Hey there lovely, I’m Donna Hoffman they call me the Interior Design Advocate because I advocate on behalf of design lovers just like you. To help empower you with design strategies and online courses that will help you wipe out disappointing design results, wipe out the ugly room that’s driving you crazy, and I do that with strategy. In this video, I want to show you how you have a very powerful tool perhaps hanging out in your home, right under your nose, that you didn’t know was as great a tool as it really is.
Paint Deck and Color Wheel
It’s called your paint deck, your paint deck actually functions as a color wheel in more ways than you realize, but let’s start at the beginning with a quick lesson on a color wheel. I say a quick lesson because to do a full lesson I need a long video and I want to keep this quick because I know you’re busy. I want you to imagine on this very simplified color wheel that this is a drawing of the Sun the way a child might draw the Sun and all of the colors represent a ray of that sunshine.
Well, what I want you to know is that the ray, or direction of the of that color, the direction that you’re moving on that ray always has the following truth. When you add black to it the color gets darker when you add white to it the color gets lighter. That is not true when you start going from side to side necessarily but when you stay on the ray you add black the color gets darker you add white the color gets lighter, always. Well guess what, your paint deck operates in the exact same fashion.
Let’s take a look, the same principle is happening on your paint deck. When you go down to the lighter color you’re adding more white when you come up you’re actually adding more black to the color. You’re not going side to side and really changing that color you’re just lightening it with more white deepening it with more black.
How To Use This In Your Home
How is this helpful to you? Knowing that you can rely on your paint deck for paint color selection? Well, if you’re looking for accent colors, if you’re looking for splash colors, you can find them right on that same ray. So, for example, let’s say you’re going to do your daughter’s room in this nice light white that has just a little whisper of this purple. You might decide that you want to do the ceiling with a splash color and go into a mid-tone pull it right off the same ray. You know that those are going to sit happily together. Or maybe you want to do an accent wall and you want to go really deep you can go even higher up on that same ray as if it’s a color wheel.
Rely on your paint deck, not just to pick out a single color, it’s also a great tool so that when you’re looking for the accents you know how to find them and now you know why they work when you stay on the same ray.
In the next video, I’m going to show you how you can use your paint deck to help you when you’re out in the store shopping for fabric or upholstery.