"Test Drive" Your Paint Colours

Choosing the right colour is one of the most important and perhaps difficult tasks when decorating your home or office. There are a couple of fool-proof ways of previewing your colour choices during the design stage of your painting project.

Choosing colour with confidence by:

1. Purchasing a Cloverdale "Colour Tester" quart container of the colours you're considering and paint them on the wall surface in the room you will be painting.

2. For colours that will be used throughout rooms, paint the colour(s) individually on a piece of white bristol board or foam core board from the local art supply store (or even a leftover piece of drywall from a building centre). That way, you can 'move' the colour easily by simply moving the board that it's painted on.

3. One of the key points in deciding on the perfect colour for the setting is to take your time and view the colour in all of the different lighting conditions in which the space will be used. If you're painting a kitchen, you'll be in that room at (almost) any time of the day/night. In a dining room, however, the colour will be mostly enjoyed in the evening under low lighting conditions.