How about looking at some decorating magazines? I'm pretty beigy myself. My dining room is very pale pink, my living room very pale green, and my bedroom is oatmeal with a similar color rug. I have some color in bathrooms (both blue tile) and kitchen (blue accents, including blue and white wallpaper)and my kids bedrooms, but I'm very stuck to beige. I've seen brights I like (orange in dining room). I have ripped pages from mags for inspiration. I just haven't made the decision or gone to buy paint.

I've looked through many decorating magazines. I can identify color schemes I like, but what I'm stumbling with is which wall to paint what color. Does the main living room wall have the bold color? The wall in the dining room? That sort of thing. The decorating magazines always show such creative ways to use paint. I'm not very artistic but know what I like when I see it.

I'm wondering if anyone has used a color consultant and if they found it value added.

I wastold numerous times my home looks like it should be in a magazine,I love decorating,what I did wasI started with off white walls,then in kitchen I used a dark red color trim antiqued it the put like curtains with that red and another color stick with those colors,accessories use another color that cordinates .They say 3s.now my living room is colonal blue trim,Now my house is 1700s but rule still applies 3 colors.You need a focal point like a couch,pick out the least color bring that out,Bedroom is easy go with colors in bedspread.Just play its fun ,stay away from beige they say thats a cop out.Or like colors in tablecloth,I have alot of wood wainescoting,fireplace 6 of them..

You know--it's only $20 worth or so of paint. Even if you make a mistake, it's fixable and not that expensive. For the price of having a consultant advise you, you could probably make a half dozen (maybe more) mistakes.

I happen to be very good with colors--I not only have perfect color vision, but an excellant color 'memory' (I can remember exact shades that are in my home, when I'm at the store).

Anyway, there's a process for choosing colors for your home. First, you need to consider what you have that won't be replaced--furniture, carpeting, wood trim, etc. If you do have problems matching or remembering colors, get a bunch of chips at the store, bring them home and FIRST pull out the ones that match the colors in your room. Line those up. Then imagine what other colors/shades might go with them. It might be that if it's one of those strips with several shades of a color, one of those darker or lighter shades would be a nice addition to the room. If you are still timid about the color, run to the store and buy a tester bottle--they're cheap, and you can paint a bit on a wall, to see how you like it. It's good to check how the color looks at various times of the day, under different lighting conditions.

But go ahead and go for it--you really can do this yourself. Even if it's a tricky combination of colors, there's always SOMETHING that will pull the room together. Just take your time and think it through.

I suggest going over to the decorating forum here at GW. Post a picture of your rooms and the gals and guys there will suggest paint colors and decorating advice. They can be very helpful!

Here is a link that might be useful: Decorating forum

maybe you could ask one of your friend's, whose taste you admire, to help you. chances are they would love to be able to decorate some rooms while not being the one who pays the bills..lol.

Someone I know did it for their interior colors. I only found out because I loved all the colors and asked how they decided on them and she said they had a color consultant help them pick.

Another friend did that to choose exterior colors for her home - where there was a primary color and several colors for the trim. She's a pretty savvy decorator and she did it after she selected colors herself and painters had started painting and it wasn't right.

I've not had a formal consultation but I did have to get advice from a painter when I'd picked a color (one of the rare times I picked something other than "beige") and it was horrible when I tried it on the wall.

I don't know how much it costs but if you had someone good do it I think it would be money well spent. I have the same problem being overwhelmed by too many color choices and just picking some safe shade of "beige".

I agree 100% with Azzalea and the color chips from the stores. There are usually 3 or 4 on on strip. And remember, the color you see in the store under fluorescent light isn't going to look the same at home where the sunlight is coming in. Get plenty. They're free and you can mix and match them.

Or just come over to my house. I have a ton of those strips in just about every color except purple. I love color and when we bought this house it had all white walls with flowery borders on the top of every wall next to the ceiling. Had lots of prep to do to get rid of them before we painted. They looked good with the decor of the former owners, but lousy with our stuff.

Don't be afraid,. It's just paint.

Never done it. I love bold colors. I still have off white in my three bedrooms, because they aren't ready to paint just yet! LOL

I am having a devil of a time picking paint for our exterior rental house right now!! I need to get it by Saturday too. Everyone has the same color, tan. Tan. Tan. Tan. With green trim, or brown trim or whatever. I want something different. Neighbors across the yard painted the most beautiful shade of a dark/gray green! I love it. But can't do that or rather won't now! LOL I love the terra cotta or clay colors. I debated doing that with white trim. But just am not sure I am brave enough! Plus you have to have the exact dark shade or it will end up looking pink.There are dark brown shingles on the house so almost gotta stay in the browns,tans,yellowish browns So I gave up and had them mix a sample pint, taupe 6, the darkest shade of taupe on the card. Painted a few strips on back side of the house. DS then tells his Dad don't let her paint the same color as the neighbor across the street! Grrrrrrrr NOBODY had an opinion when I asked before getting the sample! LOL

I hired a decorator at my last house. She was a friend of my FIL's so she only charged me half her normal rate, $30hr(20 years ago), took her 3 hours to pick out curtain fabric, draw a quick sketch of the curtains, the paint color was a lighter shade of the curtain background color, the grasscloth was an accent color pulled from the curtain fabric....wallpaper to put behind a built-in-bookshelf(same collection as the curtain fabric), with little benches along the bottom. We lived there 7 years and when we put it up for sale it sold in 3 weeks.

But like Bulldinkie said...it was all common sense. The main focal point was the couch,loveseat & oriental rug we were keeping, the curtian fabric went with it, that was the starting point or focal point, then she built from there.....

I took an art class last year. My art teacher thought you should pick out the art and then decorate the room around that. I'd look at the art and furnishings and pick out colors fromther.

Thanks for the feedback. I really do like to paint so the painting part will be fun. I just hate choosing the colors. I do a good job when I'm in the paint department and am looking at the paint chips, but the paint always looks different once I start painting. I do have a friend who is good with colors, and she's coming over this weekend. She has colors in her home that I wouldn't select on my own, but they sure look good together.

Sephia...a lot of "todays" decorators would ask you-what is YOUR favorite color in your clothing closet..take a look...THAT will tell you what you would/might like on your walls....

I find colors to be difficult, because they are completely different from one room to another because of the light. I'm really not liking the green in my front room, but it looks great in the backroom.
One trick I learned is that you should put warmer colors in North facing rooms and cooler in South facing rooms. In the case of my green, it is cool and definitely looks better in the Southren facing room.
All that being said, I think you should go ahead and hire a consultant. It will be interesting, you will learn a few things and maybe you will not end up with a closet full of paint samples, like I have. Why the heck not?

LOL! I do have lots of quarts of paint samples in the closet. The colors looked great on the paint chip in the store but when on the wall, not so good. It is just paint, but I don't want to waste $$ trying samples to find the right colors. I think it will be fun, and I'm sure I'll have "why didn't I think of that?" for possible paint schemes.

Let me make one suggestion about picking paint colors. The chips/samples in stores drive me crazy. If I find a color I like either in a magazine or my mind's eye, I try to find an item of clothing with that color. I bring (or wear) the clothing to Home Depot and use that to match the paint.

Try reading this color blog. The gal is really good at explaining the how & why of color choices.

I expect I found this thru someone on the GardenWeb boards.

Here is a link that might be useful: Color Me Happy

My brother's wife had an interior decorator/color consultant come to their home to suggest colors. I may not be remembering correctly, but I think the consultant charged $75 an hour (SE Wisconsin). My SIL was very happy with the suggestions. They'd tried to pick out colors on their own and didn't have a lot of success and wasted a lot of time and money on painting. I haven't been to their house in some time, so I'm not sure if they've followed through or not.