Show us your furniture and rooms so we can help.

the project is still in the build stage and has not completed i was thinking ahead and keep my ideas ready when i come to that stage.

How can we help you then? Do you actually have furniture now or will you be buying furniture?

Ideally, you should know the color scheme before choosing paint.

Furniture, textiles, accessories, the interior decor of the house drives the wall color. The house itself does not. Base wall color on how you decorate, not the other way around. So if you are keeping your furnishings, you should have the basis for the color scheme in place. If you are going tabula raza, then you choose fabrics and such first and then decide wall colors to either blend, or contrast or compliment, whatever you prefer.

eld6161 - Yes i will need to buy furniture and i am trying to understand how i can start by choosing my colour scheme

KDC Virtual Color Consulting - thanks for your comment,

Start with your favorite colors! What are you drawn too? What vibe do you want for your home?

What area do you live in? I'm decorating a Florida home and I am going to go with blues, creams, and greens. Coastal.

Since you are still in the build stage, start collecting inspiration pictures. What style home are you building? Modern? Colonial?

Google your way through Houzz to collect inspiration rooms. You will continuously be drawn in by similar styles and colors.

What is in your home now? What has worked for you? What do you feel you could have done differently?

eld has a good question - where are you located, what type of setting are you in, what's the style of your house, do you like calm colours or vibrant ones, what type of artwork do you have/will you keep. what colours are in your furniture now, what type of flooring will you be using (hardwood vs carpeting/area rugs)

We did this same thing a few years ago but I hired someone to help me through the whole process of the renovation so that I didn't screw up the colour coordination of tiles and cabinet colours and wall colours and flooring etc.

I have a post and beam house on the west coast situated on the edge of a forest that goes on forever. Those characteristics, and our furniture, drove the entire renovation project including wall colours. And although it is no longer in style. I even have a feature wall of colour in the dining room which was driven by a piece of art.

eld6161 and blfenton thank you for your comments and guidance. My House is situated in Harrow (London). I like calm colours. we will be starting from scratch as in furniture wise and also any wall art as we don't own any at the moment. the down stairs bit we going for tiles through out the whole area and upstairs and loft we going for wood flooring.

Our house is a semi detached house and we doing a double side and back extension

We have not stayed in this house. I have been looking at houzz for inspirations and keeping some links of the work i like.

If you're looking for calm colours that will act as a background for your furniture and art and general living, you will probably wind up looking at taupes or greys. Just be careful with those as most of them will have an underlying colour of some sort such as green or yellow and that's when the natural lighting of your home will come into play.

Back to my situation - we don't have any greys in our home but that's because we have rain from November to April and there is enough grey outside without my adding it to my home. That was just my own sensibility and not all would agree.

Good luck with your project, it sounds really exciting.

I will suggest you look at BM Smokey taupe which is a gorgeous soft warm tone that goes with almost everything.

Depending on the light source, the tones look beautiful and stunning.

It is so hard to choose a color from a 1" square sample. Ask friends if you like a color in their homes or look at open houses and ask if you find a color you like. Neutrals are easier for a whole home color. When we moved into our current home a year and a half ago I decided to paint the main living areas a color I loved from our last home. I knew how it looked and that it went well with my furniture. It also went well with the flooring in our new home. It was just an easier decision for me since it would be a large area to paint. But it does look slightly different here because of the different lighting. Our last homes windows were east/west. This home sits more SE/NW. I did use different colors in the bedrooms. And haven't painted the baths yet but plan on something different there too.

In which direction does the front of the house face?

With new construction and no furniture you are in the perfect situation where the majority of natural light will dictate paint colors. You decide and get a sample (B.M has great new samples) and you take that sample with you when you shop. I like to start with a rug or art and then use the colors as accents to the whole house color.

For instance, the house gets a lot of south light and you choose B.M. Gray Owl. It looks great with sage and darker browns. So, gray owl on walls; gray variegated floors sage countertops with white trim and cabinets.

In addition to collecting pictures to find patterns of what you like, I suggest reading everything on Maria Killam's blog. She provides a lot of information about undertones in colors and how your choices, especially in fixed items like tile floors and kitchen counters can really limit what works well in your space.

Thank you everyone so far for all your suggestions, to answer some of the questions asked above. My house is east facing so i get the Sun in the front of my building and in the afternoon it will be facing my Kitchen/Garden.

JudyG and Yayagal i like the colour suggestion from the the pics you sent me.

Moxie thanks for the blog you sent me i had a quick brows through and it does look interesting read i shall go through.