Repair it, sand it, paint it — it feels like our work around the house is never done. And what exactly do many people need to show for our time? A whole lot of leftover paint. So instead of buying new paint and adding into your never-ending source for your next project, think about putting what you’ve got to use by customizing the shade.
Meg Padgett
My family’s house is really a sea of beige and weathered — the most perfect neutral setting for selling a house, but we like a shade here and there. I scored a 5-gallon bucket of high-quality paint in a deep discount but was never really pleased with the orangey-beige shade. I knew with a few adjustments it could be the perfect bluish-gray increase of colour our dwelling needed.
Provides:
Many paint colorsPaint mixer drill attachmentColor wheel
Paul Anater
Tinting your paint is as straightforward as pouring colours in and mixing with your paint mixer drill attachment — but obtaining the perfect shade takes additional work. Understanding of the colour spectrum and how colours are created is helpful. Use a colour wheel, like the basic version pictured here, while mixing paint in addition to planning the overall design scheme.
Meg Padgett
If possible, set aside a good portion of your foundation neutral hue to aid in almost any troubleshooting. Bearing that in mind, be sure to mix plenty of new paint so that you have sufficient to complete the task and a bit left over for touch-ups in the future. It is possible to use paint tints to modify the hue, but blending together multiple house paints from a similar foundation — acrylic versus latex, flat versus satin — to accomplish a new shade is a good method to acquire a paint colour you like and eliminate some of that extra paint you’ve got lying around.
Notice: Making milder paint darker is a lot simpler than making dark paint lighting, but any colour addition will alter your paint’s colour.
Meg Padgett
Working at a room that is ventilated, add your darker colour to your lighter colour little by little to avoid altering the paint too drastically. After each addition, blend using the paint mixer drill attachment until completely mixed. Paint a swatch working with a small foam brush onto a piece of letter paper and onto the wall at the room you will be painting to test the hue under the room’s lighting requirements. Let the paint completely dry around the test swatches before making any additions. Take the time to determine what the colour looks like with distinct all-natural lighting conditions.
To make my bluish-gray shade, I inserted blue and black into the beige. I was not fond of the powerful green colors in the beginning, so that I kept correcting until I achieved my desired outcomes — that in this instance were two colors. I loved the dark steely blue but wanted a milder version. I blended the dark blue using an off-white and a few touches of brown to make a beautiful mild blue-gray shade.
Meg Padgett
The dark smoky blue seems perfect in our hallway. It accents the white trim and lets the mild neutral nautical charts stand out.
Meg Padgett
Our living room received a much-needed upgrade with milder blue-gray walls. This color retains its own in a room that suffers from inadequate all-natural light. It changes because the light changes during the day — and is a welcome change from the drab beige and off-white.
While tinting paint might not be for everybody, it’s a budget-friendly way to paint your house or furniture, not to mention a great way to put a dent at a mountain of partly full paint cans.
Select the right colour palette for your home