Eric Murray

5 steps to picking the perfect paint

Article by Your Home and Garden

Resene’s colour experts take the guesswork out of choosing colours for your home

With a rainbow of hues available, selecting colours can feel like the trickiest part of your renovation or room makeover.

That’s why New Zealand’s most trusted paint brand, Resene, has free colour experts and a range of handy tools on hand to make sure you get a colour scheme you’re going to love living with.

How to choose the perfect paint

1. Get inspired. Browse magazines and go online to gather looks you like. A great place to start is the Resene Decorating Inspiration gallery, a free online resource packed with real-life painting projects completed by creative Kiwis just like you. Get a handle on the hot decorating and colour trends in the latest looks section of the Resene website, and make sure you flick through the popular habitat magazines and habitat plus books online.

2. Start to pull together photos and colour samples to create a mood board. Resene offers a huge range of free colour charts, plus a library of large swatches to view at your local Resene ColorShop that make it easy to see which colours look great together. If you have flooring, tiles, cabinetry or curtains that need to work with the paint colour, add them to the mix. If there’s something you really don’t like, make a note of that too.

3. Now it’s time to get help. If you’ve just got a quick question, ask it online using the Ask the Experts page of the Resene website to receive free personalised advice. To chat through your project in more depth, visit your local Resene ColorShop or head online to book an in-store, on-site or virtual colour consultation. The Resene colour expert will start by asking a few questions about the space you’re working with. Is it interior or exterior? Is it north facing or south facing? Is it a new-build or a renovation? They’ll take a look at your mood board to get an understanding of your style, then tailor a palette that will bring your look to life.

4. It’s a good idea to take swatches of your shortlisted colours home to view them in situ. To see what they’ll look like on the walls, paint Resene testpots onto bigger cards leaving an unpainted border around the edge, so you can try them out in different lights around your space.

5. Once you’re happy with your colour scheme, your Resene paint expert will help you choose the right paint finish for the job and help you figure out how much you’ll need so you can get started on your home transformation.

To request a colour consultation, go to resene.co.nz/colourconsult. To get free online answers to your colour questions, visit resene.co.nz/colourexpert or visit your local Resene ColorShop.