If you’re painting your living room, chances are your head is spinning with hundreds of color choices. You probably had no idea that so many colors existed until it was time to pick the perfect one for the room you spend the most time in.

So, we wanted to use our latest blog to give you some advice on choosing those all-important shades and intensities. Don’t paint your family room before reading on ahead!

here are a few important words that you need to understand before ultimately choosing your color.

• Hue – the word often used to simply mean “color”
• Saturation – this is the intensity or dominance of the hue, so as pink moves toward red, it becomes more saturated
• Value – this is simply the lightness/darkness of a hue

If a lot of sun illuminates your living room, that is a very critical factor to consider. This natural light brings out the truest colors, and bright blues and greens often look great in that setting.

Other than the natural light of the sun, other types of lighting (i.e. fluorescent, incandescent) can bring out different tones in certain colors, so those things must be considered as well.

Idea: If you have a darker family room with minimal sunlight, you can really brighten it up with the right color selection, especially with certain yellow shades.

This is something that most people don’t think of when thinking about a living room paint job. Certain hues can actually make a particular room appear bigger, or smaller.

Typically, lighter colors with low saturation will make a room visually larger, while those darker reds, blues, and greens will make the room smaller to the eye.