Regarding paint color imaging, for a less steep learning curve all the major paint manufacturers have some kind of paint color visualization tool where you can upload a photo of your house, define the various areas you are considering different colors for, and virtually apply paint to them. It's not hard. Sherwin Williams has its Color Visualizer, Benjamin Moore has its Personal Color Viewer, Behr has ColorSmart (those are the ones I have used). The caveats about how colors look on monitors definitely applies, but the tools definitely help you get a general idea.
There's a least one online rug vendor that has a tool to virtually try out an area rug using a photo of your room. Groveraxle's Photoshops are amazing, but there are tools out there that dumb it down for the rest of us.
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Paint trim same color as roof in response to prior color question.
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