Try ALL the Colors for FREE

What? You didn’t know?

You didn’t know you can see what that old dresser would look like if you painted it blue…BEFORE you paint it?

You didn’t know you could try out hot pink pillows with your navy blue sofa, without spending a dime?

You don’t have a navy blue sofa (but wonder what one would look like in your room)?

You don’t know WHAT I’m talking about?

Let me introduce you (via shamefully low tech) to one of my favorite rabbit holes.

Today is resurrect-a-way-overlooked-post day.  This is one of my favorites.  I think I wrote it when I had three email subscribers…(I now have four, haha).

Seriously, this is one I personally use ALL. THE. TIME.  But not the way it was originally intended.

Let’s say you’re thinking of painting your dining room.  You visit the Sherwin-Williams or Benjamin Moore website and they offer a page to try out different colors in a dining room similar to yours.  Better still, they offer the option for you upload a picture of YOUR dining room, then try those same colors on your walls.  That’s what I started to write about here:

This, friends, is NOT the only thing you can do with this tool.  Instead, it’s where the fun STARTS.

Because while the page is intended for you to select and try out paint colors on walls…you can also select ANY element of your room and change the color to any color in their spectrum of paint…like I discovered below by selecting the throw pillows from the same picture.  

Drawer fronts?  Select and color.

Throw pillows?  Select and color.

Curtain rods? Select and color.

Dining room table?  Select and color.

Whether you’re selecting fabric, window treatment or paint colors, the tool doesn’t care…so you can use it on anything to help you SEE what it could look like with a new hue.

Here’s a real-world application that I put together for fellow blogger (and truest-bluest commenter) Jodie, from JTouchofStyle.  Jodie was thinking of updating this baker’s rack that she moved to her new home.

Using the on-line paint visualizers, I took her ideas, selected colors similar to those already in her room, and applied them to the item she wanted to paint…i.e., NOT the walls.

She was thinking about painting the drawers three different colors, including turquoise.  Using the paint visualizer, I could show her this five minutes later without ever dipping a brush into paint:

Perhaps the same drawers on a white rack:

Or maybe paint the whole shebang a daring Spicy Tomato:

Color visualizers are meant to test colors on walls.   Use their selection tools to select and/or outline the wall surface, pick a color and BOOM! You can now see what your dining room would look like in the trending “Color of the Year.”

But guess what?  You can use those same tools to select ANYTHING in your picture.   Pillows, frames, cushions, counters, seats, lights…. if you can click a line around it, you can change its color.   

Curious about painting your wooden kitchen or bathroom cabinets?  Try it out in advance to see if it would be a mistake, or worth a go (yeah, I even tried painting the walls black, too, haha).

 

New front door color?  Why not?   Geez, you could even test out a new bow color on your front door wreath…just select it and “paint” it any color in the palette.

Nearly every major paint manufacturer has a visualizer.  Each has it’s specifics, but they’re “virtually” all the same (see what I did there?).

Truth? Some of the lightest colors, like white, do not cover as well on the visualizer as do the darker ones. They look more opaque than solid.  However…getting a sense of what it would look like without spilling a dime.. or a drop of paint…  is WAY better than going into a project with fingers crossed and minimal time and $ to waste.

Here’s the original article with all the pertinent instructions. I’ve updated it with a step by step, using the cushions from my back hall makeover.  All the links in the old post have been tested and are up to date.  However, for your convenience, here they are again.

Benjamin Moore

Sherwin-Williams

Pittsburg Paints

Valspar

 Glidden

 

FYI:  Whether you’re a devotee or have heard of the high end Farrow and Ball paint brand (which does not offer a visualizer, btw, but instead ha$ an in-home con$ultation),  I stumbled onto this Farrow and Ball skit from SNL, it’s HILAROUS!        “Colour,” hahaha!