3 Tips for Adjusting to Your New Paint Colour

Thinking of trying out a new wall colour? Tricia just painted her walls a lovely pale pink. And, she’s sharing helpful tips for dealing with new paint colour shock – you know, when the new colour is on the wall but you haven’t pulled the room together yet… and you wonder if it was the right move?

Tips for adjusting to your new paint colour

Dreaming of ways to change up my holiday decor this year, I decided to do something drastic. I painted my walls pink! This gave me an entirely new backdrop to work with.

My deep magenta pink over dyed rug wanted some company, so I chose a pale pink with a hint of cool magenta, Benjamin Moore Strawberry Yogurt 2104-70. It’s a new trend colour Maria recently added to her VIP Collection of colour boards, and I was excited to try it out!

BM Strawberry Yogurt 2104-70 new in Maria’s VIP Collection!

Expect New Paint Colour Shock

I had a day or so of looking at my room in disarray. You know, that frantic time where you’ve just finished painting and haven’t pulled it all together yet so you are super critical of the colour? Wondering to yourself, was this the right choice?

That’s right, new colour shock happens even to colour experts sometimes!

This is the hasty shot (below) I sent to my mom immediately after putting the roller down. This is what a newly painted room looks like before you’ve put everything back in place.

 

1. Take a deep breath and reserve judgement

This is why it’s SO IMPORTANT to wait at least a few days after painting, preferably a week or two even, to get used to the new colour. Folks like me (and you know if that’s you too!) who are sensitive to colour can be deeply affected by a new wall colour. You have to give your eyes a chance to adjust to the change.

2. Never judge a new colour while you are still painting over the old colour.

And by the way, NEVER judge a new colour when it is still going over the old. That’s when it will look really odd. Trust me, as the old and new colour bump up against one another on the edge of where you’ve painted, don’t make a judgement yet.

Especially if you have a more muted (dirty) colour going up over a cleaner paint colour. The cleaner, brighter colour always makes the dirty one look worse until you’ve painted the entire area.

3. Put down that paint roller and put your room back together

It doesn’t make sense to judge a wall colour out of the context of the full decor of the room. Staring at a new wall colour without the context of the rest of the elements of a room doesn’t work. Colour is about relationships.

How does it balance and relate to the other elements?

Plus, the prettiest paint colour in the world will not stand on its own and look decidedly “right” without the furnishings and decor it needs to relate to. So reserve your judgement until AFTER your room is reassembled.

Now that my room is put back together, I am in LOVE! It’s just the perfect subtle wash of the most lovely pink.

I made another somewhat unexpected move of swapping out my linen look drapes for a cleaner butter yellow. It was a bold experiment, but I think it works. Let me know what you think 😉

My springers, Mabel and Stanley, are just the most wonderful models. They populate each shot almost without any direction from me. They are pros at this by now – ha, ha.

Colour Repetition is Key

The key to introducing a new accent colour is to repeat it at least twice. The pink walls have a strong repeat in the magenta rug, and I sprinkled a bit of festive red around to make it work. There is also red in the picture I painted last year for the hall. (Often the right new accent colour is already in your room in a fabric or artwork, so look around you first!).

Of course, now I want to paint the hall a butter yellow to match the drapes.

Decorating my new room for the holidays.

I wanted to play around with a more traditional feel this year, so that meant introducing some red!

I haven’t put anything red on my Christmas tree for at least a decade, maybe more?

To keep it modern, I repeated some of the cool, pale pink just a bit. I had a young associate at Michael’s teetering on a scaffold sorting boxes to find me enough of the perfect pale pink balls to match my new wall colour… dearest soul.

To repeat the yellows in my decor, I used lots of gold too, which also adds to the traditional feel.

I don’t have a picture, but at first, I thought I would keep the look pulled back and go with only lights and balls on my tree. But the deep green of my real tree combined with only the shiny balls felt a but cold.

So I added an adorable delicate gold garland that I was so excited to find last minute. And, it still needed a bit more softening, so on a whim I stuck in several sprigs of delicate, snowy baby’s breath.

FYI, if you do this, maybe plan ahead and dry it first haha.

I will admit I had some reservations about how my red, pink, magenta and gold scheme would come together, but in the end I’m very happy with it. Because I have lots of colourful art that I didn’t want to move, and a few whimsical pieces in the mix, I feel like I landed on some kind of bohemian/traditional hybrid holiday decorating style.

I couldn’t resist this collection of vintage looking red glass balls (below).

Similar ornaments here and here

These sturdy oak shelves can be a bit tricky to style, they need a lot of white and bright colour to pop out of the deep wood toned spaces.

 I like to display small artworks as well as precious little things I’ve picked up here and there. The watercolour on the left is my daughter’s. The jewel-like collage in the gold leafed frame is by Graham Peacock. And the tiger illustration is a recent thrift find, such a treasure!

It’s hard to believe that my deep pink area rug was a last minute splurge when I redecorated my living room last year, it really anchors the space and gives it a decadence that I would miss if it wasn’t there.

My dining room is a work in progress. It still needs that anchoring piece or maybe some sleek new chairs. But I love the warm softness of the pink walls and yellow drapes.

Here is the tree again, and a good view of the pink walls.

So, are you thinking of trying a new wall colour?

Pink has been such a strong trend colour for a while now, but I find it still has the power to polarize a crowd. I’ve had a few visitors that have commented that while they are not really “pinky” people, they actually do like it (even my dad).

I find it fascinating that, much more than most colours, pink is not for everyone. I would not say that it is my absolute favourite colour (I’m probably sort of a green type if I’m forced to choose), but wow, I am really loving this pink room right now. How about you? Have you been introducing pink into your rooms lately?

And remember, give yourself some time to adjust to your new wall colour (pink or not). 

Happiest of Holidays from my family to yours!

 

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Tricia’s Magenta and Gold Modern Traditional Christmas