How to Test Paint Colors Before Committing

Testing food and drinks can be essential to ensuring a good dining experience, and the same is true of paint jobs. Going to a wine tasting can be a delightful experience (“Cork Master” and all), while rich and powerful (or potentially paranoid) people can have taste testers test their food to make sure that there isn’t any poison in them before they dig in themselves.
But testing different paints before committing to them is a different animal altogether. You probably don’t want to go to a big event to do it like a wine tasting, and you don’t need a specialist to test it themselves. Instead, these steps can help you test paint on your own.

The Wall Comes Last
Above all, do not paint directly onto your wall or whatever surface you are painting until you are absolutely sure you have the right color. It is much more difficult to get rid of paint once it is on your wall. At best, it’ll be a mess wiping and washing the paint away if it’s still wet enough to do so, and if it dries, you have an even more frustrating task of chipping it away ahead of you.
Instead, you want to paint sample boards. This allows you to see how the paint looks in terms of color and texture on a board that is similar to the surface you’ll be painting without actually marking up the real thing. As a result, you can test several colors at once before committing to one.
That said, you shouldn’t make your choice of paint color or texture too soon, either. Wait until the paint has had time to fully dry, as its color and texture will change during the drying process.
In addition, you want to make sure to look at the paint colors at different times during the day so as to ensure that you are able to get the fullest possible idea of what it will look like in different lighting. For example, different hues of grey can look very different in nature as opposed to artificial night, so you’ll need to test it in different conditions before making your decision

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Consider Your Surroundings
Colors are complementary, so you need to make sure to consider not just the quality of the paint in question but what features surround it. What is the color of the adjacent wall? Is there any furniture in the room? Is your carpeting or other major features in the space?
All of this needs to be taken into consideration to make sure you get the best match possible before committing to a single shade of paint. Examine different sample boards in these surroundings to see which hues of which colors contrast and complement the rest of your interior décor the best.

Online Testers
Last, but not least, there are plenty of online programs that can enable you to view different shades of paint and compare them alongside one another. You can even compare them against other colors, as mentioned, to get a sense of which are the best complementary colors and which work best in natural and artificial lighting.
These techniques can help you choose the right shade of paint before committing to it for a whole wall or room’s worth of painting. Contact your local painting company today to learn more about testing colors before painting.

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