How To Pick House Colors by Paul Grossman

     It never ceases to amaze me that people have such a difficult time finding the right colors for their house. Right - meaning colors that correspond to one another with no clashing and enhance the beauty of the home. This happens, usually, because the homeowner finds a particular color they saw on another house to be the color for them. Now, what to do? The simplest way of capturing that color is to take a digital close up of the color and present it to your local paint store for analysis. Some stores require a non-glossy image, which any picture editor can produce. Of course a piece of the color on wood or paper will work or the owner of your chosen color may have the code. Once the color is established, any one of the composite colors that make up your color will work as trim, base or enhancements to your home décor. 
     Paint colors (unless primary) are composed of other colors. These colors blend by aligning their harmonic frequencies to produce a single color. You might say once the colors are added to a paint, alignment is automatic to produce the resulting color. So, the problem arises when a homeowner picks one color for his base and one for his trim such that the harmonic frequencies of colors clash – do not align. It is much the same as musical instruments not blending together, so the result is something less than music. You can always prevent this by breaking down the color you like into its component color undertones (at your paint store) and using any one of these as your other color or colors. 
     The human eye is a very sensitive to different colors and how they blend. That is why you can look at a house and think “Those colors don’t look right.” Your brain is telling you that the colors clash because their harmonic frequencies are out of alignment. Of course you can always use the paint chips that are offered by your local paint dealer. These chips are prescreened for matching. But, just imagine knowing that you can find a host of matching colors to fit your chosen color without even looking at a chip. This opens a whole new door to home décor.