The Paint You Keep Almost Choosing
The color decision that keeps reopening was about the light, the room, the person choosing. Sarah Jo of SJA Interiors knew that before I had words for it
You've stood in front of that wall in the morning light. In the afternoon. Under the lamp at 9pm when the light goes strange and somehow that feels like relevant data.
You've repainted it in your head more times than you've repainted it in real life.
The decision is still open.
The paint is rarely the problem. A color chosen without accounting for light, for what's already in the room, for how the space actually gets used, isn't a decision. It's a guess dressed as one. Guesses don't finish. They wait.
Sarah Jo of SJA Interiors has spent fifteen years at the intersection of color analysis and lived experience. Less picking a shade, more understanding why a choice stays chosen in one home and comes undone in another. I asked her why color decisions stay open, because this comes up in nearly every session I run, and almost never the way people expect.
Notice, as you read, where your own color decisions keep reopening. That's where the work actually is.
Image | Sarah Jo from SJA Interiors
The Thing You Called Indecision Had a Name
Sarah: Like many people, color has fascinated me from an early age and I have always had strong opinions and feelings about color. When I was studying interior design at university, we learned about the psychology of color and how it affects human perception and emotions. I wrote my color theory thesis on the psychological effects of paint color perception in interior spaces. I am highly sensitive to colors and have spent years studying and perfecting my color analysis methods. About three years ago, I began offering color consultations as part of my firm’s interior design services.
The color you keep second-guessing is carrying something you haven't named yet. Ask what the room needs to feel like to be in, not to look at. Different question. Different answer.
Photo: Nicole Franzen
Design: Kate Taylor Interiors
Styling: Darwin Fitz
The Swatch Was Never Telling the Truth
Sarah: There is an overwhelming consensus in the scientific community that there is a correlation between color and human emotion. Color is a powerful media through which to express or influence emotions, especially in interior design. The hue (color itself), value (light or dark), and intensity of colors can influence mood, attention, distance, size, and perceived temperature of a space.
In general, warm colors are stimulating while cool ones are quieting. Black, white, and grays evoke a subdued response. In terms of value, the lighter a color is, the cheerier the mood where as darker colors evoke restfulness. If a color has high intensity, the mood is stimulated, whereas low intensities bring a feeling peace. Warm hues attract more attention while cool hues attract less— extreme values attract more attention as do colors with high intensities.
Colors also affect the perception of distance. Warm hues, dark values, and high intensity colors advance or make a space feel smaller, while cool hues, light values, and low intensities recede making a space feel larger. The perceived temperature is also affected by color in that warmer hues make people feel warmer and cooler hues make them feel cooler.
As an interior designer, I am always intrigued by people’s emotional responses to their surroundings. I know that the colors I select for an interior can affect my client’s emotional experience of that space. Some colors that are pleasing to one client may be the opposite to another. An interior designer is responsible to make sure the colors that he or she selects are harmonious not only with each other, but also with the client’s lifestyle and personality.
A swatch is a controlled sample. Your room isn't controlled. It has direction, history, a light source that moves all day, materials that absorb and throw back everything around them. Pick from the swatch alone and you're deciding on partial information, not bad taste.
(Image credit: livingetc)
The Rules Were Never Rules
Sarah: Most of the common myths I encounter in my color consultations revolve around so-called “rules” of interior color, akin to fashion’s “Don’t wear white after Labor Day” rule. Some of these traditional opinion-based rules may sound like, “Dark color shouldn’t be used in large amounts or in small spaces,” or that “bright, saturated colors aren’t appropriate for residential spaces,” or that certain color combinations are to be avoided. I believe that color selection is highly personal and should be a fun and enjoyable process.
Ultimately, if you love a particular color in your space, that’s truly all that matters. Some common mistakes I see are clients not taking into account the way natural and artificial lighting will affect how a paint color is perceived. Also common is clients forgetting to account for how the colors of their furnishings and flooring materials will be affected by a particular paint color and vice versa.
Rules exist to give people something to lean on when they don't yet trust themselves. That's the whole business model of a rule. Follow the rule instead of your own read, and the decision reopens the moment someone questions the rule.
Love it, and it works in your light with your materials. Nothing else needed.
Image: architecturaldigest
The Real Weight Isn't the Color
Sarah: When I have a client who feels exasperated by color selection, I begin with a simple visualization exercise to help them get their creativity flowing. We then turn to inspiration images which are an absolute must for indecisive clients. Once we have a general idea of a color family or overall style, we can begin to look at specific colors and gauge my client’s emotional response to those colors. From there, it’s usually quick work creating a paint palette that they love.
The exercise works because it skips the part of the brain trying to make something permanent and goes straight to the part that already knows. Most color paralysis isn't about color. It's the weight of getting it wrong in a room you have to live inside. Lighten the weight, even slightly, and the real preference just shows up.
Image: livingetc
A Framework Sets the Ratio. You Set the Color.
Sarah: Obviously white is a universally accepted paint color for many homes. White is timeless, can coordinate with anything. But that being said, there are thousands of whites to choose from such as a warm white with yellow undertones, a cool white with blue undertones or balanced between warm and cool. Choosing the right color for any given space is dependent on several factors: the color perception of the inhabitant, the natural and artificial light sources in the space, the size and volume of the space and the furnishings and finishes in that space.
Once you have taken in to account those factors, using the 60-30-10 rule can be helpful when creating a whole-home palette. This means 60% of your home would be your main wall color(s), for example maybe a neutral or soft white in main living areas, 30% of your walls should be coordinating accent colors in secondary rooms such as bedrooms, bathrooms, home office, etc. and 10% of your home will have a pop of color for example, brightly colored powder bath or sleek black cabinetry in a kitchen or at a wet bar.
My custom color palettes were born out of a desire to share my color expertise with a wider audience than just my private clients. I had amassed so much color experience over my 15-year career and I wanted to share everything I had learned with as many people as possible. My goal was to make paint color decisions easier and less intimidating for those who maybe don’t feel as confident in their design instincts and just need a little nudge to go bolder or darker or brighter.
Choosing color for your home shouldn’t be scary, it should be a fun and exciting process and that’s what I hope to bring to people through my palette collection.
60-30-10 doesn't tell you what colors to pick. It tells you how much of each, once you've already picked. The decision still comes from you. The ratio gives it somewhere to land.
Image|The Spruce
A Diagnosis, a Daughter, One Finished Palette
Sarah: Absolutely. I had a client who had recently received a serious diagnosis. She was in a rush to choose colors for a new home she was planning on living in with (and ultimately leaving behind for) her adult child. She wanted peaceful and soothing colors inspired by the landscape surrounding her home.
She, her daughter, and I worked diligently to craft the perfect palette for this home where they wanted to create lasting memories. Once it was complete, my client said her anxiousness was gone and she felt so at peace knowing this home was complete. She said the vibe of the house felt exactly how she wanted it to and she was so grateful to be able to pass this special gift down to her daughter.
That was one of the most moving and incredible experiences I have ever had with a client.
I've read this one four times and it gets me every time. This was never a color consultation. It was a woman trying to leave something decided, safe, and hers, for the person she loved most, in the time she had left to do it. Closure was the point. The palette carried it there. The peace she felt was the feeling of a decision she could stand behind completely, nothing left open.
That's what a decided home feels like. That's what every session is actually working toward. The stakes aren't always this clear. The feeling is always the same.
Image| housebeautiful
Trends Fade. Chosen Doesn't.
Sarah: I may keep trends in mind in my designs but overall I don’t follow them explicitly. I may draw from a trend that a client is drawn to in order to spark inspiration but ultimately, color selection is a deeply personal process that is unique from client to client. The timeless feeling comes when the client and I find a palette that achieves the vibe they are looking for which then translates into long-term satisfaction with their space.
Timeless doesn't mean neutral. It means chosen for the right reasons. Pick a color because it's trending in 2022 and it'll feel like 2022 in 2027. Pick it because it's right for your light, your materials, your life, and it'll still feel like yours in ten.
Image|Elledecor
Live With It Before You Commit
Sarah: A great way to “try on” a wall color, so to speak, is to use large peel and stick paint swatches available from many paint retailers. Another great tool are the virtual color visualization applications many paint manufactures have where you upload a photo of your space and the color is digitally applied to the walls. Alternatively, you can hire a designer like me to do a color consultation.
As a part of my custom palette projects, I render the paint colors onto your interior walls or exterior surfaces so you have a visual of what the colors will look like in or on your actual home.
Peel-and-stick swatches are underused. Not from ignorance. From what they cost: a week of tolerating uncertainty before you commit. Most people would rather decide and be done. A decision made to end discomfort isn't the same as one made from knowing. One reopens. One doesn't.
What Direction Does to a Color
Sarah explains how directional light affects color perception:
North-facing rooms benefit from warmer or balanced tones
East-facing rooms change throughout the day
South-facing rooms can handle cooler or darker colors
West-facing rooms warm significantly in the afternoon
Artificial light matters too. Bulb temperature and CRI affect how accurately paint reads. Natural light is always the most honest reference.
Artificial light similarly affects color perception. The Kelvin color temperature of a light source casts cool to warm light on surfaces depending on the bulb’s Kelvin value, usually between 2700K and 3000K for incandescent bulbs and 2700K to 6500K for fluorescents and LEDs.
The Color Rendering Index (CRI) of bulbs tells us how well a bulb will show an object’s “true” colors. A paint color will appear “truest” under natural light so a bulb with a CRI closest to natural light, between 90-100, will render the paint color most accurately.
North, south, east, west, these are facts about your room, not decorating preferences. They decide what a color actually looks like at 7am, at noon, at 6pm under a lamp. Skip light direction and you're deciding on partial data. So is holding a two-inch swatch to the wall for thirty seconds and calling it research.
“Bold, gorgeous colors are in and they are not going away anytime soon.
The sad, overall gray palettes of a few years ago are out and in their place come cheery pastels, bright jewel colors and earth tones.”
Photographer: Niamh Barry
Source: House & Home
Designer: Olivia Botrie
Bold Isn't the Ask. Context Is.
This rainbow of gorgeous hues opens so many exciting possibilities for interiors from maximalists to minimalists and everything in between and I am here for it! I am also loving how painting ceilings and other unexpected places like trim, is having a moment. Adding color to unexpected places like that is another interior color movement I am fully embracing.
What matters most in this conversation isn’t permission to be bold or subtle.
It’s understanding why color decisions only settle when they’re grounded in context — light, existing materials, and how someone actually lives in a space.
What Sarah's describing, away from safe neutrals and toward something personal, is what happens once people stop deciding for resale value and a buyer who doesn't exist yet, and start deciding for the life they're living now. Chosen is the whole thing. Bold is just one shape it can take. The same pale color, chosen with conviction versus chosen because it felt safe, reads like two different colors. The room knows which one it got.
Why the Decision Finally Stays
Color decisions reopen for one reason. Something essential got left out when the choice was made.
Light. What's already in the room. How the space gets used. What it needs to feel like, not just look like. Put those in the decision and it stays decided. It came from the right place.
Sarah's guide, Choosing the Perfect Paint Color: A Comprehensive Guide, goes deeper into the framework behind all of this.
If color is the decision that's been open the longest, that's exactly what Design Mood is for. Two hours. One decision. A filter that makes the next one faster.
