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Choosing the perfect paint color for your home can be overwhelming. There are hundreds of white paints and after looking too long, they can all start to look the exact same. The goal of this post is to help you gain confidence and provide you with the tools when choosing the perfect white paint for your home! 

Why White?

White paint is a great choice for several reasons. It’s a classic color that will look great throughout the years. If you’re really on the fence about painting your house a certain color, white is a good choice! It can make smaller rooms feel bigger as well as light and airy. The perfect white paint can also go well with any color palette and style!

What to Consider:

1. Undertones: There’s a couple things to take into account when choosing the right color white. The first thing to understand is undertones. All colors have a warm or cool undertone. Even our skin has warmer or cooler undertones. Knowing the undertone of the paint you’re thinking about choosing can help you mesh colors that work together and choose the right color for your space. Cooler paint colors have blue undertones and warmer paint colors have more of a yellow undertone. Warm paint feels cozy and creamier while cool paint feels brighter and sometimes, really stark. 

2. Lighting: Lighting, both natural and artificial, will affect how white paint looks in your home. Sherwin Williams Greek Villa will probably look a little different in your home than it would in mine. Light also changes throughout the day so expect the color of your white paint to vary throughout the day too.

3. Finish type: There are a lot of different finish types that you can purchase your paint in. Which one do you choose for your home?  The different paint types are: flat, eggshell, pearl, semigloss, and high gloss. Flat and eggshell are the most popular for walls and ceilings. Flat is the most common and is the easiest to apply while eggshell has a slight sheen to it and is the easier to clean. Semigloss is my go to for trim, moldings, and doors. It has a reflective shine and is easy to clean. I have seen high gloss done a few times and gives a lot of dimension. Pearl is not as shiny as a semigloss paint but still gives a little bit of shine. Pearl is great in bathrooms, playrooms, and kitchens. 

4. Samples: I highly recommend getting paint samples (either stickers or actual paint) and put them on your walls. Make sure the sample is large enough to really see the color. If you’re testing lots of white paint samples I would purchase sticker samples to see which ones are your favorite. You can find these at Samplize.com or any similar site. Samplize has pretty quick shipping which I appreciate! Also be sure to let the paint fully dry if you paint samples – pale paint colors will look darker dry than wet. 

I hope this has been helpful and that you feel more equipped to choose the perfect white paint for your home! 

If you would like help selecting paint for your space you can contact us here or start a chat in the sidebar to the right!

***All the paint colors above are Sherwin Williams***