If you have ever gone out and bought a shirt, knowing it will be perfect with a skirt or pair of pants only to bring it home and find that it doesn't work with the pants and when you tried it on it didn't fit right you know that you need to try the whole outfit on together to know if it is really going to work and give you that wow factor that you want for a special outfit.

Dressing your home is kind of like dressing yourself, but much more expensive and you have to wear the outfit for a lot of years before you get to change.

There are thousands of posts on this site where people did just what you are doing and then post "Help! My walls are baby blue!" (Pink, Green, Yellow)

Stop before you join the rest of them.

Floor color matters, trim color matters, wall color matters, furniture and accessories matter. Paint brand and gloss levels matter. Lighting matters (both artificial and the direction of the light coming through your windows.)

When I help someone pick paint colors I start with the things that must stay. (Appliances, kitchen cabinets, flooring, furniture, window treatments - whatever is in the house that I cannot afford or do not want to change).

Then I find out what colors make their heart sing. I love a smoky purple with an iguana green, but it usually not what the home owners loves, so I have to listen to them). We look in their closet and at things that they have purchased that they love (art, vases, bedspreads). There is usually a pattern - they like blue and peach or they like gray and red or they like teal / blue greens. They like bright clear colors or more subdued, muted colors. pastels or deep moody colors/

Then we figure out how those colors they love should be incorporated into each room. Most of the time we land on a neutral paint color in the main living spaces, adding the color with the art, area rugs, window treatments, furniture and accessories) and more color in the bedrooms, bathrooms, laundry, dining area walls. The neutral is chosen based on the colors we are going to be using.

Your neutrals fall into the following categories

pink beige

orange beige

yellow beige

green beige

greige (green gray/beige)

green gray

blue gray

violet gray

taupe (pink/purple gray beige)

We also discuss furniture before we pick wall colors. The wall color choices are unlimited, but the sofa you need to purchase is available only in the colors that the manufacturers are offering. Easier to find a paint color to go with the sofa than a sofa that works with the paint color.

The other thing we discuss and test is lighting. Do they have integrated fixtures with 2700k lighting that would be expensive to change out? Do they prefer 2700k lighting or 5000k lighting or something in between.

Once all of those decisions are made we start looking at the paint color swatches and visualizing how the colors will work in the home.

We pick the best neutral color family and look at lighter/darker, warmer/cooler variations.

We look at them on large samples (8 1/2 x 11 minimum).

We look at the color samples (including furniture and art and flooring samples) outside on a clear day around 2:00 in the afternoon. Hidden undertones in the neutrals are revealed under natural daylight.

Then we look at them inside the home next to the all the things that must stay and with the colors that make the home owners heart sing. We look at the samples on different walls in different rooms. Then the home owner lives with the samples for a few days, seeing what they look like at night and in the morning and in the afternoon.

We tweak the color choices till we find the neutral and colors that work best and will bring joy to the home owner. Then we pick the trim color that works best with the neutral.

White is a pale neutral and will have the same color families as the neutral. A blue white with buff walls may look baby blue or really stark. A creamy white may look yellow next to a blue gray.

I have seen success with home owners who run to home depot and pick a color and go home and paint - but the rick that the color will be wrong are huge and most of us don't want to paint again for a very long time.