenly look lavender on your wall or clash with your floors. Look past the main color to its undertone, and compare it against your fixed elements so it harmonizes rather than fights them.

Test in your own light

Never commit from a tiny chip. Paint large samples — a couple of feet square, ideally two coats on poster board or the wall itself — and live with them. Light changes everything: north-facing rooms cast cool light that mutes and cools colors, south-facing rooms warm them, and artificial light shifts them again at night. Check your samples morning, afternoon, and evening before deciding, because the "right" color is the one that works in your light.

Coordinate finishes and fixed elements

Finally, choose colors alongside the things you can't easily change — floors, countertops, tile, cabinets, and big furniture — so everything harmonizes. And remember the finish matters as much as the color: the same hue looks different in flat versus satin, and each has a right room, covered in what paint finish to use. When you're ready, our painting team delivers a flawless finish.

Interior painting in North Texas

From whole-home repaints to a single accent wall, we deliver clean, durable interior paint jobs across Plano, Frisco, and Allen. See our painting team.