When it comes to choosing paint colours, most painters you hire will hand you a fan deck. They don’t want to be involved in the process of choosing colour because they don’t want to be blamed if the end result wasn’t what the customer envisioned.

I get that. However, I think they are forgetting a very important point. Customers are looking at the colour on the walls. I tell customers all the time “no matter how good of a job we do painting your home, if you don’t love the colours on your walls, you are not going to be 100% happy with the job done.”

It’s why at Warline Painting we take helping customers choose the perfect paint colours seriously.

I do all the professional colour consultations for Warline Painting. Years of working with colour and seeing what worked and what didn’t has given me the experience to help our customers choose the right colours. Last year, I added to that experience by becoming a certified True Colour Expert under the direction of colour and undertone expert, Maria Killam.

But it’s not just good advice that makes for a good colour consultation.

I arrive at every appointment with more than just a stack of fan decks. I come armed with my growing inventory of 11 X 14 painted samples of the top paint colours that work. They help customers visualize what a colour will look like on a larger scale and allow them to compare colours. My big samples include colours from Benjamin Moore, Cloverdale Paint and Sherwin Williams.

I’ve had many customer tell me “that’s not the same colour as on the chip” when I showed them a sample…followed by “wow – that’s really surprising” when I held the paint chip over my larger sample to show them they were in fact the same colour. Colour does that. It looks much darker on the paint chip than it does on a wall or larger sample. Put it on the wall and the colour gets more intense and brighter.

The large samples help determine what the right colour is for a particular space. The below picture is a perfect example.

This photo is from a recent colour consultation I did with a customer. They had chosen the colour on the far left for the room (Benjamin Moore Manchester Tan HC-81). When I put my big samples up on the mantel, it became obvious that the second colour (Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter HC-172) was a much better fit because it complimented the fireplace. It would have been almost impossible for my customer to see that if we had been working with a small fan deck.

Part of what makes Warline a quality first painting company is stuff like this. Professional advice and tools to help choose the perfect paint colour. So, next time you are having your house painted and want to make sure the colours are perfect, give me a call. It can be the difference between a paint job you like and one you love.